Mac Guide - Mac OS X 10.

5 Leopard Optimizations and Troubleshooting[349731]

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Mac Guide - Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard Optimizations and Troubleshooting Pro Tools can be affected by system settings and other software and hardware drives installed on your computer. For best possible performance, it is recommended that you do the following: Optimizations

Required Optimizations o Configure System Preferences o Optimize Energy Saver o Turn off Airport and Bluetooth o Disable Time Machine o Disable FireWire Networking o Disable FileVault protection o Update iLok Drivers o Software Update

Optional Optimizations o Disable Spotlight Indexing o Disable Sudden Motion Sensor (For laptops only.)

Troubleshooting

Deleting Digidesign Databases and Preferences Uninstall and reinstall Pro Tools Zap PRAM Reset System Managment Controller (SMC) Repair Disk Permissions New User Account Remove Login Items Remove Startup Items Check Plug-in Compatibility

Configure System Preferences

Click on the Apple menu in the upper left corner of your screen Choose System Preferences back to top

Optimize Energy Saver This optimization will free up system resources as well as prevent the computer from going to sleep or standby mode which can cause audio dropouts with Pro Tools software and hardware.

Click the 'Energy Saver' preference. Click on the 'Sleep' tab. Set the slider for 'Put the computer to sleep...' to 'Never'. Uncheck the box for 'Put the hard disk(s) to sleep when possible'. back to top

Turn off AirPort and Bluetooth If your computer is equipped with Bluetooth wireless and/or an AirPort card, these may need to be disabled for Pro Tools to work correctly. In addition to freeing up system resources, disabling these can help resolve DAE errors -6085, -6086 and -6101. Airport

Click the 'Network' preference. On the left hand sidebar, click on Airport. Click on the button that says Turn Airport Off.

Bluetooth

Click on the 'Bluetooth' preference. Uncheck the box for 'On'. back to top

Disable Time Machine It is NOT recommended to use Time Machine on the same hard drive that you're recording to in Pro Tools. This can result in DAE Error -9131 even if you have Time Machine disabled. Even if you're using Time Machine to backup your system drive, it is still recommended to disable it when using Pro Tools as it still uses system resources to back up the data.

Click on the 'Time Machine' preference. Move the slider to the Off position. back to top

Disable FireWire Networking This optimization can help free up bandwidth in the firewire bus and allow Digidesign FireWire devices to work more efficiently.

Click on the 'Network' preference.

On the left hand sidebar, click on FireWire or Built-In FireWire. Click on the drop-down menu for 'Configure IPv4' and choose Off. Click Apply and restart your computer. back to top

Disable FileVault protection This optimization will allow your hard drive to work more efficiently with Pro Tools and can prevent DAE Error -9035 from occurring.

Click the 'Security' preference. Click on the 'FileVault' tab. In this window find where is states: 'FileVault protection is (on/off) for this account'. If FileVault is on, click the button to 'Turn Off FileVault'. back to top

Update iLok Drivers

Visit the iLok website Download the InterLok Mac OS X Extensions installer Install it afterwards back to top

Software Update Some updates to your Mac software can cause conflicts with Pro Tools. Disabling this will prevent your computer from automatically updating. If there is an update that you need, you can manually update your Mac software my clicking on the Apple menu in the upper left corner of your screen and choosing Software Update.

Click the 'Software Update' preference and make sure the box that is labeled 'Check for updates:' is unchecked. back to top

Disable Spotlight Indexing Spotlight indexing can sometimes cause conflicts with Pro Tools' database files, causing the drive to work sporadically. Disabling this will allow the drive to function more efficiently in Pro Tools.

Click the 'Spotlight' preference. Click on the Privacy tab. Every hard drive that is being used (internal and external) needs to be added to this list. To add a drive to the list click the '+' and then highlight the drive and click the 'Choose' button.

Repeat until all hard drives appear in the list. back to top

Disable Sudden Motion Sensor (For laptops only.) If you're recording in a loud environment, this optimization will prevent the Sudden Motion Sensor from kicking in and throwing a -9073 error in Pro Tools.

Double-click on the Macintosh HD icon on your desktop. (This would be your system drive if you have renamed it to something else.) Go to the Applications folder. Go to the Utilities folder. Double-click on Terminal. Type sudo pmset -a sms 0 and press Return. (Typing in '0' disables it.) Enter your administrator when prompted. Type sudo pmset -g to verify that this has been applied.

To re-enable Sudden Motion Sensor:

Go back to Terminal following the above steps. Type sudo pmset -a sms 1 and press Return. (Typing in '1' re-enables it.) Enter your administrator when prompted. Type sudo pmset -g to verify that this has been applied. back to top

Deleting Databases and Preferences These are important steps in order to resolve various issues, such as assertion errors, graphic or display problems, and other intermittent issues that are not specifically hardware or compatibility related. Listed below are the paths to all the database and preference files installed by Pro Tools. Once you have deleted these files, you should empty the trash and restart your computer. These files will be recreated when Pro Tools is launched. Digidesign Databases

Double-click on the Macintosh HD icon on your desktop. (This would be your system drive if you have renamed it to something else.) Delete the Digidesign Databases folder. Repeat for all hard drives and volumes. (As of Pro Tools 8.0.3, this step is no longer necessary.) Go back to Macintosh HD. Go to the Library folder. Go to the Application Support folder Go to the Digidesign folder Find the folder called Databases and drag it to your trash. NOTE: If you are using Pro Tools HD, DV Toolkit 2 or Complete Production Toolkit, you will want to backup your Catalogs folder before deleting the Databases folder.

Pro Tools Preferences

From the Finder, click on the 'Go' menu at the top of your screen and choose 'Home'. Go to the Library folder. Go to the Preferences folder. Delete the following files: o com.digidesign.ProToolsLE.plist o DAE Prefs o DigiSetup.OSX o Pro Tools LE/HD/M-Powered Prefs back to top

Zap PRAM Refer to this Apple support article for information on what is stored in PRAM: Resetting your Mac's PRAM

Shut down the computer Press and hold the following keys on your keyboard: command, option, P, R Turn the computer on After hearing the startup sound for the second time, release the four keys back to top

Reset the System Management Controller (SMC) Refer to this Apple support article for information on what is stored in SMC and for resetting SMC for your type of Mac: Resetting the System Management Controller (SMC) back to top Uninstall and reinstall Pro Tools Uninstalling and reinstalling Pro Tools can help resolve issues with corrupt or faulty installations, as well as issues derived from overlapping installs of Pro Tools. In many cases, this is more efficient than deleting Pro Tools preferences and databases.

Double-click on the Macintosh HD icon on your desktop. (This would be your system drive if you have renamed it to something else.) Go to the Applications folder. Go to the Digidesign folder. Go to the Pro Tools folder. Go to the Pro Tools Utilities folder. Double-click on Uninstall Pro Tools. Hit Continue on the first screen and then choose the Clean Uninstall option.

back to top Repair Disk Permissions

Double-click on the Macintosh HD icon on your desktop. (This would be your system drive if you have renamed it to something else.) Go to the Applications folder. Go to the Utilities folder. Double-click on Disk Utility. Select the hard drive containing the boot volume. Go to the 'First Aid' tab and select "Repair Disk Permissions". back to top

New User Account This troubleshoot can help with issues launching Pro Tools. Issues inside and outside of Pro Tools can be caused by conflicting preferences from other applications. This will help identify whether the problem is related to your user account or is a global problem.

Open System Preferences. Click on the 'Accounts' preference. Click the Lock to authenticate and enter your password. Click the '+' under the list of users. Set the 'New Account' type to 'Administrator'. Give this new user any name and password that you want. Click 'Create Account'.

Then login to this new account and run Pro Tools.

Go to the Apple menu and choose 'Log Out (Username)'. Wait for the login screen and then login in as the new user. Launch Pro Tools. back to top

Remove Login Items

Open System Preferences. Click on the 'Accounts' preference. Select the account you're logged into on the left hand side. Click Login Items. Go through the list and select each item, one at a time, and click the '-' below the list to remove the item. back to top

Remove Startup Items

Double-click on the Macintosh HD icon on your desktop. (This would be your system drive if you have renamed it to something else.) Go to the Library folder. Go to the StartupItems folder. Delete all items except for Digidesign and PACESupport items. NOTE: Double-check the functionality of any unknown Startup Items before deleting them to ensure that you're not losing any essential applications. back to top

Check Plug-In Compatibility Make sure that all Plug-Ins are compatible with the version of Pro Tools that is installed on your system. Check with 3rd party programmers for their most uptodate versions, you can also check the plug-in compatibility grid on the Digidesign website: * Plug-in Compatibility Grid

Double-click on the Macintosh HD icon on your desktop. (This would be your system drive if you have renamed it to something else.) Go to the Library folder. Go to the Application Support folder. Go to the Digidesign folder. Go to the Plug-ins folder. Click once on the plug-in that you want to check compatibility of. Go to the File menu and choose Get Info In the General section, check the version number.