Tracktion 6 Crash on Export Dialog

[jochicago]

I don't get far into the export dialog. Once I click on export and the dialog opens, in about 5 seconds Tracktion crashes straight out, no messages of any kind.

The project is a 15 track song I'm working on to practice mixing/mastering. It is pretty heavy with plugins, but other than this problem Tracktion hasn't shown any issues handling my tracks and plugins.

I can load Tracktion again and get back into the project very easily. Playback and edit again no problem. But if I bring up the export dialog it crashes every time.

NOTE: The first time it happened I had clicked the export file dropdown and selected MP3. I did see a message that said I should download LAME encoder. But this all happened inside of 5 seconds, so I don't know if this is something I did by clicking on that dropdown, or if just was able to do that inside of the 5 seconds I normally get to see the dialog before it crashes.

[jabe]

If I remember correctly, the MP3 conversion program, lame.exe, has stopped being proprietary (if that's the word) in the last couple of years and can now be distributed with software. Previously it couldn't.

If you want to export your tracks as MP3 files, you will need to let it know which folder contains the lame.exe file. This is done on the settings page, about halfway down. It's called LAME Location and it will allow you to navigate to the relevant folder. I'm surprised it fails rather than warning you, but there may be something else happening.

It sounds like it would be worth you while downloading the LAME file if you haven't already, and then letting T6 know where it is.

[jochicago]

I added the LAME encoder in the settings but nothing changed. When I try to export I see the export dialog for about 3-5 seconds and Tracktion 6 crashes hard.

More Info:
I now think this is might be a plugin problem. I tried a different project with 5 MIDI tracks and some basic plugins (reverb and sound coloring) and it exports fine.

I found a log called Tracktion6Log.txt in the program's temporary folder (under General Behavior), but it doesn't include any crash info that makes sense to me. It shows the project loading with all plugins ok. Then when I try the export I get these lines:

1 Mar 2018 11:41:58 Crashed
1 Mar 2018 11:41:58

1 Mar 2018 11:41:58 Thread 0:
1 Mar 2018 11:41:58 0: Renderer.cpp:Renderer::RenderTask::RendererContext::renderNextBlock:309
1 Mar 2018 11:41:58 1: Renderer.cpp:Renderer::RenderTask::renderAudio:519
1 Mar 2018 11:41:58 2: Renderer.cpp:Renderer::RenderTask::runJob:108
1 Mar 2018 11:41:58 3: EditClipRenderJob.cpp:EditRenderJob::renderNextBlock:107
1 Mar 2018 11:41:58 4: RenderManager.cpp:RenderManager::Job::runJob:41

[HansP]

there may be plugins with a "second-order" crash.
they can work for some time, but in a certain mix won't prepare for rendering.
also, a certain use pattern of racks and sends can crash.
also, complex automation into racks or sub-tracks(folders..) or automation tracks [+] in connection with certain plugins may create a problem.
over some months, I have developed quite some instinct in what not to do..

[jochicago]

How do I go about debugging? Is it a process of trial and error by activating/deactivating one at a time?

And when I find the culprit, do I avoid that plugin altogether or is it more of a project-by-project basis?

[jabe]

I'd guess so. Try rendering half the tracks at a time, then the other half, to see which half has the problem, then half those, etc, till you get down to one track. Then it'll be a case of disabling the plug-ins on that track. This assumes, of course, that the problem is only with one plug-in on one track. There is a big thread about problem plug-ins. It might be a case of TSC talking with the plug-in devs to see if they can work out what's wrong, but it can be a time-consuming task.

[jochicago]

Thank you.

I am being abusive with the plugins for this test project, and I'm mostly using third party stuff. Makes sense that I'd have high odds of running into a snag. But it is frustrating not to get some form on an error message I can work with.

I'm on T6. Is Tracktion known to behave this way or is it better with the latest version (T9)? I've heard similar issues with other DAWs - would you say that crashing the DAW is par for course when using external plugins, or is Tracktion easier to crash than average?

[jabe]

Hard to say on that last point, but I'd hope not, since TSC will have been addressing problem plug-ins for a few years now (though it was only as recently as 2012 that Tracktion was rescued from its wicked step parents). I don't have much experience with other DAWs. Tracktion and Waveform are based on JUCE and I get the impression (though I may be wrong) that T&W, perhaps because of JUCE, are less forgiving of plug-ins that don't properly adhere to the standards.

You could try freezing each track, which would give you an audio version with most of the plug-ins already processed, and then see about rendering with all that done. You could also try rendering to a .WAV instead of MP3 to see if that makes a difference.

[jochicago]

I'm routing all my tracks towards a 'final effects' track, so it is easy to capture the entire project into a freeze point by putting it at the end of the final track. I did that and hilariously now the project runs at 0% CPU. So Tracktion had no problem rendering the entire track to a file, just as it plays fine during edit. But if I try to export I get a hard crash even after inserting the freeze point.

I can see the freeze file in T6's temp folder. It's a 67MB file with a .freeze extension. Any idea what format that's in? If I could grab that and convert it to wav then I basically got my export. I tried renaming it .wav but my audio player can't make sense of the file.

[HansP]

there are several ways to render a track into a file, and there's a couple of capturing plugins, that do this behind the back of the daw..

for export, you may try different sample rates and bit depths also.
oddly, I had crashes when I changed the output file name, and the file already existed, and also, the modal dialog has quirks in that you better maintain a certain click order - I made it crash with pressing enter at the wrong time after changing the export file name.

T6 is a great teaser but it must be rubbed the correct way.
have good practice with the autosave vs manual version save.
beware of project paths with certain unicode characters.
I kept my path names quite simple.

[jochicago]

Hans, that's a solid idea. I'll try an audio capture plugin to save a wav file at the plugin level.