Red CPU Spikes when PT session loads, crushing sound

[FunkzzaJ]

Hi all and thx in advance

WHEN PT SESSION IS LOADING I am getting Red CPU spikes on PT's system usage meter,. After such event, oftentimes but not always PT runs but sound is corrupt. Sounding like bit-crushed into 2-bits audio. Restarting PT seems to be the only way out.

Anyone having the same trouble?
Ideas to fix it?

-Since around 2023.3 or a little before, and getting worse since.
-Windows 11
-Eleven Rack (love it)
-70 of 500 GB free on C: (is this too little?)
-Session on D: but same behavior when moved to C:
-Often associated with 'heavy' plugin like Acustica Audio Silver, or Inspirata.
-When 'heavy' plug track is inactivated, loading works fine, then activation of track works fine too.
-PC in operation since 2018 with no total re-install of everything (is this a thing needed every now and then?)

/T

[Darryl Ramm]

If you want to make progress here you really need to start by following the things documented under "help us help you" up the top of each DUC web page.

Make sure your system is fully optimized.

Post a Sandra report, some of the info you posted is irrelevant or not useful without other info.

Always start troubleshooting by trashing prefs. Repeat trashing prefs between other major steps in troubleshooting.

Everything here is pointing to plugins/plugin compatibility as a suspect. Is every one of your plugins up to date? The latest version from the vendor? Claimed or expected to be compatible with your Pro Tools and Windows version? Start by checking the plugins that seem to cause problems, but you really need to check everything, including plugins installed but not used in the session. Just do this as a part of...

You should work through standard troubleshootibg steps, especially trying variants of the plugin related tests like moving all aaxplugin files out of the Pro Tools plugin folder. Start by leaving one suspect plugin installed there, making sure that one plugin is up to date and seeing what happens when you use just it. If OK add back more plugins you are using in the session and repeat the tests.

Make sure ignore errors is unchecked, leave it unchecked during all other tests. You want Pro Tools to throw errors to help see what might be wrong.

Does this only happen in sessions when you are recording? Only when suspect plugins are on the record armed or input monitored tracks or signal path fed from those tracks? If this problem happens for playback only sessions with no recording or input monitoring then you can probably ignore HW buffer stuff, as the session will be using the large fixed size buffers.

What HW buffer size are you using? What happens if you increase that to the maximum value?

When the problem happens if you change the HW buffer size to a different setting then put it back to what it was does that temporarily fix the problem... instead of doing a full Pro Tools restart?

Put the HW buffer size back to the largest value still causing problems for all other tests. (but not necessarily the smallest setting... you need to use judgement about what is reasonable--maybe don't go smaller than 128 samples for now.

What disk cache setting are you using? Assuming you have a useful amount of memory in the PC, make sure disk cache is set to a size large enough to fully cache the session content. When you open the session look at the disk cache meter and wait for it to go green... then press play. Does this reduce or change the problem? Even if not continue to do this during other tests.

Originally Posted by FunkzzaJ

Hi all and thx in advance

WHEN PT SESSION IS LOADING I am getting Red CPU spikes on PT's system usage meter,. After such event, oftentimes but not always PT runs but sound is corrupt. Sounding like bit-crushed into 2-bits audio. Restarting PT seems to be the only way out.

Anyone having the same trouble?

Yes folks have reported similar issues in the past, and the best way to see what problems other users have is to search DUC using google search with the site:duc.avid.com qualifier. Few if any folks who have had a past problem are likely to see your question let alone answer it, but you might get lucky.

Ideas to fix it?

-Since around 2023.3 or a little before, and getting worse since.
-Windows 11
-Eleven Rack (love it)

Correct response to the Eleven Rack

-70 of 500 GB free on C: (is this too little?)

That is likely irrelevant.

-Session on D: but same behavior when moved to C:

That is no use since we don't know what make/model/spec drive partition C and D are on, or if they are on separate drives (maybe make IO issues better) or on the same drives (maybe make IO issues worse if a hard drive), and if they are hard drives or SSDs. A Sandra report will tell all.

-Often associated with 'heavy' plugin like Acustica Audio Silver, or Inspirata.
-When 'heavy' plug track is inactivated, loading works fine, then activation of track works fine too.

So plugins need to be a focus of troubleshooting.

-PC in operation since 2018 with no total re-install of everything (is this a thing needed every now and then?)

Sometimes periodic full clean reinstalls can help, including as a way to force keeping plugins up to date. But don't do that now... work through the standard steps, and check plugins as a part of that. Do not waste time by trying to reinstall Pro Tools itself, focus on what I have mentioned above. And if things ever get to the point of wanting to try a clean reinstall of Windows and everything I would really try to do that on a spare partition or new drive and leave the current install alone/fully usable by just rebooting. And as always also have good backups and a recovery plan.

[WombatStudio.Org]

Originally Posted by FunkzzaJ

PT runs but sound is corrupt. Sounding like bit-crushed into 2-bits audio. Restarting PT seems to be the only way out.

Anyone having the same trouble?
Ideas to fix it?

I found when a session loaded and the sound is all messed up to go to:
Setup->Playback Engine and change the HW Buffer Size

This would happen to me when remote mixing for a client where they could see my screen via Zoom and I was streaming audio with AudioMovers. We usually go through about 5 different sessions and this would happen.

Like you, I would restart Pro Tools and he'd have to wait, but I found changing the HW Buffer from 1024 to 512, or 512 to 1024 would give me clear playback immediately without going through the time of reloading Pro Tools and his session.

[FunkzzaJ]

Originally Posted by WombatStudio.Org

I found when a session loaded and the sound is all messed up to go to:
Setup->Playback Engine and change the HW Buffer Size

This would happen to me when remote mixing for a client where they could see my screen via Zoom and I was streaming audio with AudioMovers. We usually go through about 5 different sessions and this would happen.

Like you, I would restart Pro Tools and he'd have to wait, but I found changing the HW Buffer from 1024 to 512, or 512 to 1024 would give me clear playback immediately without going through the time of reloading Pro Tools and his session.

That workaround seems to work here too. Twice today "it happened" and the HW buffer size trick did it both times. Thx.

Did you do any deep-dive to find root-cause?

/T

[FunkzzaJ]

Darryl !

Thank you SO much for your engagement and detailed response. Hours are late, and I'll have to quit for the day. Tomorrow I will study your response, and I believe I'll checkup on the optimizations (again), and then move suspect plugs to un-used, notforgetting trashing prefs. I keep most but not all plugs updated weekly to bi-weekly. And I'm on 2023.9.

For starters I managed to produce a Sandra report. Appended. Latest version of sisoft sandra free presented a bug, and I nervously had to push the power button. Anyway, here it is.

/T

[Darryl Ramm]

Hey great. And you got the tip about changing HW buffer sizes from both of us... a handy trick to know/try when these kind of things happen. That's causes enough of the audio engine to restart and resets things. It does not necessarily mean that he actual problem is related to HW Buffer size.

I am not sure at all what the real problem is here, and I am not sure if any users have deep insight here, or if Avid has a handle on this or not. So kinda fishing in the dark, hence so many troubleshooting suggestions... and my suspicion is this is likely to be complex, say maybe something like a plugin that triggers some internal problem in Pro Tools, or the interaction of the audio engine, plugin and maybe device driver. And plugins get to do just about anything they want... so for example could scribble over critical memory that contains data structures used by the Pro Tools audio engine. So again they are always a good first suspect, but suspect only.

[Darryl Ramm]

Unfortunately DUC scales images so badly the text in the Sandra Report image attachment is unreadable.

Can you copy and paste the text of the Sandra report into a post here. Here is a different one as an example: https://duc.avid.com/showpost.php?p=1573773&postcount=1

If you get Access or Permission Denied like error messages when trying to post text here let us know, it's a well known very very annoying issue.

[WombatStudio.Org]

Originally Posted by FunkzzaJ

That workaround seems to work here too. Twice today "it happened" and the HW buffer size trick did it both times. Thx.

Did you do any deep-dive to find root-cause?

No - as with anything Pro Tools, I just deal with it. If it's something that annoys me, I search the web and maybe find a fix - OR - I'll find a thread with the problems listed and just check back every now and then (e.g. Pro Tools has to be Force Quit) ...

In the sessions with that one guy, I started committing a lot of tracks so there wasn't as many plugins loaded and active - it was with his sessions that this problem mostly happened. Been tweaking these songs for years, and I always Save As the new version, so they've been through versions of Pro Tools but always being saved with the latest and greatest.

[FunkzzaJ]

Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm

Unfortunately DUC scales images so badly the text in the Sandra Report image attachment is unreadable.

Can you copy and paste the text of the Sandra report into a post here. Here is a different one as an example: https://duc.avid.com/showpost.php?p=1573773&postcount=1

If you get Access or Permission Denied like error messages when trying to post text here let us know, it's a well known very very annoying issue.

Here it is:

=============== Sandra report =================

SiSoftware Sandra

ID
Host Name : xyz
Workgroup : WORKGROUP
Computer
Model : OMEN by HP Laptop 103C_5335KV HP OMEN
Serial Number : xyz*****
Chassis : HP Notebook
Mainboard : HP 846A
Serial Number : xyz*******
BIOS : AMI (OEM) F.19 11/15/2022
Intel Management Engine (ME) : 12.0.92.2145
TPM - Trusted Platform Module : Intel 2.0 2018 (24PCR 64Ses 7Obj 128Ctr)
System Memory
Total Memory : 32GB SO-DIMM DDR4
Processors
Processor : Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-8750H CPU @ 2.20GHz (6C 12T 4GHz, 3.7GHz/3.8GHz IMC, 6x 256kB L2, 9MB L3)
Socket/Slot : FC BGA1440
Chipset
Memory Controller : HP Core8H (CofeeLake-H 6C) Mobile Host Bridge/DRAM Registers 100MHz, 2x 16GB SO-DIMM DDR4 2.67GHz 128-bit
Memory Module(s)
Memory Module : Samsung M471A2K43CB1-CTD 16GB SO-DIMM DDR4 2Rx8 PC4-21300SO DDR4-2910 (19-19-19-44 4-63-21-3)
Memory Module : Samsung M471A2K43CB1-CTD 16GB SO-DIMM DDR4 2Rx8 PC4-21300SO DDR4-2910 (19-19-19-44 4-63-21-3)
Video System
Monitor/Panel : AU Optronics Integrated Monitor (1920x1080, 17.2")
Video Adapter : NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 (2048S 16C SM6.6 1.44GHz/1.65GHz, 2MB L2, 8GB 8GHz 256-bit, PCIe 3.0 x16)
Graphics Processor
CUDA : NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 (2048S 16C SM6.1 1.44GHz/1.65GHz, 2MB L2, 8GB 7.6GHz/8GHz 256-bit)
OpenCL : NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 (2048S 16C SM3.0 1.44GHz/1.65GHz, 2MB L2, 8GB 7.6GHz/8GHz 256-bit)
D3D 11 : NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 (2048S 16C SM12.1 1.44GHz/1.65GHz, 2MB L2, 8GB 7.6GHz/8GHz 256-bit)
OpenGL : NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070/PCIe/SSE2 (2048S 16C SM4.60 1.44GHz/1.65GHz, 2MB L2, 8GB 7.6GHz/8GHz 256-bit)
Storage Devices
Disk : HGST HTS721010A9E630 (1TB, SATA600, 2.5", 7200rpm, 32MB Cache)
Disk : KXG50ZNV512G TOSHIBA (512.1GB, PCIe3x4/NVMe)
Logical Storage Devices
DATA (D:) : 917GB (NTFS, 4kB) @ HGST HTS721010A9E630 (1TB, SATA600, 2.5", 7200rpm, 32MB Cache)
RECOVERY (E:) : 14GB (NTFS, 4kB) @ HGST HTS721010A9E630 (1TB, SATA600, 2.5", 7200rpm, 32MB Cache)
Windows (C:) : 476GB (NTFS, 4kB) @ KXG50ZNV512G TOSHIBA (512.1GB, PCIe3x4/NVMe)
Windows RE tools : 980MB (NTFS, 4kB) @ KXG50ZNV512G TOSHIBA (512.1GB, PCIe3x4/NVMe)
Hard Disk : 256MB (FAT32, 4kB) @ KXG50ZNV512G TOSHIBA (512.1GB, PCIe3x4/NVMe)
Storage System
Storage Pool : Primordial (1.38TB)
Peripherals
LPC Hub Controller : HP HM470 (Cannon Point) LPC/eSPI Controller
Audio Device : HP ICH300 (Cannon Point) cAVS
Disk Controller : HP ICH300 (Cannon Point) Shared SRAM
Disk Controller : HP ICH8 Mobile SATA RAID Controller
Disk Controller : Toshiba XG5 NVMe SSD Controller
USB Controller : HP ICH300 (Cannon Point) USB 3.1 xHCI Host Controller
SMBus/i2c Controller : Intel ICH SMBus
Printers and Faxes
Printer : Microsoft Software Printer Driver (300x300, Colour)
Printer : Microsoft XPS Document Writer v4 (600x600, Colour)
Printer : Microsoft Print To PDF (600x600, Colour)
Printer : HP Delivery Driver V4 (600x600, Colour)
Fax : Microsoft Shared Fax Driver (200x200)
Biometrics
Voice : Analog NUI Voice Virtual Sensor (Voice)
Network Services
Network Adapter : Realtek Gaming GbE Family Controller (Ethernet)
Wireless Adapter : Intel(R) Wireless-AC 9560 160MHz (Wifi5 (802.11ac/VHT), AES-CCMP, 866.7Mbps)
Power Management
Battery : HP Primary/77.41Wh/4.69Ah 16.49V
Operating System
Windows System : Microsoft Windows 11 Personal 10.0.22621
Platform Compliance : x64

[FunkzzaJ]

Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm

Hey great. And you got the tip about changing HW buffer sizes from both of us... a handy trick to know/try when these kind of things happen. That's causes enough of the audio engine to restart and resets things. It does not necessarily mean that he actual problem is related to HW Buffer size.

I am not sure at all what the real problem is here, and I am not sure if any users have deep insight here, or if Avid has a handle on this or not. So kinda fishing in the dark, hence so many troubleshooting suggestions... and my suspicion is this is likely to be complex, say maybe something like a plugin that triggers some internal problem in Pro Tools, or the interaction of the audio engine, plugin and maybe device driver. And plugins get to do just about anything they want... so for example could scribble over critical memory that contains data structures used by the Pro Tools audio engine. So again they are always a good first suspect, but suspect only.

Daryll !
Yeah, thx got you.

My hunch is something along the lines ofthis: when a plugin loads it's audio, like an instrument or track audio, we wait until disk space lights up green (BTW I usually have it set at 12 GB (of 32) and indeed it was set at 12 GB in the red-spike cases at hand), and while that is all fine, when a huge reverb loads its 'stuff' perhaps it happens outside of the 'green-light' procedure pertinent to the audio load, casuing a race of load-time vs run-time. Somehow causing random, load-dependent playback enginge ills. This is pure guess-ware on my part. Take it for that.

/T