Crashing/Freezing

[Polly Esther]

I have a pretty basic project going at the moment.

30~ tracks.

3 Synths - Frozen - Mono stems
(3 Folders, 6 Audio tracks, L and R - 3 midi, no FX)

2 Guitar Tracks (L/R panned, (TH2 on each))

1 "Piano" synth (Sforzando and a sfz), - Frozen - Mono stems
(1 Folder, 2 Audio Tracks, Sonitus:EQ on both, 1 Midi track with Cakewalk:Velocity MFX)

Addictive Drums with invidual outs - Frozen - Mono stems
(19 tracks, No sends, no FX)

1 Reverb bus
REmatrix Solo 100% wet (Sounding room preset)
Recieves from Piano 1/2, Guitar 1/2 and Synths 1/2 (all 3) at varying send levels (grouped/matched).

Master
All Tracks and Bus' (Besides Metronome/Preview bus) sent to master, then out to interface.
FX - Sonitus:Compressor and 1, 3rd party VST (StereoChannel, although same behaviour without)

Interface is a Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 running 48k and 24bit.

Windows 7 (Fully up to date)

Basic Theme (Aero/Desktop Composition disabled)

The problem :

I'm getting quite a lot of crashes clicking in the Transport/Timeline bar at the top of the tracks frame, So much that I'm now scared of clicking it to seek/select and am using the Transport controls to scrub the head back and forth.

I get no dropouts in hours of mixing/recording (Asio), buffers seem pretty settled set to 2ms in the driver for a 12.5msec round trip (5.2 in 7.2 out).

Most times it's a solid freeze, twice it referenced Scarlett EQ's dll (Focusrite), removing it entirely from the project (2 instances), then from the Scanned VST path entirely made no change, just no "crash" now, and no black CW report window pop up, instead freezing randomly untill I force a quit via Window's prompts or Task Manager.

Removing all instances of 3rd party VST's doesn't fix it, removing my VST directories entirely and rescanning just the bundled stuff, I'm still having it happen.

Focusrite driver is the current stable 2.5.1 as the Beta's seem to have mixed results, and nowhere state they work on 7 (Made for 10?).

Same happens when outputting to my Sound Blaster Z via it's ASIO driver for testing, no hitching/record problems/latency issues, but crashes/freezes on seeking via clicking the timeline randomly (Selecting a region, seeking, trying to drag the magnifier).

Files and temp dir's are on an WD Black 7200RPM with plenty of space free. Performance indicator in Sonar locks HDD at 50% the entire time it's open (Except when loading Samples/Synths and during mixdowns) and CPU rarely goes over 40% (i7 3770k - stock). 8GB RAM installed with system peaking around 3.2 used in Task manager under load.

Anyone know a How/Why?

Got any links to similar issues?

[tomatoes.dll]

Just a stab in the dark here, but it is possible that a file in the project became corrupted. This has happened to me a few times over the years, and, in fact, I was nearly done a very long and difficult mix yesterday when SONAR crashed and I could never again open the project successfully without it crashing. I am not a tech. genius, but I do know that a corrupted file can destroy a project.

I'd recommend making a copy of the project, unfreezing the tracks, then deleting the them one by one and seeing what happens on playbacks. You might stumble across where the issue lies. If not, you could always import the files into a new project and, since the project seems fairly straightforward, duplicate your settings there.

Prolly not the greatest of help here, but that's my two cents on the matter.

[Polly Esther]

Is worth a check and not off the cards.

Rebuilding the Project in another DAW from the rendered stems imports fine, plays with no issue, no added pops and cracks or lost headroom in the wav's atleast.

I'm in a second version, totally unfrozen as suggested but I've now made so sure not to touch the timeline it's hard to forget and "use as normal".

I am getting some display errors without Aero running (Midi in the staff not updating, Piano roll too if there is another active window open on it's monitor) but it seems purely visual, and alt+scroll zomming on them shows the content is fine, they just aren't updating the changes in position when scrolled left and right at further out zooms So I gotta test that out as well.

As the freeze/crash is always on the initial click (down press, not release) on the Time line it could be anything. From seeking the file, to my Interface being picky with the way Sonar is restarting the engine to kill reverb tails, to a display update or a plugin re-init'ing.

This is on a GTX980 with current drivers.

I've no idea's how to analyze a wav file for errors though other than listening to it and import/transcodes to check if they throw errors.

Cheers

[Polly Esther]

As an update.

This only seems to happen with the Audio engine "Started", If I grab, drag, scroll, highlight, zoom or select while nothing is active, it's fine.

If I hit stop, manually stop the engine (Icons left of rate display), it's fine.

If I try anything while playing it's a lottery, Resizing a loop region on the fly while playing is about 40-60% a guaranteed freeze and a white screen.

[GibsonPro-Audio]

Originally posted by westywestuk:

As an update.

This only seems to happen with the Audio engine "Started", If I grab, drag, scroll, highlight, zoom or select while nothing is active, it's fine.

If I hit stop, manually stop the engine (Icons left of rate display), it's fine.

If I try anything while playing it's a lottery, Resizing a loop region on the fly while playing is about 40-60% a guaranteed freeze and a white screen.

Could you possibly record a quick screen cap video of the behavior? That'll be easier for me to send off to Development. I'm running a 970 SLi rig at home and not seeing this.

[Polly Esther]

I've just tried for a good hour, recording and mashing at the timeline with no crashes.

Over the last few days I've had a good few Win7 updates installed and yet another waiting for a reboot now so I have to hope it was a "Windows thing" and the crash reports sent off to them have found something.

I used to get a Windows error "ping" (Same one you get while trying to click an inactive window) when clicking with the Magnify cursor and NOT dragging (just clicking),

I no longer get that piped through my system speakers either.

Will keep trying to catch it if I can, but I've made so sure to use the Markers window now for picking sections and alt/scroll for zoom that I very rarely click there.

I do still get a 14 step "First time" steam popup with each launch trying to install the MS runtimes, are these located locally so I can manually run the installers?

edit: finding the _CommonRedist folder, it seems I do have them installed, and have run the repair options with the installers, still getting the popup though. :

I'm pretty sure all my runtimes are installed (as the 14step thing is a brief flash) but maybe one isn't getting through and I'm on an older build?

[Polly Esther]

I did get to catch the display issues I get though with the Piano roll (aswell as midi in the Track Panel when set to Notes)

http://imgur.com/tOyFFiA

Is a small section of the screen.

The Bar dividers don't update when scrolled with Ctrl+Mouse wheel until something moves over them and refreshes the display, like the Now time line, or the Note lane Highlight in Piano roll.

At higher zooms on the Track view, it blacks out the entire panel untill 'refreshed'

happens with or without Aero for me on a gtx980

they DO update fine when dragged via the ruler as shown.

[GibsonPro-Audio]

Originally posted by westywestuk:

I did get to catch the display issues I get though with the Piano roll (aswell as midi in the Track Panel when set to Notes)

http://imgur.com/tOyFFiA

Is a small section of the screen.

The Bar dividers don't update when scrolled with Ctrl+Mouse wheel until something moves over them and refreshes the display, like the Now time line, or the Note lane Highlight in Piano roll.

At higher zooms on the Track view, it blacks out the entire panel untill 'refreshed'

happens with or without Aero for me on a gtx980

they DO update fine when dragged via the ruler as shown.

Thanks for the video! That helps a lot to know what you're talking about exactly. Do you have the ability to upload just the project file somewhere, so I can download it? I want to see if the same project is doing it in my rig.

I do still get a 14 step "First time" steam popup with each launch trying to install the MS runtimes, are these located locally so I can manually run the installers?

Odd, I get a small window on launch, but its there and gone under 2 seconds. I'm on Win7 as well.