Play/Pause issue driving me nuts...

[HeySchlitz]

I've read here that it's a known issue but it seems to be on older posts. Quite often (but not every time) I hit the space bar or mouse click on the play button....the play button and the pause button will highlight and in the bottom left corner it will say "pause", then both buttons unhighlight and no playback happens. I do it again, same thing. I do it again, it magically works. Sometimes I have to hit the spacebar 4-5 times before I get playback. I'm pretty sure I don't have any crazy prefs set, this is a new machine with a stock install.

I'm seeing this on Win XP SP3, PT7.4cs7 with 4gb of ram, 2 rtas processors set on a quad-core q9550. If there is any other information I can provide, i'd be happy to as I can reproduce this very easily.

The only other detail I can think of that might be of interest here...is that often when stopping playback, I may have the tails of a reverb still playing. If I press the spacebar during this time it seems way more likely to happen. I've also noticed sometimes a dropout in audio during these tails.

Any help on this would be great, it's really starting to drive me nuts when i'm trying to work through something and I have to hit the spacebar a bunch of times to get playback. Thanks.

[GTBannah]

Related, but slightly different scenario here ....

Sometimes I arm a track, press "record" on the transport bar, then press "play" and the "record" button on the transport bar goes out.

This happens randomly.

[mano111]

OK this might be a liitle wierd but I KNOW this was a bug that had been fixed, I had it before then it went away (cs3). Yet it seems to have returned to some extent since I upgraded to 7.4 cs7. I am experiancing the same thing typically when trying to record on low buffer sizes (128 or 64).
This time arround I am also experianceing dropouts in the audio comming from the mic on the armed track after stopping or when trying to hit record or play. Seems similar to the dropouts in the reverb tail you have described.

I am running XP SP3.

FYI DPC latency checker still shows under 50microsecs constantly

Please, if there is somone with more specific knolage of this bug and what causes it, or might have in the past, your reply would be appreciated

GTBannah, are you using cs7 ?

[TCM]

Same here, randomly happening and annoying.

[AlexLakis]

Have you guys tried lowering your DAE Playback Buffer (NOT your H/W Buffer Size?) Try setting it to 0 and see if that helps. Try increasing the cache size too.

Also, although not a "solution" to your problem, have you tried "priming Pro Tools for playback/record?" The shorcut is START-SPACEBAR. This could at least help you get thru tracking sessions a little more smoothly in the meantime...

I used to experience this problem a lot on my older systems. It still happens sometimes on my original Quadzilla (XP SP2, PTLE 7.1) when I'm running a lot of plugins/VSTis and I'm between a buffer size of 64-128.

It hasn't happened yet on my new Intel, XP SP3, M-Powered 7.4cs7.

[DigiTechSupt]

Try emptying the contents of your Windows>"Prefetch" folder.

[HeySchlitz]

As a follow up....I tried deleting the "prefetch" file. I opened up Project 1, everything played great....couldn't get it to show the issue. Opened up Project 2, same thing. Works great, no issues. Re-open project 1....I see the issue repeatedly.

I also saw this on cs4 (which is why I upgraded to cs7). I also noticed the same behavior as GTBannah....it will do it when trying to record as well.

Also, i'm usually running at 64 samples. Once the bug occurs, if I switch to 1024 samples (or something else larger)...I still see the issue. I can try a fresh session at 256 or something and see if it occurs with the steps listed above.

Thanks for the tip AlexLakis, I haven't seen prime for playback show the issue yet when I right click the play button and select it. Maybe i'll try to use that for a workaround for now. I did try tweaking the HW buffer stuff as well, but it occurred with various settings there. Any other ideas, i'll definitely try them.

I'm hoping this doesn't occur in 8.0, but i'd like to help in whatever way I can to make sure it doesn't. If there is any logging or anything else I can turn on to provide more info let me know.

Edit to add: Weird, the server goes crazy if "prefetch" isn't in quotes. I always got an error.

[DigiTechSupt]

In that case - have you absolutely, positively verified that all installed plug-ins are compatible?

http://digidesign.com/index.cfm?navi...n=news_details

You can use the Tech Support Utility (referenced in the General Troubleshooting thread) to generate and post a plug-in version list.

[GTBannah]

Mano 111:
No, I haven't installed any updates for fear of breaking something. This only started a few days ago, after working smoothly since August when I moved to 7.4. You seem to be having issues with CS7.

HeySchlitz:
How come you chaps are getting a setting of 64 samples when my lowest possible buffer setting is 128.

AlexLakis:
When you talk about the DAE setting, do you mean "level" 0 .... 400 ms? The default is level 2 .... 1500 ms.

[HeySchlitz]

Originally Posted by DigiTechSupt

In that case - have you absolutely, positively verified that all installed plug-ins are compatible?

http://digidesign.com/index.cfm?navi...n=news_details

You can use the Tech Support Utility (referenced in the General Troubleshooting thread) to generate and post a plug-in version list.

I moved all non-stock plug-ins to the disabled folder and de-activated the instances of them in the projects. It looked like my Musician's Bundle 2 was running on an older waveshell...but everything else should have been up to date.

Anyways, I restarted the machine and repeated the steps above and still saw the issue.

1. Open Project A, play back a few times, close session. (works fine)
2. Open Project B, play back a few times, close session. (works fine)
3. Open Project A, play back a few times.
Result: Flash in the play and stop buttons and no playback occurs intermittently. This is with all plug-ins and inserts deactivated.

These aren't complicated projects. A couple audio tracks on one and a couple audio tracks plus a couple midi tracks on the other.

GT - Maybe it's an 002 thing? I see 64 samples available on the 003.