ProTools Ultimate stuck on loading plugin

[mattrixx]

PTU has been working great on MacStudio Ultra for a couple of months now. Really well!
Anyway today, went to launch Pro Tools and I'm getting stuck at "Loading Plugins......."
So I have started going through the process of removing plugs temporarily as they get stuck. (really slow and annoying... working my way through the alphabet from "s" it would seem)

Also, say I remove "Tape Echo.aax", the next time I launch, it will get stuck at the last S "Supercharger GT.aax" ie The last in the alphabetical list, even though it loaded fine in the pass/attemp at launch.

Anyone have any idea why it would go pear shaped today?



Cheers,
Matt

[mattrixx]

Have done a full preferences trash and even re-installed 2022.6.
Yes, I can get ProTools to launch with no plugs in plugins folder, but it seems to be random plugs when I put them in bit by bit.
as I said, this was all working just fine yesterday.

[Darryl Ramm]

Lots of possible causes, including corrupt preferences (the plugin index file, one of the files you trash), bad plugin(s) (not necessarily the one it complains about). Make sure macOS auto update is turned off.

Always start troubleshooting by trashing prefs. (OK you did!) But keep doing that as you do other testing and use Pete Gates PT Prefs tool so you know you are getting this done right/

If that does not solve it them move *all* .aaxplugin files out of the plugins folder, trash prefs again. Pro Tools will automagically put back the core plugins. See if it starts up with just those. If so then move the missing plugins back into the plugin folder in large batches. If the problem reoccurs then you suspect the recent batch of plugins., but also try trashing prefs again. When troubleshooting it is often better to make large bold changes, not an endless series of small changes. You'd be there forever testing one plugin at a time. A binary search is much faster than a linear search.

Can't get that to work create a new admin account and repeat tests from there and/or give up on this install, remove all plugins and reinstall them from their latest installers testing as you go, you could reinstall Pro Tools but not sure that is likely to help. That does not work, recover from a backup or reinstall macOS and start over. Don't get suckered into spending ages troubleshooting if recovery/reinstall will be faster.

[mattrixx]

Yes, thanks Daryl, have done all of that too.
Just seeing if I can get it going now with the absolutely essentials for the session I'm trying open.
Just popped my prefs files back in and been able to get it going with just the essentials.
Cheers, thanks again.

[Darryl Ramm]

Originally Posted by mattrixx

Just popped my prefs files back in and been able to get it going with just the essentials.
Cheers, thanks again.

Hope you get going. I've been hit once in the past by this same problem and ended up reinstalling everything and leaving out plugins I never use, never sure what the problem was. Kinda suspect it might be a combo of an occasional bad plugin and prefs corruption.

For now you might find removing all the .aaxplugin files you know you don't need and trashing only the plugin index/cache if needed keeps you going. (i.e. only check "Plugin List (11+)" in PT Prefs or if doing it manually that's
delete ~/Library/Preferences/Avid/Pro Tools/InstalledAAXPlugIns

I just would not usually restore that particular pref file from a backup of prefs, let it try to rebuild the index.. but yes I know there have been problems with that as well.

[albee1952]

It might also be worth looking to see if all the hanging plugins are by the same manufacturer. If they are, it could be due to a lost/corrupt/missing authorization. I realize that this doesn't seem like "normal" behavior, but I suspect there are still some teething issue with new ARM Macs

[Ben Jenssen]

In my experience the plugin alphabetically after the plugin you see on the splash screen is the offender. What's displayed is the last plugin to successfully load. Just my 2 cents.

[mattrixx]

Yes, I found this to be the case too.

Thanks everyone for the suggestions.
Got it all going, even with my old prefs file popped back in.

[Bob L]

Originally Posted by mattrixx

snip....

Anyone have any idea why it would go pear shaped today?



Cheers,
Matt

In my experience, it happens because you have do something important, quickly.

[mattrixx]

Originally Posted by Bob L

In my experience, it happens because you have do something important, quickly.

Haha yes.. Absolutely this!!