Error opening session w/6.1

[Pirate Post]

I am starting to put my feet in the ProTools 6.X waters and encountered this error while opening up a session that worked just fine with 5.3.1:

Could not complete your request because: Assertion in "UFadeRgn.cpp", line 499

Any help would be appreciated.

[Rail Jon Rogut]

Try closing the session and deleting all the fade files.. and have the session rebuild them.

Rail

[Pirate Post]

I'll try that. Is this a common occurrence with PT6.X? Are 6.X sessions really compatible with 5.X and vice versa?

[Stuart P.]

Mr. Pirate,

Had this one too. I believe it's caused frequently in post production situations, rather than typical music ones. It's easy to encounter if you use grid mode a lot. It can be a real pain to take care of, as you no doubt now know.

When I had this issue, it was because I had been cutting backgrounds on a reel and did not notice that I had hit the F4 key one too many times and had gone into "relative grid" mode as opposed to "absolute grid" mode. All of those one frame fades boundaries were just a little bit off, but I didn't think too much of it at the time. But, when I switched back to "absolute" and continued adding layers of BG's (and performing the group crossfades function by using the selector tool which BTW is a great improvement from 5.X) I was inadvertantly creating these tiny sliver fades / little regions on the leading & far edge remnants of the old ones. So, these sliver fades / regions were created between the calculated difference between frame boundaries of relative vs. absolute grid mode values. They just butted up against the coming or going one-frame fade that you'd normally see. Without zooming in and examining every stinking fade in the reel, recutting every fade & zapping lots of really tiny regions, I kept getting this maddening error. You can recover from it & save you session if you've got the time...

Reimporting tracks worked for about one or two plays, then it happened again (to me, anyway). OS9 seemed to play the sessions just fine, I would humbly submit that if you're just experimenting with 6.X on your stage then revert to 5.X for this one. Or have your BG editor recut the reels affected more carefully and avoiding the problem I described (he/she/you/somebody probably used PT 6.X to cut or make changes to the reel, thus causing the problem to begin with). Line 499 error, DOH! Yeah, that one made me miserable,

P.S. Hope you found that sound designer, if not I already sent you an email a few weeks ago.

S.

[Pirate Post]

Stuart,

I guess I'm a little confused with what you are saying. What is different about Pro Tools 5.3.1 that allows me the fredom to create any kind of fade I choose, vs. Pro Tools 6.X? The session was created on a D24 and HD system running 5.X software. Never seen this before running ProTools 6.X. I don't use Pro Tools 6.X but just testing the waters.

[Stuart P.]

The difference is that with PT 6.X there are now two submodes to grid-mode, and they do not necessarily match. One is called absolute, and the other is relative. It is useful functionality in lots of circumstances, but can be confusing and can cause problems like the one I described.

If your session was actually cut on a 5.X system, then it becomes a slightly different problem to track down. It probably still fade-related, but it may be difficult to find out exactly where. I have found, though, that Mac OS 9.X based versions of PT are much more forgiving in this regard. What may play perfectly in PT 5.1 may not even open in PT 6.1 (line 499 error being one of those situations).

If you can, I would delete the fades folder and completely regenerate them as a starting point. If the situation persists, then either give up and play the session from a 5.X rig, or break out the coffee and manually redraw each and every fade until you no longer get the error upon reopening the session. If you cannot even get the session to open at all, then 1) create a new session 2) Import all tracks (takes forever, I know) 3) see if you can either avoid the error long enough to at least be able to start examining the session for where the fade problem actually occurs.

I've found that even after an "import tracks", you will still get the error, but by proceeding in this way it will not crash PT completely (ergo, the complete crash you may be experiencing now when booting the original session document itself). If you want, I talk with you on the phone and see if I can help. I'm in w. toluca lake,
email me if you want.
S.

[Stuart P.]

Almost forgot to answer one part of your question. Yes, according to Digi, sessions should be 100% compatible between PT 5 & 6. You have experienced a bug, not a compatibility mismatch.
Hope I'm helping at least a little...

S.

[Pirate Post]

I tried deleteing the fades and Pro Tools spit out the same error message. I tried opening another session and it worked. Before I can switch I need to figure out what's up with this fade nonsense. Is there a 6.2 version for OSX10.2.8,HD and G4s? Overall version 6.1 is pretty easy to blow up.

[Kris Giesing]

Hi,

I'm the engineer who worked on fades for 6.x. The error you're getting is a little difficult to interpret, but the implication is that you have a fade out or crossfade whose left contributor is missing (not just in the sense that the audio file for that contributor can't be found, but that the session hasn't even registered that there is one). Why this would occur, I don't quite understand, although I would like to investigate.

Is there any chance you could send me your session? I would guess from the nature of the problem that the error will occur without the associated audio files, so the session file itself should be sufficient. Even better, if you happen to discover it, would be a recipe for how such problem sessions get created.

In either event, a more graceful recovery for this error seems called for. I don't think I can tell you anything more specific, though, until I understand better what the problem is.

Thanks,

- Kris Giesing
Digidesign

[Pirate Post]

Hi Kris,
Thanks for getting involved. Actually a copy of the session is up at Digidesign. You can speak with Chandra Lynn or I guess Ben Davis about the session (Kid Notorious). The session that I opened with the error was the original one and the session sent to Digidesign was a copy made with "Save session copy" and Archived with Mezzo to DVD so I don't know if the problem follows the copy. If you need me to send the original session again give me you email and I'll do that. Like I said I've never seen this error with this session until I tried to open it with PT6.1. If you want to follow up privately I can be reached at [email protected].

Thanks

Peter Cole