Session freezes and CPU usage jumps to 95%

[highrisenola]

I am running Protools 8 M-Powered on a PC with XP... Built the computer strictly for the use of pro tools and went way beyond minimum requirements... processor is more than enough to handle what Im doing... On one particular session out of 15 that Im working on for this album, after I hit play, the session begins to play back, but the mouse and everything else on the screen freezes up and the CPU usage jumps upto 95 or 97% Whats the problem here?! Can anyone help?!

[Keybeeetsss]

Only 1 session does this?

[highrisenola]

yes, only one session out of many... Now, a while back on this one session, some folders got moved around and everytime we opened it, we would have to relink the tracks.. so, I went to the back up session file and opened an earlier back up of the session and saved it as that... not sure if that is what caused the problem?

[Keybeeetsss]

Make a new session & import the tracks 1 or maybe 2 @ a time until u can find the culprit...

[spkguitar]

Sounds like you may be experiencing denormalization.

Could you describe the session please? Sample Rate? Bit Depth? How many tracks and what kind? What plugins are inserted and where? etc etc

[highrisenola]

Im not at my studio computer right now, but I know Im in 96k at 24bit... as far as tracks, theres probably around 20 to 24 tracks, with maybe half the tracks having 1 or 2 plugins engaged, a few with 3 or 4, and the rest with none... This album Im working on has 15 songs, the other 14 sessions have pretty much identical track lists and plug in set ups, but for some reason, this is the only session giving me problems... What is denormalization? and how do you fix it? I havent had a chance to try the 1st suggestion of importing the tracks to a new session yet, but that will be the next thing I do...

[TOM@METRO]

Could be. Do you use an older version of SansAmp or Dverb?

[SlipKid]

I used to have this problem all the time with PT7.1 even when I used half as many tracks as you are using. It took me a long time to figure out the problem, but what it came down to is that my sampling rate, 96k, was just too high for the computer to handle. I could get good results if I either lowered the sampling rate or lowered the bit rate. Now I record at 24/44k and everything is just fine. What was so difficult for me to figure out was why the sessions ran fine at 96k but then started to have problems. My conclusion was that as the track count grew, so did the burden on my hardware. So my advice is to lower your sampling rate but keep your bitrate at 24.

To test if this is actually the problem, you should start a new session at say 24/44, and import a session that has been giving you problems. You can do this painlessly using the Import - Session data command. Just use the name of one of your sessions and go through the import procedure. It will import all of your old session into a new one and you can play with it to see if it's stable or not. If the new session is unstable then obviously that wasn't the problem, but I'm almost sure that will solve the problem. You don't really need 96k anyway.

[agfrag]

For what it's worth, I had exactly the same problem, running MP9 on W7 with 8G ram, Intel 2.83ghz quad core CPU . M-PT9 ran -sorta- great for half a year then Wham!, 95% and freeze ups.

I think it was a corrupted insert of D-Verb that did it, as I cut my cores down from 4 to 3, barely any effect, then I started taking away plugins. When I took away D-Verb from a live flute track, bingo! All was well. Then I added the D-Verb back, and it still worked just fine and has been for a couple weeks.

Perhaps it was a "corrupted" D-Verb plugin insertion??? Dunno, but it works fine now.