W9 crashes with no audio interface

[Daniel78]

My audio interface (Behringer UMC1820) has a power button. If I turn it off, (or forget to turn it on before launching W9) Waveform crashes. I'm using the ASIO driver. My PC has integrated audio, but I have it disabled in the bios (maybe this was unwise!), so there's no audio device available at all.

This isn't actually a huge deal in practice, but I thought i'd let you know.

[Watchful]

Mine does this as well, in a sense: I connected a Yamaha Montage via USB to my system. If the Montage is not powered on first, Waveform crashes to the desktop when clicking on a project. I've attributed this to the ASIO driver on the Montage as the culprit, although switching drivers doesn't necessarily prevent the problem.

As you say, not a big deal for many reasons, and I never bothered to mention it until your post got me thinking.

[zzz00m]

It probably depends on how well the audio device driver was written, and how well the DAW responds to that driver.

As a habit, I always have my audio interface connected and powered when I boot my system so that it is always on and available (so the driver is always loaded and active), and I always power on my MIDI controllers before starting any DAW software.

If I remember to do those 2 things, I almost never have any issues.

[dRowAudio]

Hmm, this does sound like a driver thing. Does this happen with other hosts of just Waveform?

[Daniel78]

Hmm, this does sound like a driver thing. Does this happen with other hosts of just Waveform?

Haven't got anything else installed right now, but I tried Tracktion 6 - it doesn't crash. Silently switches to the ASIO4All driver (which it turns out i also have installed) if the audio interface is off on startup.

[zzz00m]

If you have both a dedicated audio device driver installed + ASIO4all installed, that could cause conflicts.

If you have a dedicated audio interface and driver, you should uninstall the other stuff, and rely on the factory audio driver.

[Daniel78]

If you have both a dedicated audio device driver installed + ASIO4all installed, that could cause conflicts.

If you have a dedicated audio interface and driver, you should uninstall the other stuff, and rely on the factory audio driver.

I realise that you are trying to help, but i find this response to be frustrating. I've presented evidence that Waveform crashes when its last selected audio interface is not present. Another user confirmed it. Given that other DAWs (T6) don't do this, its almost certainly an issue with Waveform. I just wanted the developers to be aware of this, giving them an opportunity to address it whenever they deemed appropriate. By making that baseless claim that ASIO4All somehow conflicts with my audio drivers, and giving the unhelpful advice to uninstall it, you just serve to muddy the waters, likely resulting in the issue *not* being addressed because of the implied user error involved.

I only even mentioned ASIO4All because i wanted the devs to know - at the time of the crash - there was one available ASIO driver, and not zero like my first post and implied.

I wouldn't report issues if I wasn't confident they were legitimate. Having to defend myself against accusations of it somehow being my own fault, is tiring, and to be honest, just makes me not want to bother in future.

ps. Ableton 9 also does not crash - it correctly informs me that my audio interface is not available.

[Hermu]

Hmm, this does sound like a driver thing. Does this happen with other hosts of just Waveform?

Sorry, but thats only a unhandled exception and thats only a W9 software bug!

[profwesson]

I have noticed a similar issue. I am using a Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 which obviously connects by USB. If Waveform is open and the USB cable becomes disconnected, I get a crash. Worse than that though, if I am using Jamstix, when I re-open Waveform, I find that all of the settings have been wiped in Jamstix.

This is not driver related or due to having Asio4all installed etc. If the same thing happens in Reaper, I get a warning message that the interface cannot be found, I reconnect and can carry on with the session without crashes or data missing. It seems therefore specific to Waveform.

[zzz00m]

If you have both a dedicated audio device driver installed + ASIO4all installed, that could cause conflicts.

If you have a dedicated audio interface and driver, you should uninstall the other stuff, and rely on the factory audio driver.

I realise that you are trying to help, but i find this response to be frustrating. I've presented evidence that Waveform crashes when its last selected audio interface is not present. Another user confirmed it. Given that other DAWs (T6) don't do this, its almost certainly an issue with Waveform. I just wanted the developers to be aware of this, giving them an opportunity to address it whenever they deemed appropriate. By making that baseless claim that ASIO4All somehow conflicts with my audio drivers, and giving the unhelpful advice to uninstall it, you just serve to muddy the waters, likely resulting in the issue *not* being addressed because of the implied user error involved.

I only even mentioned ASIO4All because i wanted the devs to know - at the time of the crash - there was one available ASIO driver, and not zero like my first post and implied.

I wouldn't report issues if I wasn't confident they were legitimate. Having to defend myself against accusations of it somehow being my own fault, is tiring, and to be honest, just makes me not want to bother in future.

ps. Ableton 9 also does not crash - it correctly informs me that my audio interface is not available.

Hello Daniel, I believe you may have mistaken my advice as a personal attack. It was not. Just stating facts that it appeared maybe you were unaware of.

As far as it being baseless, consider this comment from Focusrite: https://support.focusrite.com/hc/en-gb/ ... Interface-

Then maybe plug the search phrase 'conflict with ASIO4all' into Google and see what you get. It's not an unknown problem. ASIO4all is not totally bad, such as when used on a computer with only the built-in audio, which is what it was designed for. I use it on my laptop with integrated RealTek audio, but not on my main DAW with a dedicated external ASIO interface.

Crashing is obviously not the correct response from any DAW, including Waveform, so that should be fixed. The conflicts I was referring to could also come in forms other than crashing, such as the DAW not being able to locate your ASIO driver. That is all up to how the DAW developer codes his stuff.

[profwesson]

If you have both a dedicated audio device driver installed + ASIO4all installed, that could cause conflicts.

If you have a dedicated audio interface and driver, you should uninstall the other stuff, and rely on the factory audio driver.

I realise that you are trying to help, but i find this response to be frustrating. I've presented evidence that Waveform crashes when its last selected audio interface is not present. Another user confirmed it. Given that other DAWs (T6) don't do this, its almost certainly an issue with Waveform. I just wanted the developers to be aware of this, giving them an opportunity to address it whenever they deemed appropriate. By making that baseless claim that ASIO4All somehow conflicts with my audio drivers, and giving the unhelpful advice to uninstall it, you just serve to muddy the waters, likely resulting in the issue *not* being addressed because of the implied user error involved.

I only even mentioned ASIO4All because i wanted the devs to know - at the time of the crash - there was one available ASIO driver, and not zero like my first post and implied.

I wouldn't report issues if I wasn't confident they were legitimate. Having to defend myself against accusations of it somehow being my own fault, is tiring, and to be honest, just makes me not want to bother in future.

ps. Ableton 9 also does not crash - it correctly informs me that my audio interface is not available.

Hello Daniel, I believe you may have mistaken my advice as a personal attack. It was not. Just stating facts that it appeared maybe you were unaware of.

As far as it being baseless, consider this comment from Focusrite: https://support.focusrite.com/hc/en-gb/ ... Interface-

Then maybe plug the search phrase 'conflict with ASIO4all' into Google and see what you get. It's not an unknown problem. ASIO4all is not totally bad, such as when used on a computer with only the built-in audio, which is what it was designed for. I use it on my laptop with integrated RealTek audio, but not on my main DAW with a dedicated external ASIO interface.

Crashing is obviously not the correct response from any DAW, including Waveform, so that should be fixed. The conflicts I was referring to could also come in forms other than crashing, such as the DAW not being able to locate your ASIO driver. That is all up to how the DAW developer codes his stuff.

See my comments above.

[zzz00m]

See my comments above.

I was not disagreeing with you, nor do I doubt your report. All I am suggesting to the other poster was to easily eliminate the possibility that other variables may be contributing to the issue, so that will assist the developers get to the root of the problem quicker. They need to be able to reproduce the bug in the lab in order to fix it. Your example should be useful.

[zzz00m]

I just turned off my audio interface with Waveform 9 running (which I normally never do, since it is bus powered from my PC). W9 crashed immediately. No crash messages or appcrash logs, just the W9 window completely disappearing.

I did the same with Waveform 8 64-bit running and it did not crash, but just saw a little tool tip type message that it could not open device.

Turned the interface back on, but still no audio in W8, so I had to restart Waveform to get the audio device recovered again in W8.

Very interesting...