Most people hate hardware/software hassles…I do too…but there’s a part of me that relishes the quandary. Partly ’cause I like the challenge (you know…the computer is the game), and partly ’cause I know I’ll learn something valuable in the process.
Such is true in the case of my current Pro-Tools/M-Audio issue.
First of all, I’m finding that there are a lot of friends, and even some strangers, who are going out of their way to help. I’m resolved to do more of that with others in the future, when I can contribute.
Secondly, I’m drawing ever-so-close to a solution, and I AM learning a lot about how things work.
I stumbled upon a perfectly fine work-around solution by mistake…creating a new user profile on my current machine that runs Pro-Tools 7.4 just fine. Very stable. WITH the brand-new M-Audio drivers that I was SO CONVINCED were the problem.
Mind you, if I go back to the old profile, and try to run PT…I still get the crash, so I’m not sure what it is about a new user profile that doesn’t include the offending conflict, but I’m grateful. ‘Seems to me most all of the programs installed under the NEW profile are also present on the previous user profile… so I guess it’s going to be important for me to find out what difference there really IS.
When I turned off "automatic restart" under Control Panel –> System…then crashed my computer on purpose with PT under the bad profile, I get a stop error message pointing to TPkd.sys…which is presumably the conflicting driver. It’s located under c:windowssystem32drivers.
Anybody heard of this file? Anybody know how I can find out what program is associated with it? I think this is probably what’s doing it.
So there you have it: desperation matched with determination, a little panic, lots of help from friends, unexpected diligent help from DigiDesign, and a portion of luck = a solution (I think).
Hopefully my next blog on this will bring termination to this saga.
CourVO
