Still getting massive stalls with my setup. Slightly odd behaviour: I work out of one setlist, loading individual songs which are fairly simple - one or two VSTis, sometimes with a reverb/delay plugin (Valhalla). Often I get one large stall with loud audio buzz within a few mins of launch, then usually no further problems, but occasionally a brief (not problematic) stall of similar nature when switching songs. Get the impression reverb tails may be involved, i.e. doesn’t seem to be an issue with dry setup, but removing the effects plugins. Time load usually several 100%.
I also get a big stall when trying to set new bindings.
NUC7 i7 PC
16GB RAM
ESI Maya22 interface
Cantabile Solo
Plugins: Modartt Pianoteq; GSi VB3; OB-XD; Valhalla; Poise
I’ve been methodically through GlitchFree.
Link to 2 profiles from such behaviour experienced this morning. Grateful of any help.
Seems to only occur early on in a session - conveniently this has meant I’ve been able to gig without major issues.
Went through GlitchFree again and realised I had allocated 2.4GB for paging file rather than 24GB (150% of my RAM) so corrected this, but problem persists.
check that you don’t have an hardware problem (USB cables, audio interface)
try cycling the Cantabile audio engine off/on to see if the problem disappears
use the Task Manager to check if some other process is using most of the CPU during the stalls
try reinstalling the drivers for your audio interface
This is just what I would try first if I had the same problem. Maybe I could also try selecting null audio in Cantabile, so that the USB cable and audio interface is not involved, just to exclude a problem with the plugins (but I suspect that Cantabile and the plugins are not the cause of the problem).
I’d experiment with a different audio interface - the ESI Maya has a bit of a dodgy reputation.
Given the output from the profiler, it looks like some sporadic interference from a background process blocking some resources,rather than an issue around Cantabile or your plugins per se. I’d take a hard look at all hardware device drivers and at any background system tools
If you’re on a 13th or 14th gen Intel CPU, I recommend updating your motherboard bios to the very latest bleeding-edge version, even if it’s labeled “experimental” or “alpha” by your motherboard manufacturer. I had a problem that looked just like this last year, and it turned out to be caused by the Intel voltage bug. Took me months to finally diagnose it. Updating my bios to an experimental alpha version fixed it.
If that’s not the cause, I’d say it’s likely the result of some background task occasionally interrupting everything. When that happens, Cantabile’s Profiler blames the pause on whatever plugin happened to be running when the background task intervened, just like what you’re seeing. The offending task can be hard to spot using Task Manager or other monitoring tools because it doesn’t actually consume much cpu. It merely freezes everything else as it acquires locks to critical system resources. The best way I’ve found to find the culprit is to (temporarily!) deactivate non-critical background services from the Windows Services control panel, and uninstall all non-essential software, especially anything that might try to check for updates.
I was using an ESI Maya 44+ without problems until I udated to Windows 11 24H2 from 22H2. After that nothing worked well, I had audio delays - not like normal latency but more like a half-second delay after hitting the keys. Not a joy when trying to soundcheck on a gig! Restarting fixed things for a very short while and installing the latest Maya driver made it worse! I went back to using my UR22 interface and everything worked normally again.
It’s pity because the small form-factor of the Maya made it very usable in my setup but 24H2 has given some problems including with the touch screen.
Another thing to check is your USB Power Suspend settings in Device Manager.
Even if you have set a USB device not to go into power save mode, major Windows updates have a habit of restoring the energy saving mode (Microsoft knows better, you know…).
I had never experienced anything like that until the last week, when I experimented with substituting ASIO4ALL for the official focusrite Saffire driver. Very strange.
It happened on two occasions. I upped the buffer slightly to one of those odd values you only see in ASIO4ALL… 170’, or something like that. Not been able to get it to happen since.
I didn’t add that I have the same problem when subbing a Steinberg UR22c interface for the ESI one (I agree the reputation is poor but its small form factor means it can live inside my keyboard!)
All USB ports are set to never suspend.
I have been around the houses with my BIOS - I’m on the latest version but it’s 7th gen so hasn’t been updated for years. Not sure how I would go about finding an experimental one to flash but the problem described by Hamlen does sound similar to mine…
Thanks, I did run LatencyMon a while back and managed to capture a massive stall but couldn’t work out what was causing it. I’ll have another go this week
Unable to get LatencyMon to work - it appears to launch but remains minimised on task bar. I’ve asked the company for assistance.
Using Resource Monitor this evening it appears that DPCs and ISRs are responsible for the highest CPU usage, but I might be misinterpreting the info, and the numbers are well within usable range. No throttling of processor speed evident.
The odd thing is, I get one long (max 10s but usually more like 1 or 2s) stall early on in a session, then no or very little trouble at all, despite ramping up workload in Cantabile.
It’s useable as is but it’s eating away at me! Hopefully LatencyMon will shed more light once I get it running
When you have intermittent “blocking” events in the background, the Cantabile workload typically isn’t so much of an influence on audio issues (unless you get close to 100% time load), so trying to reduce Cantabile load will typically not help fix this kind of problem. You will need to get to the root of the issue, i.e. find the offending driver and somehow get it out of the way…
I’ve just tried again with my Steinberg interface in place of the ESI one - exactly the same symptoms. Running multiple VSTis in Reaper (i.e. emulating what I have set up in Cantabile) works flawlessly.
Got LatencyMon working. wdf01000.sys gives high ISR count (the only process causing ISR). I guess this means I have to work my way through drivers, as a process of elimination. Is this right?
Screenshot below shows some devices which are flagged as needing attention, can anyone help me with identifying/explaining these in case they might be the culprit?
We have all spent more time than we would like messing with these issues. With Windows you are trying to turn a turnip truck into a ferrari.
Here is another tweaking guide, which IMO is the first place to start. It is by Pete Brown, the audio guy at Microsoft and the head of the MIDI association. It take a first cut minimal approach and explains the things that you must do. Part 2 explains the tweaks.
wdf01000.sys is a common problem and, as you have found, indicates a driver problem. Just do a search and you will find a lot of suggestions. Basically, it means disable, in the device manager, all drivers and devices that you are not using. Generally you do not want to uninstall them (unless the device is no longer installed in your system), however Windows will try to reinstall, at the next boot, drivers that it feels are necessary. My experience is that these can cause glitches, but not often major stalls.
I assume that you are not connected to the internet when using Cantabile or all bets are off.
I also assume that you have disabled both hibernate and suspend. In which case the page file recommendation (assuming that you have plenty of RAM) is obsolete advice that has just been copied from guide to guide for many years, although it won’t hurt anything.
Another possible culprit to look into for longer glitches is the task scheduler.
I have two systems I run using windows 11, which I migrated to in the past 3 months. I too have noticed some quick “drop outs”, less than 1/2 sec duration. Never had this on Windows 10!
One thing I always do on my smaller gig system (UR-22 rig) is turn off my WIFI. I really don’t need it and (When On) just sits there and scans looking for WIFI systems. Let’s face it… these laptops are NOT engineered for musicians, and WIFI is the primary necessity for all mankind. This can be easily turned off at the task bar. It does reduce CPU load.
I agree with running “Why So Slow”, “Latency Check” etc, from Resplendence Software. These programs have some issues with Windows 11 . Check their website for fix. These background processes can be annoying especially during a gig. Do you really need blue tooth printer drivers scanning on a gig??? Virus Scanners are an issue as well, and, without using WIFI… do I need them??? Pain in the neck to place them on standby tho!
Also on Windows Device Manager, I always check the “Show Hidden Devices” on the View menu. I literally deleted a ton of old drivers from obsolete equip and old drivers from equip I still use! I just don’t want windows scanning that old stuff. Just be selective on your deletions! Worst case, you will have to reinstall drivers for hardware used intermittently.
Finally, I have never been impressed with the Audio Codec programmers with Microsoft. They have made me lose a lot of hair over the course of 40 years using Windows and iOS. My hats off to the coders of RME, UAD, Novation, etc who have to workaround this menagerie of code fixes/patches, as well as our own master coder, Brad!
If I come up with something I’ve found with win 11, Ill post it!
Making a bit of progress. Detail that may have been lost is that the whole apparatus (NUC PC, audio interface, all cabling) is internal within my controller keyboard. As such the CPU is running a bit hot - had a look yesterday and concluded this might be causing the problems. I had set max at 100% (as per GlitchFree etc) but having wound this back to 90% the core temps are staying below 90 and things seem better.
Typically not - Performer has the same audio engine. But if you use Performer features to “slim down” the CPU load of your songs (e.g. de-activating some plugins per song state), you could get some time load improvements.
But since it seems time load per se is not your key issue, this may not really help you.
This can definitely be an issue - thermal management can be pretty radical in turning down the clock in order to avoid core meltdown. That can cause an immediate “hiccup” in CPU throughput. Not a good idea running a CPU at the ragged edge of disaster - having a NUC CPU inside a keyboard enlosure is quite risky, unless you have a very sophisticated airflow management in place…
I try to keep my CPU core temps in the 50s or 60s (Celsius), and things are pretty smooth sailing.
