[Jim Curtis]

I should have updated my post earlier.

I installed 12.7.2 on an external drive, booted from it, and my R680 function was back. My RAID mounted. So, I installed 12.7.2 on my internal boot SSD, and all was well again.

I’ve since upgraded the OS to 12.7.3 and all is still well, RAID is mounting. ATTO Configuration Tool is working as normal. I have gotten a few messages along the lines of “Firmware version can’t be retrieved.” But, I dismiss it and all is well. I can see what firmware version is installed in the Tool.

I don’t expect there will be more firmware updates. ATTO is calling this card “deprecated.” Although, they don’t officially support it, I’ve found their support to be among the best I’ve ever seen, and they’ve answered a few of my questions related to this product and the H680 I have to run my LTO. The H680 works on 12.7.3 also.

ATTO also restored the latest versions of driver & firmware on their site, after removing it for a while for being deprecated.

[Jim Curtis]

Allesandro, I can give your suggestion a try the next time I get a drive error. I expect this will be fairly routine now that most of the original drives have several years of mostly constant usage.

A silver lining is that I can still find new drives of the same model for about a quarter of what I paid for them when I first installed all eight 12 TB drives.

[Jim Curtis]

Hector, sorry for the late reply. I must have disabled notifications for responses.

To answer your first question: I believe the drives are producing errors because they are old, and have been spinning almost non-stop since installation, and I’m using the RAID almost daily and all day long for video editing and DAW functions. So, nothing completely unexpected. Drives fail. That’s a fact of life.

But, these aren’t complete disk failures. This is about notifications I get from ATTO Config that it has detected errors.

I think what I can do to learn for myself is to replace a drive with a reformatted one for which I’m mapped out the bad sectors, let the RAID rebuild, then run a verify pass to see if ATTO Config fingers the same drive for having errors. That would take me around three to four days. Rebuilds take about 12 hours and verifies take about 24. I’d need plenty of downtime for that, which I don’t have at this point, which is why I asked the question here on this forum.

[Jim Curtis]

“Can we report it dead now? OWC support has barely heard of this software and is totally confused by any tech support requests.” – Jon Allen

I hope not. It’s for sale on the OWC / MacSales site (link below).

Yesterday, I did an unsupported upgrade to Catalina on a 2012 MacPro, and am running Argest 4.0.9 on a test tape. as I write this. So, I do hope there’s a lifeline if I have issues. The app says I’m running the current version, which is curious, as I reverted back to BRU PE about 18 months ago, and stopped using ArGest at that time. I was having an issue with ArGest stalling when my display went to sleep, and then ArGest waking up when I woke my display. Kind of weird, but I’m trying to determine if that’s been fixed, and should know more after my testing.

I see that Tim Jones posted to this forum not long ago, helping a BRU PE user, and if I’m not mistaken, he’s the support guy for this product and BRU PE.

https://software.owc.com/argest/backup/

[Jim Curtis]

You can reset prefs by holding down Alt (Option on Mac) as you launch the app.

If you don’t want to reconfigure your prefs repeatedly, I suggest:

Reset them. Start a new project. Set your prefs as you like them. Quit. Find the prefs file. I can’t help you where they are on Windows. But, after you find them, zip the prefs file, and then save an alias to the containing folder on your Desktop. Then, when Pr starts acting up again, which is inevitable, quit the app, open the alias, delete the old prefs, and unzip the clean prefs. Then, launch the app, and get back to work.

The main thing that gets lost is the Recent Projects list. That’s not so bad.

[Jim Curtis]

Excellent question, Robert. I’m an all in one post provider, so Ae is as much in my toolkit as Pr is. And, since I do agency work, and work for big companies with agencies, branding guides, etc., and they’re all on Adobe for Ps, Ai (logos), I need to maintain compatibility.

I’m also a few years shy of retirement, and switching over to the BMD ecosystem, which is the only viable option IMO for editing and some of the things Ae does with their Fusion component, seems an iffy proposition. I’m also allured by the Fairlight component, since audio is also one of my services.

But also, my main clients go back years, and I’m often resurrecting old projects. I’d need to maintain a license for Pr to convert everything to XML to move them to Resolve. And, then, I’d lose so much in the translation. Or, I’d have to proactively export all my hundreds of projects to XML preemptively while I have a license without knowing if there’d be a payoff in the future.

We post providers need to be aware of The Grass is Greener syndrome. NLEs are some of the most complicated apps there are, and jumping ship often trades one set of problems for another.

Because I do spend so much time on Pr, and have deadlines and uncompromising clients, I’ve been forced to learn the workarounds to get projects done on time. So far, so good. I’ve learned the hard way not to jump on the latest versions of Pr, as Adobe has put out some real dogs several times. Pr 2021 / 15 is among them. I can’t get much done on it before running into job-stopping issues. I revert my project to 2020 / 14.9, and it’s smooth sailing. I rely heavily on the tools that allow me to revert Pr projects.

Downgrading should be a Pr export option, but it’s not and never has been. At least Adobe has the wisdom to allow multiple versions of their apps to reside on the same machine. As I recall, that wasn’t possible on Avids. Upgrading required a huge leap of faith. IDK if that’s changed I bailed on MC after version 6, just as they were getting into native editing (which was really lousy).

[Jim Curtis]

30 years on Avid? Wow.

You didn’t state OSX or Windows. Details matter. On OSX, 99% of the strange, inconsistent behavior can be vanquished by resetting the preferences. I do that at least four times per week, as Pr self corrupts its preferences stupid frequently.

(I’m a full time, long time Pr user, after Avid MC & Symphony > FCP 6 & 7 > Pr CS5.5+.)

You have to double click a folder to open it. Or, use the twirly.

[Jim Curtis]

“Perhaps this is a problem with my older version of PPro?”

Possibly. Current versions (14 & 15) work with mxf just fine on my OSX system.

[Jim Curtis]

“so it isn’t an issue if me scaling it up to 200%.”

PNGs are bitmaps, and scaling them 200% would be an issue. I don’t use Ai files in Pr, so I can’t comment with experience, but theoretically you should be able scale vector GFX any amount without aliasing. I have tried using Ai files in Pr, but abandoned it for a reason I don’t recall. Now I use Ae for vector graphics, and either export/import or use Dynamic Link, which works fine most of the time. Pr tends to lose the Dynamic Links when reopening projects that contain them, forcing me to Relink them.

[Jim Curtis]

Were you able to export from this project before without issues?

If no, there may be corruption in your project. Import everything into a fresh new project, and try again.
A test for current project corruption is to work with a different project to see if the issue persists.

If yes, your preferences or installation may be corrupted. Trash prefs and/or reinstall app and/or trash all previews and caches.

Is Colorama included in Premiere? It’s not in Pr on OSX, but is in Ae. Should we infer you are on Windows? If so, my advice is only foolproof on OSX, and it’s not the sum total of possible fixes. But, my advice covers 99% of all the issues I’ve had with the last few years’ worth of Pr builds.

BTW, Pr 2021 sucks big time. I only use it for making captions because it’s a crash fest. However, you might try opening your project in Pr 2021 and trying to export there. It’s purported to have a significant speed increase of MP4 exports, too.