Pro Tools extremely slow all of a sudden.

[jcarthur]

Hi all,

I've been running PT 12.5 Ultimate for a few years now with few issues.

Suddenly however, I'm getting incredibly slow load times (5 mins+ for a new project), laggy edit windows, slow plugin load times etc.

I've checked all my plugins (moving to unused and back again) and it doesn't seem to be that.

I've already previously installed performance lasso to sort my processor affinity (which worked excellently to reduce latency, which was a prior issue I had).

I'm using Babyface Pro FS which I doubt is an issue as it's been rock solid up until now.

I'm not sure what the problem could be as my plug ins seem fine, and I've been using this same set up for years with basically no issues.

EDIT to include system info:
My info;
PT 12.5 HD Ultimate
RME Babyface Pro FS
Windows 10 64 bit, 32GB RAM, Ryzen 5900x, 2TB SSD

No CD/DVD drives.

No peripherals other than midi keyboard (working fine) and my interface.

Does anyone have any advice?

[sw rec]

Yes. MAJOR advice. Follow this and post your system info first.
https://duc.avid.com/showthread.php?t=300050

[its2loud]

Like sw rec said.

In addition try some basic troubleshooting. I’d start with your hard drive. If that is failing it would be the first place that would cause PT to slow down.

Second, check if your system did some software security updates automatically. This could cause issue with PT. We have no idea if your Windows or Mac.

[jcarthur]

Originally Posted by sw rec

Yes. MAJOR advice. Follow this and post your system info first.
https://duc.avid.com/showthread.php?t=300050

Ah sorry folks - I entered my system info when I signed up and thought it would automatically populate.

My info;
PT 12.5 HD Ultimate
RME Babyface Pro FS
Windows 10 64 bit, 32GB RAM, Ryzen 5900x, 2TB SSD

No CD/DVD drives.

No peripherals other than midi keyboard (working fine) and my interface.

Troubleshooting I've tried mentioned in first post. Thanks!

[EGS]

Originally Posted by jcarthur

... Does anyone have any advice?

Click "Help Us Help You" at the top of this forum. Navigate to:

Avid Computer Optimizations (for Windows)
For now (i.e. until the problem is isolated) do each-and-every-one of these pesky little steps.

Also, go to
Avid Troubleshooting (for Windows)
For now (i.e. until the problem is isolated) do each-and-every-one of these pesky little steps.

Even if you THINK you've done them all, check em again. Maybe somehow something got re-set wrong. After ALL of the above have been re-re-checked, do this also:
https://avid.secure.force.com/pkb/ar...finity-Windows

[albee1952]

Great advice above, and here is more to think about:
1-any time Windows does an update, its possible for some of the tweaks to get reset back to the wrong way(something to keep in mind for the future).
2-"all of a sudden" implies that something has changed. This could be any number of things such as: a Windows update, any new piece of software or plugin, a virus/trojan/malware(if the computer is connected to the internet),
3-Trashing prefs is often the first thing to try for any "odd" behavior(the computer, not you). Pro-tools-pc.com offers a very handy utility called Trasher(for Windows users) and its absolutely worth a donation.
4-re the comment about drive failure, you should ALWAYS assume all your drives are ready to fail(because they often ARE). With that in mind, you should be backing everything up on a regular basis. I keep a pair of big(4-6TB) USB drives that do nothing but backups. 1 drive is for drive images and the other drive has copies of every session(plus a partition where I store every installer I download). Even this is NOT a bulletproof backup. To be truly bulletproof, things would be backed up to 1 or 2 more drives, and those drives would be stored in another building

Back to the point about drive imaging, if you save images of your C: drive when things are running great, you can easily restore when bad things happen(the BEST way to recover from a failed drive or a virus attack is to format the drive and load your drive image, which takes all of an hour or two, vs spending 2 days re-installing the OS and every other piece of software you own)

[Darryl Ramm]

With Windows performance quirks, always check you do not have antivirus software running. That's a leading cause of slow load times. Make sure all A/V software is fully disabled or uninstalled, including Microsoft Defender.

With Pro Tools 12.5 Ultimate you should likely be running with disk cache (set to cache the session) so disk performance etc. hopefully wont' matter. And besides slow disk does not

Another leading suspect that might cause this is memory exhaustion if Windows is having to page out stuff to make room in memory. Make sure no background programs are running, no web browsers, etc. and you've already uninstalled Avid Link and Cloud Collaboration bloatware). Look at memory activity. See https://www.techrepublic.com/article...k-memory-usage (and as pointed out there do not worry about "free memory" it's a largely useless metric).

[albee1952]

Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm

With Windows performance quirks, always check you do not have antivirus software running. That's a leading cause of slow load times. Make sure all A/V software is fully disabled or uninstalled, including Microsoft Defender.

.

FWIW, I have never had an issue with Windows Defender(and I am on a 7-year old PC), but I totally agree with any other antivirus(and if you have avast, I would consider dumping it entirely, or at least kill all of its processes in the Startup section). I also agree on choosing a setting for disk cache(instead of "Normal"). I run mine at 5GB with 32GB of RAM and my sessions are usually 60-70 tracks with several dozen plugins.

[Darryl Ramm]

Defender is the only AV I allow near my PCs, Could it cause a problem? Absolutely yes. So it gets disabled, especially when troubleshooting.. well that means it's disabled most of the time on my PCs. I've not seen pathological issues, I've seen the system run slowish when it is updating stuff.

[The Weed]

On my W10 Pro audio computer, I used Group Policy to turn off updates. Windows notifies me when there's an update, including Defender, but I have to manually agree to install it.

Group Policy Editor is not available on W10 Home.