help! mac frozen at startup after PT LE install

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xonlocust
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help! mac frozen at startup after PT LE install

Post by xonlocust » Thu Dec 01, 2005 6:27 pm

ooh, i'm in hot water now. i got a burned copy of PT LE 6.9 for mac OSX and installed it. (i understand it to be a straight burned copy of my friends legit purchase - i own an mbox but it came w/o software)

the instal went smooth and finished saying "you have succesfully installed pro tools. you must restart your computer to begin" so i restarted.

the restart gets to the grey screen with the apple and pinwheel, but can't make it to the desktop. i was advised to get disk warrior and run it. i did. it found errors and fixed them. disk warrior said "your computer is now fixed" so i restarted and i'm back to the grey screen and pinwheel. eventually i get a white box prompt that says i need to restart the computer which reads in 4 languages. i can't get to the desktop.

my girlfriend's gonna be pissed i screwed up her computer. please help! :)

oh, computer = mac powerbook G4 OSX 10.2.8

thanks,
nick

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Post by Fieryjack » Thu Dec 01, 2005 7:44 pm

Do you want advice on how to fix your computer or how to tell your girlfriend you messed it up?

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MechaGodzilla
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Post by MechaGodzilla » Thu Dec 01, 2005 10:20 pm

I'd bet that PT 6.9 has issues with OsX 10.2 - Can you boot it with a system CD? I guess my inclination would be to boot from a cd, back up everything to an external drive and install 10.3 (Not 10.4 though, it sucks), But that's a pain in the ass. ...And requires girlfriend-permission.

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Post by xonlocust » Fri Dec 02, 2005 7:56 am

Fieryjack wrote:Do you want advice on how to fix your computer or how to tell your girlfriend you messed it up?
HA! i fessed up and she was cool about it. :)
I'd bet that PT 6.9 has issues with OsX 10.2 - Can you boot it with a system CD? I guess my inclination would be to boot from a cd, back up everything to an external drive and install 10.3 (Not 10.4 though, it sucks), But that's a pain in the ass. ...And requires girlfriend-permission.
i brought it to a friend last night who knows way more than me about macs and he recommended putting on 10.4 - mecha - just curious, what sucks about it? at any rate, it can boot fine off a system cd - but continues to hang at the same place when booting off the hard drive. does that sound like a bad sector on the hard drive?? oh, but files are viewable/readable when we connected the laptop like a external drive via firewire to his machine. other ideas?

and in similar problems the startup sound is corrupt, instead of the piano chord thingy - i get a blast of static. anyone ever heard of that?

thanks much in advance!

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okay

Post by jeddypoo » Fri Dec 02, 2005 8:42 am

backup everything using target disk mode in another Mac. Then erase the hard drive and run a clean install of Mac OSX 10.3- I'd recommend 10.3.9
10.4- Tiger, has a lot of problems- don't install that.

If you still get the grey screen, it may be the logic board. That's an expensive replacement.

This is why I hate laptops.
I find adherence to fantasy troubling and unreasonable.

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Post by jash » Fri Dec 02, 2005 9:09 am

I had this exact same issue with my ibook/mbox combo. All I can say is make sure you have the proper OS istalled for the version of PT you are trying to run. Check the digidesign website for the answer to that question.

-j
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Post by joel hamilton » Fri Dec 02, 2005 1:16 pm

If you boot up in safe omde, or using verbose logging (apple S or apple V respectively) what does it say just before hanging?

That would be a huge help, to know that. I had to enter some "plist" shell command line bullcrap to get past the hang, just to even be able to get at the drive, as 10.3 wouldnt let me boot from a FW drive that i had cloned the system to... yay.

After that, all was well. Funky startup items can make 10.XX freak out, like third party printer driver conflicts, or network prefs that conflict with watever new was installed.

Lame.

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CraigM
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Me Too!

Post by CraigM » Sat Dec 03, 2005 1:14 am

This is exactly what happened to me today! UGH! It says it installed fine but when I restart I just get the grey screen for about a minute and then it glitches and freezes. I reinstalled OSX 10.2, reinstalled Pro Tools and it did it again. Tried it twice now. Same results. Joel, you mentioned restarting while holding apple S or V? I wonder if this is something I should try or should I just upgrade to 10.3 before I try to reinstall Pro Tools again?

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Post by CraigM » Sat Dec 03, 2005 2:40 am

Well curiosity got the better of me and I reinstalled Pro Tools and restarted the computer holding apple v and it just had the black background with all the words/codes scrolling down the page and then......it froze again. I guess I will get OSX 10.3 and see if it solves the problem.

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Post by joel hamilton » Sat Dec 03, 2005 8:34 am

CraigM wrote:Well curiosity got the better of me and I reinstalled Pro Tools and restarted the computer holding apple v and it just had the black background with all the words/codes scrolling down the page and then......it froze again. I guess I will get OSX 10.3 and see if it solves the problem.
The key is to actually read the last line before it freezes. That can be very informative as to what process is actually hanging, or at what stage of startup the computer is freaking out. It will startup with the back screen with all the code spewing at you when you use "verbose logging" which is the apple>V you hit.

Apple "S" is safe mode.

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CraigM
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it works now....kind of

Post by CraigM » Sat Dec 03, 2005 6:21 pm

OK. I installed 10.3 and computer starts up fine so it looks like the problem lied with running 10.2. But now when I tried opening up pro tools i get a warning that says "Unable to locate Digidesign hardware. Please connect hardware then press ok." I have my mbox plugged into the 2nd usb port on my computer and the lights on the mbox are on so I am not sure what is up now. I'm assuming hardware is referring to the mbox? oh yeah, when I switch my keyboard/mouse from port 1 to 2 it doesn't work. It only works in port 1. But port 2 must work if the mbox lights up right? any opinions would help. thanks.

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Re: it works now....kind of

Post by joel hamilton » Sun Dec 04, 2005 7:40 am

CraigM wrote:OK. I installed 10.3 and computer starts up fine so it looks like the problem lied with running 10.2. But now when I tried opening up pro tools i get a warning that says "Unable to locate Digidesign hardware. Please connect hardware then press ok." I have my mbox plugged into the 2nd usb port on my computer and the lights on the mbox are on so I am not sure what is up now. I'm assuming hardware is referring to the mbox? oh yeah, when I switch my keyboard/mouse from port 1 to 2 it doesn't work. It only works in port 1. But port 2 must work if the mbox lights up right? any opinions would help. thanks.
When PT asks about the hardware, I have had to unplug the Mbox, then plug it back in to get my laptop to see the thing. I got rid of my Mbox, so I havent done tins in a while, but that always worked for me. I also couldnt ever let the computer sleep when the mbox was plugged in, or it wouldnt recorgnize the mbox after waking.

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Post by CraigM » Sun Dec 04, 2005 2:51 pm

Yeah I've unplugged/plugged and wiggled the darn thing a hundred times but no luck. I don't know what to do. I've read the manual and it doesn't seem like I have to adjust any settings on my mac besides putting it out of sleep mode and not allowing automatic software updates. ugh. (sound of giving up)

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Post by joel hamilton » Sun Dec 04, 2005 5:24 pm

CraigM wrote:Yeah I've unplugged/plugged and wiggled the darn thing a hundred times but no luck. I don't know what to do. I've read the manual and it doesn't seem like I have to adjust any settings on my mac besides putting it out of sleep mode and not allowing automatic software updates. ugh. (sound of giving up)
That sucks, man. I wish I could be more (any) help.

Hopefully someone smart will post something....

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Post by xonlocust » Sun Dec 04, 2005 8:06 pm

thanks everyone for contributing to this!

i'm now up and running with PT - i never thought this day would come :)

as people suggested it was mainly a versioning issue. for any stubborn non-manual reading types like myself - definitely take the time to go slow and read the sys requirements first so you can save yourself the headache. however, the computer is all new and up-to-date now - and the only way i learn things is by screwing them up first. :) although, the install disks i have say OSX or OSX 10.4 - so they could have put OSX 10.3 on it if that's what they really meant. saying OSX install disk leads me to believe it's compatible with any OSX system up to 10.4, but clearly we've learned that's not the case.

craig, it sounds like you're doing everything right. i'm doing exactly what you are and it seems to be working.

this is a simple one - how do i get a new channel on the mixer to read a bus? i want to make a drum submix to fold under my raw channels. right now i have send a on drum channels going to bus 1-2 and a new stereo track called drum sub with input set to bus 1-2 and i'm seeing no metering or action on my new channel.

thx!

nick

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