OS X crashes

First, sure there are other things that could cause Pro Tools to crash.. it's a heavy duty app!  You could have other hardware issues (with your audio devices for instance), you could be low in disk space -- check that first!  Is there any consistency to when the crashes happen?  Are you mixing, recording, saving, loading a file etc....  this is very important, if you can find a common thread it is much easier to unravel this mystery!


Also, you should do a full hardware scan... There are two roads you can go down for testing your hardware, your Mac shipped with a diagnostic CD.  The first thing I would do is get that CD out, pop it in your Mac, reboot holding down the C key to boot from the CD and run a full diag on it...

The best hardware diag tool out there is Tech Tool Pro, you can find out more about it here: http://www.micromat.com/, it is hands down the #1 hardware tool for the Mac!

Hope this helps!

Crashes nearly always happen when I'm doing multiple crossfades, and I mean a lot across 10 audio tracks of recorded live drums. But, they also happen at random whuile I am editing audio, and somtimes just when I am playing back the session. I'm suspecting it might be while Pro Tools is saving a backup copy that the crash happens.

Strangely enough though my computer sometimes crashes out of the blue even when I am not using Pro Tools. I'm suspecting RAM because up until I put in an extra 2gig of RAM I never noticed any problems. I will try using Tech Tool Pro and see what happens.

Thanks

Hi,

If you want to test your computer's memory try Memtest:

http://www.memtestosx.org/

Good luck!

There are many utilities that you can use to diagnose faults with your Mac.  The easiest to locate, though, is probably the diagnostics CD that came with your Mac. If your Mac OS came on a DVD, this will be on a separate bootable partition of the Install DVD.   Either way, insert the disk and hold down the option key when rebooting or starting the Mac. Select the boot partition that you require (diagnostics) and run all the tests.

Another alternative is to use one of the commercially available diagnostics packages such as TechTool.  If the program you choose also checks for disk problems, be sure that you have the correct version for your version of Mac OS before you allow it to verify the disk - if you don't, you could really snarf things up.

The other thing is, does OS X crash - or is it just ProTools.  If it's just ProTools, make sure that you have all the latest updates installed - and try to replicate the problem on another Mac.  Don't go replacing your memory just yet though, I wouldn't suspect a memory problem unless you get a Kernel Panic (greyed screen, 'Reboot' in multiple languages).

Good luck!

I do actually get the greyed screen with 'Reboot' in multiple languages occurring sometimes, though most of the crashes are with ProTools.

It's a nuisance, I know, but I think the first thing I'd try now is backing everything up (assuming that it isn't already of course - it should be of course, but I've just cancelled my daily backup because I can't be bothered to find the backup hard disk!).  Next reformat the hard disk and reinstall Mac OS X and Pro Tools (and all the latest updates, of course).  Don't reinstall anything else yet!  Now use Pro Tools and if it seems stable, then reinstall other apps one by one to see if any cause Pro Tools to start acting up.  Once Pro Tools starts acting up, you've found the culprit.  It may be that the problem goes away and doesn't come back - which would suggest that something in your previous install was corrupt.

If Pro Tools starts playing up immediately, suspect RAM - remove your RAM and plug the chips back in one by one (starting up and trying out your Mac after each addition) to try and find the faulty memory.

For later use, that gray screen is known as a Kernel Panic.