Waveform 11 OEM Crashes constantly

[Just Ali]

Good evening,
Sorry if this is a thread that is already active, but I am having a terrible time with the programme at the moment.
I'm a compleate noob to this DAW stuff but have been using Tracktion since the beginning of the year and have been getting on just fine with it and even started to add VST's!
Today has been a nightmare.
Everything has been working fine until yesterday when I downloaded a couple of Vocoder VST's, again, still working fine. Today, as soon as i try to do anything other than playback or record MIDI notes it comes to a complete standstill.
The MIDI data records fine but won't playback, this has happened before, but I've just gone into settings and deactivated/reactivated the MIDI input/output them it seems to reset. As soon as I do this now the little circle of doom appears, the screen goes white and the dialogue box of Non Response appears.
I've tried everything, delete all the plugins, reboot the laptop and deleted Waveform and reinstalled it but to no avail.
I'm out of ideas, I know you clever people will, though!

Please help

[Peter Widdicombe]

Does your computer sound much busier than before? Microsoft just updated Windows 10 features again... It does have an impact on system resources, and can cause Non-Responsive to appear on busier apps.

[gigazaga]

Try turning off "Enable Plugin Sandboxing" on Settings tab, Plugins page. It might not help but would be a good experiment to see if that helps.

[Just Ali]

Does your computer sound much busier than before? Microsoft just updated Windows 10 features again... It does have an impact on system resources, and can cause Non-Responsive to appear on busier apps.

Hi Peter, thanks for the reply.
I have looked and there is a couple of updates Security Intelligence for Defender. The computer doesn't seem to be busier than normal and looking a Task Manager there doesn't seem any more unusual activity than normal.

Before loading Waveform

before.PNG

After loading Waveform

after.PNG

Using the CPU guide in the top right of Waveform a barely go into double figures. There are no plugins etc inserted.

Ta, Ali

[Just Ali]

Try turning off "Enable Plugin Sandboxing" on Settings tab, Plugins page. It might not help but would be a good experiment to see if that helps.

Hi Gigazaga,
Thanks for the suggestion, I've just given that a quick go, but that doesn't seem to have helped. It still crashed. At the moment i haven't got any pluging, VST's or owt else running in case it was that issue. I'm at a loss

[Just Ali]

I'm just thinking it might be MIDI related. I can receive MIDI messages (shows up on piano roll etc) but won't send out. The whole thing crashes when you try to eneable/disable the MIDI ports.
Does that make sense?

[gigazaga]

I suggest saving the log file right after a crash and send it to support. You can find it from Help in the menu or from Settings tab, Maintenance page.

[Just Ali]

Cool, OK will do. Cheers Gigazaga

[Watchful]

Is it only crashing with the vocoder?

Vocoders can be tricky as hell. Not all work the same way.

In some cases, you put the "audio" in one track, and then send that or bounce it to a second track that holds the MIDI clips *as well as the vocoder VST.* Other vocoders can go on the audio track but will pull data in from a MIDI track with no VST. It's very confusing, but that's up to whomever wrote the VST in question.

There's a video Tracktion produced coincidentally the other day that might help you...or make it more confusing.

I suspect you may be trying to reroute your audio ins and outs and MIDI ins and outs from the setup menu, which is causing your copy of Waveform to crash in confusion.

Hate to ask--what's the manual for you vocoding vst say to do?

[Just Ali]

Is it only crashing with the vocoder?

Vocoders can be tricky as hell. Not all work the same way.

In some cases, you put the "audio" in one track, and then send that or bounce it to a second track that holds the MIDI clips *as well as the vocoder VST.* Other vocoders can go on the audio track but will pull data in from a MIDI track with no VST. It's very confusing, but that's up to whomever wrote the VST in question.

There's a video Tracktion produced coincidentally the other day that might help you...or make it more confusing.

I suspect you may be trying to reroute your audio ins and outs and MIDI ins and outs from the setup menu, which is causing your copy of Waveform to crash in confusion.

Hate to ask--what's the manual for you vocoding vst say to do?

Hi Watchful,
It was the TAL vocoder. Followed the routing etc.

It seems the issue doesn't appear to be anything to do with plugins. I've deleted them all. Tracktion support sent me a link to download the 10.5.2 version (was running it anyway) and just started from scratch. It's still crashing and not sending MIDI. I've tried reinstalling the Audio Interface driver as well.
Oh well, I'll keep trying

Cheers.

[Just Ali]

I'm obviously some sort of idiot.
I decided to actually remove the power lead out of the back of the Audio Interface (even though it is still on USB power from the computer) and replug it in. Now everthing is working fine. MIDI notes are now being sent out and the program doesn't crash selecting MIDI inputs.
It still doesn't make sense to why the Crave and instruments MIDI thru'd that didn't work as they are through USB MIDI input and not associated with the Audio Interface.

Ah well *shrugs*, thank you all for your help!

Many thanks.

[Watchful]

Nope, you're not an idiot. It sometimes becomes necessary to reset USB devices, like your audio interface. A driver issue, a driver update, or a Windows update can cause weirdness from time to time like this. Restarting your audio interface or hub can become necessary, or sometimes just unplugging it and unplugging it can reset the system.

This happens a lot more than people realize, and it's obviously natural to suspect it's software issues, and is more of a driver issue. Glad you tried what you did! Now get back to work on your vocoding!

[Peter Widdicombe]

... and some computer systems compound the problem with "always powered on" USB ports. I have a desktop system that I do shut down every night, thinking everything gets restarted. I found MIDI through a USB UNO just wasn't responding at one time. Probably noticed it just after loading one of the Beta Waveform releases, so assumed a setting changed default behavior.

Turns out the UNO was acting up. Resetting the system still didn't fix the problem, and then noticed the light on it didn't go out even when the system was fully powered down - so possibly it had been running with no hardware reset for months! Unplugging and replugging forced a hardware reset of the UNO, and all back to normal again.