Pro tools gone haywire!! macbook power?

[tribedescribe]

O.k. I am a long time pro tools users and have been through my share of trouble shooting over the years, but this one is just weird.I have been running pt9 9.0 for the last 4 months with no hiccups. (I know I should of upgraded and i just did to 9.0.3)

Pulled up a session to record some vocals and noticed a distinct echo. The latency settings worked but there was a distinct hallow echo at all settings(64 or 512). Did some trouble shooting and things got worse, the audio playback started to crackle(mic crackled too!). I hit it the minimize delay and the headphones exploded with white noise. O.k. something is weird? Opened up a new session set up a new track and it defaults to bus 1/2 out? O.k. now I updated to 9.0.3 and I still have the same problems. Plug ins are up to date etc.....

I own multiple set ups so I trouble all paths(hard drives, interfaces, mics, cables etc). Which only leaves the computer or software. The only time pro tools ever goes haywire is when the power is critically low on my laptop. My macbook was running all day and was very hot. The battery say's "replace soon" on the power icon. So I let it cool down for a hour but it is still acting up with the crackled audio and delayed latency. I am at a lost for a solution.


Lets hope tomorrow when I turn everything on it will be magically fixed.

Any Ideas?


Macbook Pro 2.5 penryn 4gb ram Mac osx 10.6.6
PT9 9.0.3
Apogee Ensemble, m-audio 2626 = Firewire bus 400
Glyph 160/240 hard drives = Express card bus Fw400

[tribedescribe]

I spent the day going through the general trouble shooting thread. Audio was garbled and wierd. Repaired permissions, drives, databases, new user account etc......... Finally I decided to uninstall and do a clean install of 9.0 from my disc. It worked!

Problems seem to be gone and I do not hear the echo. So far so good! I am not sure what happened? I am going to upgrade to 9.0.3 asap. Wish me luck.

[tribedescribe]

O.k. I spoke way to soon. The problem still persist. Its Crackling audio that gets worst as I run the system regardless of song session, plugins or latency settings. cpu/disk looks fine, and I get no distinct error messages, just crackling audio and odd behavior noted above.


I just did a complete uninstall/clean install from my 9.0 disc. Upgraded to 9.0.3. Updated all my current software including osx from 10.6.6. to 10.6.8 and the problem still persist.

Any thoughts?

I really don't want to wipe my osx and hard drive.

Could it be my Ram sticks have bit the dust? That would suck!

[Dism]

Does it matter which interface you are using? Do you have them both plugged in at the same time, or one at a time? Have you tried switching them around?

Have you tried reinstalling any of your device drivers?

It does sound like it's possible your hardware is failing. At this point, it might be a good idea to backup and reformat your system drive just to see if the problem persists. If it does... then it's most likely your RAM is failing, or even the hard disk.

[tribedescribe]

I ran a test session completely off the internal sound card and drive. The same problem persisted.

Out of curiosity I unchecked the "ignore errors during playback" box. It instantly fixed my audio and everything seem to be back to normal. I will test it tonight more but I seem to have had a break through.

Now why would checking that box cause errors and distortion in the audio. Kinda ironic? Also when I check the "minimize delay" button the system explodes with white noise? This is just wierd.

[Dism]

Originally Posted by tribedescribe

I ran a test session completely off the internal sound card and drive. The same problem persisted.

Out of curiosity I unchecked the "ignore errors during playback" box. It instantly fixed my audio and everything seem to be back to normal. I will test it tonight more but I seem to have had a break through.

Now why would checking that box cause errors and distortion in the audio. Kinda ironic? Also when I check the "minimize delay" button the system explodes with white noise? This is just wierd.

Ignore errors during playback should reduce CPU errors... but it will definitely cause audio distortion. The idea is that it allows clicks and crackling instead of throwing up CPU errors.

[tribedescribe]

I guess I should be more clear. I have used this feature for several years and know the sound of the errors it creates during heavy sessions.

For an example of my problem see below.

I create new session with no plugin's and low cpu use. When I click on the ignore errors my system goes crazy. I try to record some vocals and I get a crazy distorted signal and echo. I try to import and playback a loop and it also sounds terrible. The latency setting seem to do nothing? Then I hit minimize delay and my speakers explode with a loud white noise. This has never happened before. Cpu use hovers around 4% the whole time.

I am just glad I found a workaround to not hit ignore errors!

Anyone else had this problem?