ProTools cannot communicate with 002 ...

[ee8]

Please reconnect the unit and press OK.

I just started seeing this error occur about 1-2x a day. Last year I replaced a faulty power supply in my 002 (there was a bad batch of them) which was causing a similar loss of communication.

Any thoughts on this? I just changed from plugging into the back to the front firewire port. My current chain is Mac->002->external drives. Used to be Mac->drives->002, but in order to reach the front port I had to switch, because of too-short cable.

I can't seem to find on the Digi site whether front or back port is recommended for my G5. I have been working from the back port with no problem for a year, ever since fixing the power problem last year.

Thanks in advance.

[albee1952]

First thing you need to do is get a longer cable and go back to the rear firewire port. I remember there being some troubles with the front port on some G5's. I have also had cables fail for no good reason. If that doesn't fix it, maybe the power harness is bad. You can try reseating all the connections several times as that works for a lot of folks.

[joey santos]

since your digi002 is 1st on your chain when you get the error message (communication error)... what happens to your FW drive? is it still mounted? do you get an error message for the drive?

A year ago, We experienced this lost of commucation error with digi002 and was at 1st intermitent (once, twice, thrice a day) then it became more regular (every session, twice every session) until it came to a point that we cannot open a session without turning off and on the unit.

We tried changing fw cables, tried exchanging the connection to front and back and all other stuff... nothing worked until one day someone borrowed our lacie firewire drive and the problem went away.

The lacie drive never showed any corruption and/or media failure thats why we never suspected it.

Just sharing what we exeperienced hope you find the answer to your puzzle

Regards,

JS

[KathyLaBonte]

A year ago, We experienced this lost of commucation error with digi002 and was at 1st intermitent (once, twice, thrice a day) then it became more regular (every session, twice every session) until it came to a point that we cannot open a session without turning off and on the unit.

We tried changing fw cables, tried exchanging the connection to front and back and all other stuff... nothing worked until one day someone borrowed our lacie firewire drive and the problem went away.

The lacie drive never showed any corruption and/or media failure thats why we never suspected it.

Just sharing what we exeperienced hope you find the answer to your puzzle

Regards,

JS

Well, I'm about to seriously consider throwing my 002 Console in the cellar and and get to work using something else. My productivity is ZERO. I have spent hours just trying to record tracks....even just LISTEN to a playback of MIDI with an aux track open(not even audio) and I get nothing but disconnects and CONSTANT buffer underruns and buffer overruns! -6087, -6093 and so on. I can't run more than 5 seconds of a song without an error or loss of communication.

I have changed firewire cables. I have changed firewire ports, I have restarted. I think I have done it all. This is a nightmare.

Can anyone help me? The last thing I am considering is moving down to 7.1. I am currently using 7.3.1cs4 on a brand new (used) G5 PPC 2.5 gig dual processor. I just bought it and installed everything fresh two weeks ago.

My sessions consist of ONE plugin. Just one. Doesn't matter which one. Any ONE is a problem.

I've got to have work done by the end of the week and I can't move forward. Any insight would help. Perhaps I'll start a new thread as well.

Will going down to 7.1 be a solution??

[KathyLaBonte]

Well, I can now confirm that it is NOT a 7.3 problem.

I reinstalled 7.1 and nothing has changed. Still full of 6093 errors and buffer problems. I cannot get thru more than 10 - 30 seconds of anything.

Could there be something wrong with my 002? The serial number ends with an E.

[Slim Shady]

Could be the power harness failing, maybe. Do you know anyone else with a PTLE rig that you could test your hardware on? You're also probably aware of this already, but just in case (since you mention ONE plug-in) - PT7 will not play nice if you have any non-PT7 compatible plug-ins in your plug-ins folder. You don't have to use them in a session, if they're installed on your rig and not PT7 friendly they'll cause problems. You've also got an awful lot of peripherals in your sig there - looks like you have 4 monitors running off that rig? That would mean you're using a PCI video card for at least 2 of them - did you check to make sure that PCI video card is compatible with PTLE?

And for the original poster - just out of curiosity, can I ask why you daisy chain a hard drive from your 002 unit when your computer has 2 firewire ports?

[ScratchDee]

My suggestion: take it to the store and let them troubleshoot.
Same thing happened to my 002r. They fixed the power harness 3 month ago
and last week these communication errors appeared again.
Now I´m working with another replacement device.
I´m tired of banana-soft/hardware that matures with the customer.

[The Dougfather]

Kathy, seems strange you having buffer underruns with an 002, do you have a FW800 drive in your setup as combing FW400 and FW800 is a big no no?

Also the E on the end i think indicates a Rev E 002 which may suffer from the power harness issue, however....a duff power harness will normally stop Pro Tools launching an no activity from the IEEE1394 light, so i don't think it's quite that bad.

Cheers

[KathyLaBonte]

Could be the power harness failing, maybe. Do you know anyone else with a PTLE rig that you could test your hardware on? You're also probably aware of this already, but just in case (since you mention ONE plug-in) - PT7 will not play nice if you have any non-PT7 compatible plug-ins in your plug-ins folder. You don't have to use them in a session, if they're installed on your rig and not PT7 friendly they'll cause problems. You've also got an awful lot of peripherals in your sig there - looks like you have 4 monitors running off that rig? That would mean you're using a PCI video card for at least 2 of them - did you check to make sure that PCI video card is compatible with PTLE?

Hey Slim - thanks for the response. It's been a grueling day pulling my hair out with this. I do have a friend in NJ (I'm in NH) and he is thinking of making the trip up here with his 002R to see if that behaves better than my console.

As for the plugins, yes I did read about compatibility sensitivities. The plugins I have used so far are compatible. WaveArts Trackplug 5 and EZ Drummer 1.1. Either one causes a problem, neither one causes a problem. What else is in my folder? Well, when I uninstalled 7.3, I first took my plugins folder and settings folder out and placed them on another drive (so I could add them back later). Then I installed 7.1 fresh with no extra plugs and sure enough, same problem.

Now......the monitor issue is not one I've explored. It would break my heart to find that I can't run my monitors. I actually run 5 of them. I have a third video card for the fifth monitor that sits over at the drum area. I believe the two extras are both ATI Radeon 9200s or one is and the other is a 7000.

[KathyLaBonte]

Kathy, seems strange you having buffer underruns with an 002, do you have a FW800 drive in your setup as combing FW400 and FW800 is a big no no?

Also the E on the end i think indicates a Rev E 002 which may suffer from the power harness issue, however....a duff power harness will normally stop Pro Tools launching an no activity from the IEEE1394 light, so i don't think it's quite that bad.

Cheers

Yeah, I get buffer underruns, ignore the message and press OK, then 10 seconds later I get the buffer overrun instead. I change nothing yet PT changes its mind. Then I get the dreaded "Operating System is holding off too long" message... All three messages randomly displayed and I can't get thru 30 seconds of music. I am not running a firewire 800 anything. I have a port for it, but no cable and am not using it. I am running off of a second internal audio dedicated drive and/or a firewire 400 dedicated audio drive. Problems with both. No difference.

Where can I find out for sure that the E serial number may be a power harness issue?

Sometimes my 002 is on and when I start up PT it says it can't find the hardware. I have to turn it on and off. I figured that's just normal behavior. Also, is the 1394 light supposed to be lit at ALL times - even in standby mode?