ProTools Almost always Crashes out when loading the first session of the day

[WaterRat]

After I have booted up and launched ProTools it almost always crashes when I load the first session and then is OK after that I have trashed the preferences several times and recently updated to 2023.12 but it still has the same old problem.

I think I read somewhere that this is related to Plugin sequencing and the only permanent fix is to uninstall all the plugins and then re-install them in small batches loading ProTools each time which will be a pain as I’ve got a lot of Waves plugins, plus quite a few from FF and Izotope and large subscription from PA and quite a few others,
Any suggestions?

I have Studio and Ultimate but this is mainly affecting my home system which is running PT Studio ver 2023.12 on a Windows PC I purchased a few months ago
Intel Core i5 13600
32GB Ram
Win 10 22h2
Running through a Mackie Big Knob studio.

[sw rec]

Actually, instead of uninstalling the plugins, move them all to the “unused plugins” folder. Then you can start moving them back until you find the one that’s causing the problem.

[Darryl Ramm]

More info might help... Pro Tools crashes exactly how? With an AAE error message? Some other error message? An app crash that launches the crash reporter? If so what does the crash report say? Post that text here or online somewhere.

Are you are always restarting your PC each day? Are you powering it up from full power off? Or are you waking up the computer from sleep (should not do that)? Are you always launching Pro Tools and opening a session or is Pro Tools already running and you just open a session?

You don't have to reboot the PC to fix this right? Just start Pro Tools? Is this behavior reproducible? What if you reboot your computer at any time? Or force it to sleep?

As sw rec says, for plugin testing just move the plugins. Move them, trash prefs, start Pro Tools. Does this work OK now or not with no plugins installed? Eitherway you likely know now if it was a plugin issue or not. Only takes a few minutes to do.

It might well be plugins, just because well plugins cause so many problems. But this is still a little strange. And we are left with this past similar issues with no detail of what the user meant by "server": https://duc.avid.com/showthread.php?t=424490 See my other initial comments there as well. Look out for things like storage or network storage taking long times to connect. (which might have been the cause in that other case).

[WaterRat]

Hi - Thanks for your responses, here is some more info:
I do not leave the system on 24/7 and this always happens after a fresh start and then works fine for the rest of the day.

I boot up the machine and open ProTools which is fine. I then got to open the session I want to work on and almost always ProTools just closes – no error and no crash report.
I then reopen ProTools and everything is fine – no reboot needed.

Having trashed the preferences it generally works OK the first time but soon reverts to its old ways.
It’s definitely looking like a plugin issue as if I create a blank session as the first thing then that is fine but if then close that and open one I’ve been working on then it closes.

I do have a lot of plugins so going through them will take a while – although I presume the Waves shell counts as one? And maybe now is a good time to slim things down to the ones I actually use

[marianna]

WaterRat

Definitely sounds plugin related. You can do a group at a time and the should tell you one or several in the group is suspect ... have you had any updates to the system at all? I noticed you got the PC recently with Win 10. is it Win professional?

Let us know what you ultimately find out..... helps others.

Marianna

[Darryl Ramm]

Originally Posted by WaterRat

I do have a lot of plugins so going through them will take a while – although I presume the Waves shell counts as one? And maybe now is a good time to slim things down to the ones I actually use

Again, your first job is to stop guessing and confirm if it is a plugin issue or not... that takes a few minutes of work. Move them all, trash prefs, start Pro Tools. Does this work OK now or not with no plugins installed?

Then if that shows plugins are suspect work putting them back/ removing some in big batches as Marianna suggests. Maybe by vendor. You are trying to do a binary not linear search. Make a spreadsheet of plugins if that helps. Also I would just start by removing old plugins you never will need, any old free plugins, or demos etc. You can also check versions and target the plugibs that are most out of date first, maybe updating them while testing.

If it is not a plugin problem you have saved a lot of time in one fast test.