Richard DeAngelis

Promidi - thanks for stepping up!! My Cakewalk is the latest update. I have the full ProChannel suite of plugins. I have a tried your suggestions regarding updating AD2 (I ran the XLN Online Installer and updated everything). I also renamed the Aud.ini, and recreated it. I see the new AUD file, but no difference. Still a herky-jerky transport and no sound (though I see meters moving). Then I removed AD2 from the Synth Rack and deleted the MIDI tracks so that there are only 3 Audio tracks in the project with no plugins running. Still no difference. I rebooted a few times. No difference. My Audio drive is 37% full. My boot drive is 42% full. I see no excessive CPU or memory activity. All other apps work fine. The only recent change made to the system is to add the NI Guitar Rig 6 Plugin to my system. But it installed fine and I am not using it in my current faulty project. I have 249 plugins, but all load without errors. I am using a Focusrite Scarlett 18i8 Gen2 Interface in ASIO mode at 44.1/24-bit with 256 buffer. I guess my next step is to delete and replace the Focusrite driver with the latest? But am skeptical that this will help. Does anyone have any other ideas? Could a Windows Update cause this? This is really unusual, and I am stopped dead in my work. THANKS!!!!! Audio IF: Focusrite 18i8 2nd Gen. ASIO mode. 24bit 44.1khz 256 samples Software: Cakewalk by Bandlab (Always the latest build) Rapture Pro, Z3TA+ 2, Addictive drums 2, Addictive Keys, Acustica Plugins, Focusrite Red Plugins, Misc VST2 and VST3 (not part of current issue)

My Cakewalk by Bandlab config on 2020.11 is running on a Win 10 system, with an i5-7400 3.0Ghz series proc and 16GB of memory. I was running flawless as recently as yesterday, and have been running flawlessly for over a year now. Today I rebooted the system midday and it ran awhile before I went to work again - a couple of hours went by with the system idle. When I came back I was totally unable to play my 4 track project (with Addictive drums as the only plugin). I have 3 recorded mic tracks that are audio WAV, and the one Addictive drum track. I am getting "Audio Dropout 9" - which is a MIDI buffer dropout error. I checked everything. I increased this MIDI buffer from 256 to 512. My boot and audio SSD drives have plenty of free space, they have been defragged. I turned off ALL background apps - never had to do that before. And still, after several reboots, when I start the track the playback is not smooth, it stops and starts. There is no audio playback sound at all. And then I get Audio Dropout (9) and it crashes. I have been using Cakewalk since Sonar 3. Over 20 years i am pretty good with troubleshooting, but this one has me completely stumped. Can anyone help? Do I need to rename the AUD.INI for a safe copy and then rebuild it like we did in the "old days"? Thank you SO MUCH in advance for any assistance you can offer!! Cakewalk Forum members are the best!

Thanks to everyone who contributed! Great advice! But my new friend Scook just nailed the issue! It was an unauthorized CA-2A Plug-in. I checked the old Forum for the offline authentication process, and got it done in under 5 minutes! Thank you Scook! Seriously! Some of the affected projects did not even have the CA-2A actively in use! But it must've been there somewhere, causing the audio drops! Base57 - thanks for the tip of using "e". I was looking for that. I have been using Sonar since Sonar 3, when it was owned by Twelve Tone. I have helped troubleshoot a lot of Cakewalk issues, but this one was not in the Forum that I could find. And I was not getting it done without your help. Thanks! To be gracious to all questions asked, I am using a new Focusrite Scarlett 2nd Gen 18i8 USB Interface. The Output routing is pretty idiot-proof, and it all looks OK. Was the CA-2A. I think this new Forum is great! I am going to hang here more often, and help where I can. Thanks - Rick

Yes Grem, I did check cables and wires and drivers, etc.. And again, some projects work consistently great. And one of them that works great has many tracks and many synths and plug-ins. But not a glitch! While other projects consistently have the 2-sec muting issue. To me, that minimizes the chance that the problem is computer hardware related. I agree more with the theory of a demo plugin that is timed out, or a missing plugin authorization. But, I have never known Cakewalk's plug-ins to use that method of licensing enforcement. Waves maybe, but there are no Waves plug-ins on many of the problematic projects. I use mostly the Cakewalk ProChannel SSL and 1176 and the CA-2A. I use mostly the ProChannel EQ. I use the VX-64 Vocal Strip?? Is that authorized as part of CakeWalk by Bandlab? I'm pretty sure it is project-specific and a software problem. But I am at a total loss for ideas at this point. If any Bandlab Support Engineers are reading this, I'd appreciate any advice as to where to look for a cause. Thanks - Rick DeAngelis

Thanks for everyone's input. Still having the 2-second mute issue, but I have more data points to share. This is like a puzzle... 1. My Addictive Drums installer is authorized and fully "green" in color and happy. Plays fine too. Doesn't seem to be it. 2. There are no other plug-ins to remove on the problematic projects. I reviewed and removed them all. Still the same issue. 3. I have 5 projects with the playback issue. But I have 2 similar projects that play fine! And the 2 that play fine have a ton of the same plugins and are larger track-counts! In any case, it is definitely project specific! Not the system hardware. Some projects play stellar. 4. Even when I strip all plug ins off, and resave a new version, same issue. 5. My one suspect is TruePiano, which is no longer included in Cakewalk. But I removed all tracks with TruePiano instantiated. And I removed TruePiano from the Synth Rack. But the staggered mutes still happen. Hope this helps someone to recognize a potential cause? Thanks to the Forum for your help!! Rick DeAngelis

Hello Forum! I am experiencing about intermittent muting of my Cakewalk project(s) audio upon playback. These mutes last about 2 seconds. This is happening on all of my existing projects. I know what Audio drop-outs feel like. I have been using Sonar since Sonar3. This feels different. The processor and disk meters are not pinning at all! There is barely a pulse of activity showing on the SSD drives. And the playback does not cease or stutter. Yet the audio mutes and unmutes for about 2-seconds every 30 seconds or so. But it is NOT in the same place each time in the songs. It does not appear to be in the tracks. I just upgraded to a new Windows 10 Home HP pavilion PC. I cloned the Windows OS drive onto a 6GB/s SSD drive, and then I added a SATA3 Controller to the PCI-e bus and added a 2nd 6GB/s SSD Drive to house my /Cakewalk Projects folders. This PC has 16GB of DDR4 memory and brand new i5-7400 Processor. After installing my Focusrite Scarlett Driver software and installing Cakewalk by Bandlab through the Bandlab assistant, I installed all of my owned Cakewalk ProChannel Plugins and Addictive drums and a few Waves Plugins. Everything installed OK - and I worked out some registration issues so everything is licensed properly. Yet all of my projects experience these 2-second mutes periodically. I deleted the AUD.INI and let it rebuild. I removed any non-installed plugins from older projects. None of this helps. Please advise, as I was so excited to have all of this SSD power, and never expected such an issue. I have been with Sonar and Cakewalk for over 15 years. I'm confident there must be a fix for this. Bandlab has done a superb job with the Cakewalk code thus far! Thanks for that! Can anyone help? Rick DeAngelis