Odd behaviors and 2 system crashes

This is a lengthy request for help, and it may be specific to my configurations, drivers, and plugins. So feel free to tell me that I should submit this via e-mail. Here goes:

I have had an increase in the number of problems experienced at the most inopportune moments. During each of our last 2 shows, I had to reboot my PC in the middle of a song. Since this is just a part-time hobby for me, I cannot afford to have a backup system for quick A-B switching.

These problems may or may not be related, but I am listing all of them in case they might be:

  1. Cantabile stops responding, and eventually crashes, creating a log file. The last 2 times this has happened, the log file indicating that the offending plugin was Sonic Projects’ OP-X PRO-II. Since I (and others on here) have had prior issues with that plugin, I decided to remove it from my system, and replaced the 7-8 patches with something similar from Omnisphere.

  2. Blue screen - unfortunately I don’t have a log files or events in the Windows Event Log. Everything just locked up when I tried to advance to the next song in the Set List. (Although I was able to continue playing with the previous song’s sounds for about a minute or 2 until the PC shut down.) This was during our most recent show, after I had removed the OP-X PRO-II plugin.

  3. “CoreEngine - Audio mix batch failed to apply, aborted ramped mixer entries” in the log file, numerous times.

  4. Seemingly random issues with output volume not being consistent from song to song. Even though I have tried to balance the audio levels between songs, some songs during the show end up being much lower in volume than others.

Might #3 and #4 be related? And are either of them related to the fact that I may be reaching the output limit (with the orange indicator on the Cantabile level meters) probably much more often that I should? I do have the Enable Output Limiter option checked, at 85%.

I am running Windows 10 Fall Creators Update with 16GB RAM (about 8-10 used after pre-loading a set). I stay up to date on OS and application updates, but always turn off Updates, Real-Time Protection, and Networking before a show.

EDIT: I am using ASIO4ALL because the Radial KeyLargo Mixer/Audio Interface ASIO driver has a high latency and they even recommend using ASIO4ALL.

EDIT 2: My issues had started before applying the Fall Creators Update, although it might be worse now.

EDIT 3: I am wondering if the fact that the USB cables are not very tight in the back of my 2 keyboards. They come out very easily. Is that a potential problem, and is there any solution for that? (switching out cables to others in my supply box doesn’t seem to help).

I apologize for the length, but I always would rather have too much info than not enough. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated!

I’ve noticed a few things since the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update too, although I haven’t had chance yet to investigate and capture log output.

The main things I’ve noticed are:

  1. Sometimes my MIDI input ports don’t seem to be working when I start my machine and Cantabile. Restarting the machine seems to fix this (driver issue with the new OS update?).
  2. A few times when I have “power cycled” Cantabile’s audio engine, it has locked up, and needed to be forcibly killed.

If these happen again I’ll try to grab the logs and note any other potentially relevant info.

Neil

Hi @Roland_Robertson

Sorry to hear you’re having these problems.

  1. If you have the log files send them through and I’ll check them out but sounds like an OPX issue - make sure you’re running the latest version.
  2. In theory Cantabile can’t cause a blue screen even if it wanted to - it’s a completely user mode program which should be able to cause such a problem. Drivers however can so I’d be suspicious of your audio drivers - not ASIO4ALL so much, more the Windows drivers for your sound device. Again make sure you’ve got the latest (or perhaps try rolling them back if you can).
  3. These are mostly benign and indicate that a audio ramping operation didn’t finish within the expected time. Cantabile does ramped audio operations when switching audio routes etc… and sometimes they can be held up due to other processing loading/unloading plugins etc… ie: the might be a clue, but generally they can be safely ignored.
  4. Not sure what might be causing that but the first thing to check is whether Cantabile output level meters are also reduced - ie: is this within Cantabile or external.

I doubt it.

That’s a big red flag - especially if we’re talking about USB to your audio device. (MIDI is less like to crash, audio very likely).

Thanks so much for taking the time for a detailed response.

No prob. Let us know how it goes after tightening up those usb cables…