PT freezing on basic operations and "Playback Not Supported" errors?

[donalddemon]

Well, it's about that time, 4 years in, PT 2019.6 is constantly freezing, even with all plugins off and the highest buffer size. I'm running a 2017 iMac with High Sierra and haven't upgraded anything on the computer to keep everything compatible but now I'm getting the dreaded pinwheel at every session, and multiple times per session, as well as the occasional "playback not supported" in which I need to restart PT. Sometimes if I wait it unfreezes, sometimes not.

Any ideas on where to begin to troubleshoot? I haven't trashed preferences or anything yet, just changed buffer sizes with no luck. Activity Monitor shows is using 490% of CPU! I also keep force quitting the PT Quicktime Server since that seems to be freezing as well.

Here's my computer specs:

2017 iMac 21.5-inch iMac with Retina 4K display
3.6GHz quad-core 7th-generation Intel Core i7 processor, Turbo Boost up to 4.2GHz
32GB 2400MHz DDR4
256GB SSD
Radeon Pro 560 with 4GB video memory

[Darryl Ramm]

Standard troubleshooting is documented under "Help us help you" up the top of each DUC web page.

Edit: Oops missed the "High Sierra mention". You have an offically supported combo, so great.

What do you mean by "plugins off"? All plugins disabled? i.e. File>Open session with shift... or even better move all .aaxplugin files out of the plugin folder. Always suspect plugins.

A rough set of steps, but read the troubleshooting doc:

All troubleshooting should start with trashing prefs. Get Pete Gate's PT Prefs utility if you don't have it already.
(Also trash prefs as you try the following things...)
Make sure "ignore errors" is not checked.
Test with all .aaxplugin files moved out the plugin folder (Pro Tools will automatically put back the default ones).
Test starting with a new empty session. Not from template, not a copy of an existing session.
Test using build-in Output (or whatever its' called on your system) as the Playback Engine.
If built-in output works but the interface does not... is the interface driver up to date/supported on your OS version? Is the interface firmware up to date?
Create a new Admin user account and repeat tests from that account.

That set will cover most cases. Report back if it does not, and describe exactly what you did and what happened.

And I'd uninstall Avid Link and Cloud Collaboration stuff, there are uninstallers under the Avid folders in Applications... it's bloatware/crapware. Maybe more improved recently but back in 2018, just what a mess.

[donalddemon]

Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm

Standard troubleshooting is documented under "Help us help you" up the top of each DUC web page.

Edit: Oops missed the "High Sierra mention". You have an offically supported combo, so great.

What do you mean by "plugins off"? All plugins disabled? i.e. File>Open session with shift... or even better move all .aaxplugin files out of the plugin folder. Always suspect plugins.

A rough set of steps, but read the troubleshooting doc:

All troubleshooting should start with trashing prefs. Get Pete Gate's PT Prefs utility if you don't have it already.
(Also trash prefs as you try the following things...)
Make sure "ignore errors" is not checked.
Test with all .aaxplugin files moved out the plugin folder (Pro Tools will automatically put back the default ones).
Test starting with a new empty session. Not from template, not a copy of an existing session.
Test using build-in Output (or whatever its' called on your system) as the Playback Engine.
If built-in output works but the interface does not... is the interface driver up to date/supported on your OS version? Is the interface firmware up to date?
Create a new Admin user account and repeat tests from that account.

That set will cover most cases. Report back if it does not, and describe exactly what you did and what happened.

And I'd uninstall Avid Link and Cloud Collaboration stuff, there are uninstallers under the Avid folders in Applications... it's bloatware/crapware. Maybe more improved recently but back in 2018, just what a mess.

Thanks for the reply. By plugins off, I mean disabled/inactive. I will try opening with all plugins disabled as you mentioned and then the following steps.

Avid Link is not required for PT startup? For some reason I thought it was. I never use cloud collaboration anyway so I'll try and figure out how to disable that. Thanks.