HELP!: MacPro Meltdown. Deadline Looms [RESOLVED]

dix · Post by **dix** » Tue Aug 30, 2016 12:05 pm

Having a major computer melt down in the middle of a deadline situation. Hoping for some quick solutions.

Suddenly No version of DP will launch. ProTools is being weird and slow too. Seems like a boot drive issue. I cloned my system recently, but for some reason that drive will not boot! So I'm stuck trying to repair whatever is going on with EVO SSD Boot drive. I'm currently creating an E-Drive with TechTools Pro 9 as I write this. That's the only tool I have at the moment (Disk Repair did nothing)

Other Apps seem to be okay. Safari, Audio Finder, VEP5, DSP-Quatro.

Thanks in advance for any advice!

dix · Post by **dix** » Tue Aug 30, 2016 12:29 pm

To make matters worse I can't select the Startup disk by holding down the Option key, so can't access the aforementioned e-disk.

mikehalloran · Post by **mikehalloran** » Tue Aug 30, 2016 1:32 pm

Do you have a Time Machine backup?

dix · Post by **dix** » Tue Aug 30, 2016 1:41 pm

No Time Machine backup. ....I know, I know.

MOTU suggested I try launching DP on another account and that worked, so I'm going through the tedium of setting DP under a new user. A huge pain, but will get the job done I think.

I'd still REALLY like to have my original account work, if anyone has any thoughts. It would save me precious hours if I could.

Thx

cuttime · Post by **cuttime** » Tue Aug 30, 2016 2:02 pm

I went through something similar a few years ago and a 2nd level Apple Tech had me trash my system preferences. He had me save them to the desktop first, of course. It did the trick, but you may find that resetting all of your preferences just as much of a pain at this point. Approach with caution.

dix · Post by **dix** » Tue Aug 30, 2016 6:40 pm

MOTU tech support is the best!

After a marathon tech support session with Magic Dave it looks like it wasn't anything going on with my drive after all. It seems to have been a combination of a bad audio file and corrupt DP prefs. Trashing the DP prefs and selective Loading of chunks seems to have fixed the problem. It's a major job to get my prefs back to how I want them, but I'm back up and stable again. Again, I just can't say enough nice things about Dave and MOTU support. They're simply amazing.

mikehalloran · Post by **mikehalloran** » Tue Aug 30, 2016 7:41 pm

Whew!

I have some used 3T Time Capsules—connect via wireless or Ethernet. Back channel me if you wanna talk. It is possible to copy individual files such as your DP Preferences off of the backup and restore when things like this happen.

MIDI Life Crisis · Post by **MIDI Life Crisis** » Tue Aug 30, 2016 7:51 pm

So the next time someone says deleting a plist does nothing good, we get to slap them upside the head.

YouTube · Post by **James Steele** » Tue Aug 30, 2016 9:46 pm

MIDI Life Crisis wrote:So the next time someone says deleting a plist does nothing good, we get to slap them upside the head.

I think it's safer to do what I generally do, and that's roll my eyes

and skip past the post.

dix · Post by **dix** » Tue Aug 30, 2016 10:21 pm

MIDI Life Crisis wrote:So the next time someone says deleting a plist does nothing good, we get to slap them upside the head.

Trashing the plist did do nothing actually. Dave had me trash com.motu.DigitalPerformer with all my templates, window sets, color schemes, MAS prefs and a lot more. That's what got me back up.

dix · Post by **dix** » Tue Aug 30, 2016 10:22 pm

mikehalloran wrote:Whew!

I have some used 3T Time Capsules—connect via wireless or Ethernet. Back channel me if you wanna talk. It is possible to copy individual files such as your DP Preferences off of the backup and restore when things like this happen.

Thanks Mike! I might do that. Yeah, it's time to get my backup situation sorted.

cuttime · Post by **cuttime** » Tue Aug 30, 2016 10:26 pm

Dave's the man and I've had similar results, but just for the record, how did you get in touch with him? Phone or email? Did you submit a Techlink? Was it after business hours? I'm just trying to figure out the best ways to navigate MOTU Tech help.

YouTube · Post by **James Steele** » Tue Aug 30, 2016 10:38 pm

dix wrote:
MIDI Life Crisis wrote:So the next time someone says deleting a plist does nothing good, we get to slap them upside the head.
Trashing the plist did do nothing actually. Dave had me trash com.motu.DigitalPerformer with all my templates, window sets, color schemes, MAS prefs and a lot more. That's what got me back up.

So prefs were included in the folders/files deleted, yes? Geez... not to pick nits here, but seems like we can't say for certain whether deleting those prefs files helped or not since they weren't deleted individually, but en masse. Sort of like DP works again when you disabled ALL third party plugs, and saying but one of the third party plugs wasn't the problem. Odds might be good, but logically we can't really say for certain, right?

dix · Post by **dix** » Tue Aug 30, 2016 11:07 pm

we can't say for certain whether deleting those prefs files helped or not since they weren't deleted individually, but en masse.

Yes, it's likely it's just one of the items in the com.motu.DigitalPerformer that caused the issue, but per my OP, I needed to deliver a project today and didn't have anymore time to troubleshoot. And now that I'm fair way into re setting my prefs I may not bother trying to put the old ones back.

One other factor I forgot to mention was that VEP is part of most of my projects and templates. It too was acting weird. Dave suggested I might trash it's prefs as well. That was likely part of all this too.

dix · Post by **dix** » Tue Aug 30, 2016 11:09 pm

cuttime wrote:Dave's the man and I've had similar results, but just for the record, how did you get in touch with him? Phone or email? Did you submit a Techlink? Was it after business hours? I'm just trying to figure out the best ways to navigate MOTU Tech help.

I just called tech support and got lucky!

MOTUnation.com