Pro Tools Audio Bridge disappeared from Audio MIDI Setup/System Prefs

[sircletus]

I've had a very weird day. Installed PT 2024.6 (and matching HD driver) last weekend. I've been working on various sessions all week with no issues.

I also routinely use HDX drivers with iZotope RX, and I often listen to Tidal with the HDX drivers.

But today something very strange happened: I fired up Tidal, no sound. Opened Audio MIDI setup and saw big scary red squares over the HDX driver AND all the usual Pro Tools Audio Bridge.

Rebooted, HDX fully disappeared from AudioMIDI/Prefs, but PT still launches and run on HDX. I ended up re-installing the 2024.6 HDX drivers, and the HDX driver is now back in AudioMIDI/System Prefs.

BUT, none of the Audio Bridge options are showing up anywhere. I did NOT run the "Uninstall Audio Bridge" script. I've also trashed prefs.

They're just gone!

Is there another pref somewhere for Audio Bridge that needs to be trashed? Is there another separate installer for Audio Bridge somewhere?

I'm on an M2 Ultra Mac Studio (2023) running Ventura.

[sircletus]

Interesting Update:

I'm looking at the com.apple.audio.DeviceSettings.plist file in top directory Preferences folder and ALL Pro Tools Audio Bridge configurations are present in the file, but still not showing up in Audio MIDI Setup.

Trashing the file and restarting creates a new .plist file....with all default Audio Bridge configurations present but not visible.

Also, throwing away com.apple.audio.AudioMIDISetup.plist in my user Prefs folder didn't accomplish anything.

OS Issue? Should this post be moved to mac OS?

[Darryl Ramm]

Audio MIDI setup preferences is not the problem here.

AudioBridge is implemented as a simple CoreAudio Audio Server driver/plugin.

You should see the userspace Audio Server plugin/driver running in a coreaudiod instance. e.g. from Terminal:

$ ps augx | grep AudioBridge
_coreaudiod 402 0.0 0.0 33900692 4088 ?? Ss Wed09PM 0:08.11 Core Audio Driver (ProToolsAudioBridge.driver)

Do you see that process running? If so kill -9 that PID and it will restart. Does that work now?

If that coreaudiod plugin/driver is not running is the driver even on disk? e.g.:

$ ls -l /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/HAL/*Avid*
drwxr-xr-x 3 root admin 96 Mar 3 12:22 AvidAudioPlugIn.driver

[sircletus]

Darryl:

Greatly appreciate the response. IMMENSELY enlightening. That specific process does NOT appear to be running.

Avid Audio Server, AvidAudioServiceHelper the Avid Core Audio Driver (AvidAudioPlugin.driver) are all there.

The AvidAudioPlugin.driver directory is present, and in the MacOS subdirectory there is "AvidAudioPlugin."

BUT there is no /Library/Audio/Plug- Ins/HAL/ProToolsAudioBridge.driver/ directory.

Do I need to do a PT uninstall/reinstall?

Thanks,
Ian

[Darryl Ramm]

Right, well that .driver bundle has to be there for this to work. These Audio Server plugins/drivers are fairly simple and should just run if they are there, there is not much else you can do so lets try getting that .driver bundle installed.

I would just run the *Pro Tools* installer and make sure it installs /Library/Audio/Plug- Ins/HAL/ProToolsAudioBridge.driver.

[sircletus]

Will hit that reinstall.

I tremendously appreciate the illumination. It's helpful knowing what's happening under the hood and where things live.

Ian

[sircletus]

Re-installing Pro Tools fixed the issue.

As a postscript: after installing, I found another ProToolsAudioBridge.driver folder in the trash. No idea how it got there. Weird.