ProTools System Usage freaks out even when idling

[srdm77]

Hi there,


I´ve never seen this before and need help: I was working on an edit for a TV movie series, just editing and aligning microphone ports. Nothing CPU intensive. All over sudden, ProTools said, it cannot play because of CPU overload. I restarted several times. No other app causes this issue. I deleted ProTool from Applications and re-installed it, de- and re-installed Avid Driver. Didnt help. I´m on Mac Studio M1 Max with 64GB RAM on OS 12.4 with PT 2022.6 Ultimate.

[Darryl Ramm]

Originally Posted by srdm77

Hi there,

I´ve never seen this before and need help: I was working on an edit for a TV movie series, just editing and aligning microphone ports. Nothing CPU intensive. All over sudden, ProTools said, it cannot play because of CPU overload. I restarted several times. No other app causes this issue.

I deleted ProTool from Applications and re-installed it, de- and re-installed Avid Driver. Didnt help.

And all that is all almost certainly a waste of time. There is a standard approach to troubleshooting Pro Tools described under "Help Us Help You" up the top of every DUC web page. Read and follow that, the comment here will help you navigate that, but read it all...

What "Avid Driver" are you messing with? You are not running HD Native or HDX according to your profile so there should be no Avid driver to mess with.

Did anything change? You install any new plugins? Driver updates? Any get updated? macOS get updated? Make sure auto macOS update is off. And I'd uninstall Pro Tools Link and Cloud collaboration bloatware as well, just as a matter of principle.

Is you system properly/fully optimized? Make sure every last thing is done no matter how silly it seems or how inconvenient it is now.

Make sure "ignore errors" is *not* checked. You want to see every error while troubleshooting.

You always start troubleshooting Pro Tools by trashing prefs, use Pete Gates PT Prefs utility to make that easier. Did you do this?

For CPU errors you always suspect plugins and need to troubleshoot those by moving the .aaxplugin files from the plugin directory. Plugins can cause problems just by being installed in Pro Tools, without you using them, without a session being open. Not a real surprise when you see that.

Start by moving all .aaxplugin file out of the plugin folder, put them anywhere the Unused folder is a good place. Then trash prefs again. Pro Tools will automagically put back the core plugins and you should see if that runs with more stability. If so you likely have a bad plugin and need to keep moving the non-core plugins back to the plugin folder in batches and see if the problem happens again.

Failing that create a new macOS admin account and test from there.

Test using the mac Build-In Output or whatever it's called as the playback engine.

Trash prefs between trying different things.

You have to work though this carefully. I'd be allocating a few hours to careful debugging and if you don't make progress then file a support case with Avid, posting the support incident number here might help. But describe clearly what happens as you do the above tests and there may be other things to try.

Could you update your profile so it's clear what the system specs and interface you are using with it etc.

[srdm77]

Okay, thank you very much for this instant and detailed reply! I must confess, I hadnt heard of that Pete Gates app before. I did the following: trash prefs, move PlugIns to unused, trash prefs again. Start ProTools: same phenomenon. Since you wrote about the playback engine (try another hardware and so on), I played around with the settings there, buffer size and cache size. Phenomenon gone Funny: even after setting back to the values where the issue persisted, system usage values stay calm. I still dont understand, what happened, but happy to have a way now. Thanks again.

[srdm77]

After setting the h/w buffer size to lowest value, I had it again, so I think, it´s just the buffer size, the cpu wants to compensate, which is still strange in stopp or even without project ...

[Darryl Ramm]

Ah yes, CPU errors are usually caused by plugins, except when they are not.

What interface are you using? What IO Buffer size and sample rate?

Some buggy interfaces do get upset and just changing stuff can fix them, sometimes that might be made worse by multiple apps using the same interface, so you can also try that... make sure no other Apps or macOS are not using that interface, only Pro Tools.

But then a very small IO buffer size will trigger CPU errors, but normally not until you start playing a session as you say. I'd still be curious if you see Pro Tools fail with no session open with only the core plugins installed...

[srdm77]

It´s Steinberg UR24C. The lower I set the buffer, the more stressed is the CPU. So, as I never do recordings on this machine, it seems, I´ve got my peace with highest value. BTW, I didnt change or update anything the last days... Thanks for the tip, to keep system sounds away from the interface. Never had trouble with that, but I´ll keep an eye on it.

[albee1952]

Originally Posted by srdm77

It´s Steinberg UR24C. The lower I set the buffer, the more stressed is the CPU. So, as I never do recordings on this machine, it seems, I´ve got my peace with highest value. BTW, I didnt change or update anything the last days... Thanks for the tip, to keep system sounds away from the interface. Never had trouble with that, but I´ll keep an eye on it.

I wonder about the interface as I have seen some poor reviews regarding compatibility with Pro Tools. In any case, unless you need to record on this setup, there's no reason not to set the buffer to its highest available setting(it can change depending on sample rate of the session). In this regard, it is acting as expected(lower buffer=higher cpu usage and high buffer =lower cpu usage)

[srdm77]

Yes, it does and it´s interresting, how it started to cause problems - all over sudden - with same settings as on last ProTools-project on this mandate (I work with Nuendo and ProTools equally, depending on what the re-recording-engineer uses and most i work with, are with Nuendo, that´s why I baught this interface). If I knew, that some interface like one more DAW more than the other, I would have had checked the specs more, i think. but now, I have to handle it like it is... Which one do you use?

[GoButtonGuy]

Pro Tools on Apple Silicon while operable can still be sketchy and inconsistent. While various combinations contribute to issues the core issue is the implementation of Pro Tools. While tweaking the configs help most of the the fixes are Band Aids to compensate for the fact Pro Tools isn’t fully flushed out on the latest hardware. I’m hopeful when the app becomes native some of these issues will be solved. In the meantime you gotta do what you gotta do to keep working but expect the potential for some weirdness along the way.

[DanDeurloo]

Originally Posted by srdm77

Hi there,


I´ve never seen this before and need help: I was working on an edit for a TV movie series, just editing and aligning microphone ports. Nothing CPU intensive. All over sudden, ProTools said, it cannot play because of CPU overload. I restarted several times. No other app causes this issue. I deleted ProTool from Applications and re-installed it, de- and re-installed Avid Driver. Didnt help. I´m on Mac Studio M1 Max with 64GB RAM on OS 12.4 with PT 2022.6 Ultimate.

I have the exact same issue except now I have updated to 2022.7 and nothing changed. I don't even have to have a session open, just opening PT and it behaves like this.

I do have a support ticket open as well so Avid is aware.