Pro Tools Preferences folders > DELETE

[T Prior]

Well I certainly would agree that the internet can be a crazy place with all sorts of nutty things..but this is not about one of those places , this is a good story !

I recently had all sorts of odd stuff going on with PT8...( Win XP ) stalls, noises, tracks out of synch etc...So of course I went wild on the PC resources, optimized for days..etc...things got somewhat better but NOT resolved...

So..as of late...I did bring the XP/PC to SP-3 and I did upgrade PT 8.0 to 8.0.5, the latest and final version...There was something going on with the PC as I did have an issue getting to SP-3 but I did finally get there...

When I re-booted and accessed Pro Tools, of course the version is now 8.0.5, it took a few minutes to load as I could see it was redeveloping everything, just as a virgin load, the upgrade is basically the full package writing over the old version....After that, all the projects that I had issues with ran just fine, even with default Playback Engine and buffer settings...

Ok..so here's the deal..I received a message last night from a Home Recordings Forum member, he recommended I delete the PRO Tools Preferences, this is advise for both MAC and PC users..I didn't even know this stuff existed. There are instructions all over the net how to do this and also from AVID...basically you go into the root program and delete two folders, when you start PRO Tools again it starts the program build from scratch again, almost like a new load, it takes about a minute longer to boot the program...just like when I upgraded...supposedly PRO Tools can get bogged down with all sorts of preferences from months or years of sessions and can get lost..deleting two folders basically clears all the history but does not interfere with any projects, settings, effects etc will load again no issue.... think of it as the root program keeping track( history) of everything you do and all settings you have made..forever...until you clear it..again, saved projects are not affected...they will load as saved...and then the history starts again in those two folders...


Now what I did also notice is that in the instructions, one of the folders is not an issue with PT 8.0.3 and above, so they evidently fixed that, but did not write it in the release notes ! Just a minor thing to leave out !

After the reload my system is working just fine..but it is probably more related to deleting those preference folders and starting from scratch...

From here on out, maybe once a month or so I will delete the preferences folders... remember, this is for PC and MAC users...

I learned all this from the internet !

PS, there are countless posts all over the NET with PRO Tools users having similar issues to what I had, which were resolved with the deleting of these two folders...Both Mac and PC....

[woodman]

Good advice, Tony — "corrupted" prefs can be a problem in any program, but they're amplified in one as intricate and complex as PT. It's a minor pain to go back and reset everything, but chronic glitches are a major pain!

[T Prior]

Agreed Woody..it took about 2 min to delete the two folders..considering I was fighting the wacky stuff for 2 months..lets see..2 minutes vs 2 months..

Uhmmmm....