Protools Freezing while Mixing Mac Studio M1 Ultra

[Carl Lie]

This may sound counterintuitive but some Ultra folks report their system runs better at lower buffer setting than the higher ones. Maybe try 64 and see what happens.

C

[Darryl Ramm]

Offline I was sent some app crash logs (from Pro Tools being forced to quit) and Pro Tools log files.

I can't make easy sense of the crash logs (and was not expecting to), they are from a forced app quits so don't show stuff as simple as where Pro Tools has detected an error and crashes.

I guess my main observation from them is there are multiple "frequently problematic" plugins installed and multiple of them running, in all the force quit crashes, including:

iZotope
Autotune EFX
Melodyne
Slate MixRack and Drums etc.

And folks are reporting Autotune (EFX?) as a known problematic plugin on recent Pro Tools versions on Apple Silicon systems. All the crash logs you shared with me are from forced quits and all of these have a pile of plugins installed and running in Pro Tools, including those frequent bad fliers plugins.

My understanding is you removed all .aaxplugin files and the problems did not change, so do you have crash logs from where you had to force quit Pro Tools when it was having problems running only on the core plugins?

The Pro Tools log files were maybe more productive. Avid support should look at those, they have lots of stuff in them showing problems, many asserts, plugins being chatty about problems. So again do you have log files from when you ran Pro Tools with no plugins installed? From sessions that had problems?

The Pro Tools logs sure give an impression of an unhealthy system, Including:

Lots of looping assert failure with a Mackie device in many of the logs. Is HUI enabled? What devices are connected? Try unplugging and disabling all that.

Many DAE -9004 errors in many of the logs files.

Lots of looping asserts with:
CMN_TRACEASSERT err == 0 /Users/autobld/gitlabci/PT/release/2022/r2/ProTools/AAE/Source/HostTDMDeck/CHostXDevice.cpp line 1875

These are similar to those reported by Luke here: https://duc.avid.com/showthread.php?p=2642825. No info what hardware he's running on yet. But he suspects a regression on 2022.6 so maybe you can try rolling back. Would be magical if you could work out how to something that creates AAE 9008 ASSERTs in the log file and then test on an older version doing the same thing. (you can use the shell command tail -f to watch a log file play in real time in a Terminal window as you use Pro Tools).

The file Pro_Tools_2022_07_19_03_13_46 is the worst log file, just huge, full of asserts and stack traces, including throwing a pile of AAX_ASSERTS for Melodyne.

I did notice one mention in a log of a plugin referring to what looked like a file shared on iCloud, sorry can't find it now, but make sure you are not using iCloud for anything, including you don't have iCloud desktop enabled.

You have a mess of plugins installed in these runs, logs showing Pro Tools throwing all sorts of errors/asserts, just too many. And I could not find logs showing testing runs without a large pile of plugins installed. Again if you did that testing please share the logs and any force quit crash logs. Use the tail -f trick to look at the log file as you do stuff and work out which plugins might be causing some of the more chatty errors/alerts..

See what Avid support says before getting too carried away.

With so many plugins: did you install all those plugins clean or did you use the migration assistant to move stuff off your old mac? If the latter, I suspect it's time to do a clean install of macOS and everything else. And carefully reinstall everything, checking as you go.

[Carl Lie]

That is an awesome reply Darryl!!!! I appreciate your knowledge.

C

[sidelinerecords]

Thanks Darryl, prior to reading your most recent reply, I uploaded a fresh install of Pro Tools on a new Admin account (per Avid's instructions from Olga... suspects it will be escalated)


I was sure I uploaded all the files that were generated. I ran the problem sessions with the plugins inactive (SHIFT while opening session), with them completely removed from the session, and again with them removed from the system. I'll uninstall the plugins, and run the sessions again on the admin account.



I use an old Tascam DM3200 as a HUI controller. For some of the tests it was removed.


The Plugin installs for this machine were all fresh. Made sure to download directly from the companies I purchased through. I was sure to take my time with each manufacturer, checking progress as I went.



I do use iCloud drive for one of my more "Particular" clients' needs. Not many plugins run on those sessions, mostly ran through analog console's and gear. I'm not particularly against removing icloud services, but I foresee a headache convincing them to switch to another system after the better part of 4 years. I've implemented and suggested other file transferring/sharing services, but since I had no issues I never forced a change. The Plugin was probably Audiomovers so they can listen to the changes in real time remotely.



Tried running the session at lower buffer without improvement.



I'll do another run-through without plugins installed and gather some logs. Once complete, I'll roll back to an earlier version of Pro Tools so I can wrap this project.



Again, I appreciate all the feedback.

[Darryl Ramm]

Originally Posted by sidelinerecords

I do use iCloud drive for one of my more "Particular" clients' needs. Not many plugins run on those sessions, mostly ran through analog console's and gear. I'm not particularly against removing icloud services, but I foresee a headache convincing them to switch to another system after the better part of 4 years. I've implemented and suggested other file transferring/sharing services, but since I had no issues I never forced a change. The Plugin was probably Audiomovers so they can listen to the changes in real time remotely.

I found the links that looked like they might be iCloud I'll email them to you incase they give away any client info.

Audiomovers looks fantastic and a smart way to collaborate. Just make sure you are dragging the session/content from any iCloud folder to your local drive and run it there. You just cannot assume that any cloud storage will work reliably and not cause a pile of problems. Do not work on sessions in the iCloud folder. Running the session locally (outside any iCloud folder) and letting Audiomovers do it's thing should be great...

Cloud storage is fantastic for productivity, but if misused it will eventually bite you in the ass. No idea if it was causing you problems here, but there is so much stuff throwing up issues that you have to just keep trying to simplify things/see what happens. I prefer to zip a session up before copying it to cloud storage, that can help prevent people accidentally opening it on cloud storage, plus a set of zipped up sessions with dates and/or versions in the names helps provide an online archive of work--change permissions on them so they are not overwritable. Obviously all that can get huge if the sessions have lots of content.

And I know you are trying to get stuff done not spend time troubleshooting. That large log file I mentioned is one of the messier ones I've ever seen, just full of badness, would love to know how it looks with just core plugins installed. If I had the system sitting in front of me maybe I could work out if any specific plugins are causing different errors/asserts etc, I'm suspecting you have plugin issues in the logs I saw, but also unclear that is worth the time, certainly want you to suggest support looks at that log.

And remember it's not always how many plugins run in a session, just having a bad plugins installed on the system can be enough to screw you. And yes the main issues here may well *not* be plugin related.

[sidelinerecords]

So Avid just dropped 2022.7 today with what seems to be some bug fixes. Should I attempt the troubleshooting under the new update, or still under 2022.6?

[Darryl Ramm]

Are any of the problems you've been seeing described as fixed in that release? Didn't sound like it but I'm not sure. OTOH debugging/troubleshooting on the latest is often a good idea, might help get you aligned with Avid support/developers.

If you've got time to troubleshoot I would work out with Avid support what they think is best to do (assuming you are talking to somebody who seems on the ball), if it was my system I would have spent time understanding where the log files full of issues, asserts, etc. are coming from (e.g. start by seeing if they are caused by specific plugins, see if they happen in other sessions, etc.). I know you may not have time to work through that now.

If you have a case number maybe include that here.

[Carl Lie]

I'm wondering if you have tried to run a project off your internal drive. Just not sure if we've ruled that out yet.

Though what Darryl describes doesn't seem to be pointing in that direction.

C