Rfcousins

10 hours ago, Will_Kaydo said:

It this doesn't happen on USB 2.0 ports - That means you're using the USB2.0 cables. Double check and make sure you're using the USB 3.0 cables for 3.0 ports that came with it. 

Tascam USB20X20 USB3.0 comes with both USB3.0 cables and USB2.0 cables. 

Also check if you dont have a forgotten Asio4All drivers installed on you system still. 

Both my Scarlett and Twin had problems having both interface drivers and Asio4All drivers on the system. 

Actually, my US-20x20 only came with the USB 3.0 cable. My sense was that the difference was in the plug type that connects to the interface. The computer connection seems the same as USB 2.0 . Anyway, this is the only cable that I have tried as it is the one that connects to the interface properly. Never have used/installed Asio4All drivers.

Thanks again for the input.

Roger

19 hours ago, jackson white said:

What is the make and model of your motherboard?

fwiw, I'm using a US-20x20 into a USB 3.1 port on a rack mount PC.

Motherboard is ASUS P8P67-M..........USB 3.0 port on the motherboard. I tried a FebSmart 3.1 card from Amazon and the USB 20x20 was recognized but Cakewalk was locked/frozen trying to access. Aside from this 17-23 project (Not respronding) issue, all else seems to be fine.

Thanks for weighing in!

Roger

11 hours ago, Starship Krupa said:

As a former professional software QA engineer, with such a precise (and well-observed, I might add) symptom, there are questions to be asked outside of the usual "running out of memory" "bad drive," etc.

The most important one is: what event happens on your system each time you open (or possibly save or close) a project? There is some event, such as initializing the ASIO driver, the MIDI port, something like that. After the 22nd time, it breaks something. Software bugs are sometimes like this.

My guess, since it stops happening when you disconnect the TASCAM (good troubleshooting, BTW), is that there is something going on either in its driver or in the hardware itself. It can only take being reinitialized (or whatever) 22 times before going into an error condition. Did the change in the number of projects opened coincide with a change in buffer size? If you switch to WASAPI driver mode, does it still exhibit the problem?

It is a little unusual to open and save 22 projects in a row, so it's possible that TASCAM didn't test for this exact condition in the driver software or the interface's firmware. In any case, you have identified the component that is most likely the source of the issue: your audio interface. Contact TASCAM and see if anyone else has experienced similar issues.

Great advice. I will test and report tomorrow. I also copied your post to Tascam support for reaction.

Regards,

Roger

16 hours ago, LarsF said:

"Where would I check on the pagefile setting etc?"

Starship Krupa mentioned it above, rather early task manager Performance tab.

How much physical memory are you having free just booted computer?
You have 24 GB in your specs for computer. So around 20 GB free is probably close.

How much free as Cakewalk is started?
How much after first project loaded?
How much after 2nd project loaded?

....and so forth.

Are you getting less and less free memory all the time?
A little is normal depending how much a project contains in sampler plugin instances etc.

So when getting to 17th - what does it say in free memory in Performance tab?
You can also look at memory in the Processes tab, how much Cakewalk alone is using.
But overall free memory in system will probably do - it probably says available physical memory somewhere.


When you start getting above 75% of physical ram memory used, windows is starting to use pagefile swapping to virtual memory, This is simply using a file on disk as temporary storage to extend capabilities overall what can run.

But just below 10 GB memory or so available might having system use pagefile, so just get the number of what task manager Performance says is free when you feel system is getting slow.

Since you had harddrives earlier this would use some memory as read cache for things you loaded. Now using SSD this read caching is not needed in the same way, since reading arbitrary spot on disk is so much faster and read caching.

So mission is
- put a number here on forum for taskmanager available memory as you getting a slow system(17th load or whatever)
- size of pagefile or virtual memory also put that number here

That will give clues what is going on....

Great advice,

I will get after testing this tomorrow !

Regards.

Roger

8 hours ago, LarsF said:

First I come to think of if 17 projects are open at the same time?
- mean if closing one before opening next

There is a setting in preferences if to allow more than one project at a time.
Then current project is replaced as another is opened.

And OP never answered how much free memory task manager show as new projects are opened(or I missed it)?
24 GB is plenty for one project, for 17 project not so much.

Behavior is typical for pagefile is starting to be swapped with physical memory, that is reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaalllllllllllly slow.

And the advanced settings to automatically save every x changes or a time span is also under suspicion.

I am only opening one project at a time. The behavior occurs when I open the 17th or the 23rd project by itself. I have the setting in preferences set to one project at a time. I do not automatically save every x changes.

Where would I check on the pagefile setting etc?

22 hours ago, Will_Kaydo said:

Check your plugins - it could be a vst. Bypass each one individually and check if it still happens. 

Also check if the project you open are not linked to a second project that might be hanging open and "Saved As."

I had this rare issue last year sometime.  I had two projects open and every 30 mins or so, I would flip between the two, to make the deadline. Somehow, they got linked and saved as such.  

I had to go through 20 saved versions to fix this issue. It took me a while to figure this out. Thought-oh-no! Project lost. 

If you have different copies of the same project - open the from the project folder and see if the problem still persist. 

I will work on the checking the VST's. Thanks for the suggestion. Not sure how I would check to see if a project is linked to another. Can you point me there?

By the way I can STOP the behavior by running Cakewalk without connection to my Tascam 20X20 USB, or by connecting the Tascam to USB2.0 port.

Did I mention that none of this happens on my Lenovo Thinkpad i7 16Gig Ram 2X Samsung 860 EVO SSD's, Same Tascam connected to USB3.0 port, Same Version of WIn 10 64bit.

I am focused on the USB3.0 ports of my desktop for now. Pondering an add-on USB3.0 card to try instead of the motherboard ports.

Keep those thoughts coming, I will check them all as time permits. Many thanks:

Here is the latest observation: This does not occur when connected to USB2.0 port.

UPDATE: This problem seems to be related to my Tascam USB20X20 USB 3.0 interface. Updated driver: No luck Disabled ports on motherboard and installed new USB3.1 card: No luck. I am close but just can't pin it down yet. Any suggestions appreciated.

Uninstalled Cakewalk and reinstalled latest version. NO CHANGE! Again (Not Responding) on the 17th file. 

UPDATE: Laptop Lenovo T530 does not exhibit the behavior. FYI.......checked on all the settings for a system running SSD drives. A couple of changes there , but nothing that corrects the problem. Going to try the "clean boot next". What a pain this small thig has become. THanks for the help and support.

Memory Test Shows no issues. File count before problem has now changed to "23" projects. S.M.A.R.T. hd tests show no errors! Open to anything else to test or try.

Thanks for the help again ! 

Interesting that you are thinking iffy HD. I just upgraded to Samsung 860 SSD's for both of my drives because I felt my 10 year old WD 7200 rpm was going soft. I need to see if I can duplicate this issue with my laptop that is very close in spec to my desktop.

Thanks for the help so far.

Yes I am using 2 displays. Not sure where you are suggesting I look for RAM usage. Can you be more specific for Win 10 Ver 1909 64 bit?

I know this post will seem too strange to be credible, but I have verified it many times over the last week.

I have been editing my entire project library to modify screensets and a few other minor settings. This is 1000's of projects.

They are MIDI only for the most part.

I began to find that every so many files, Cakewalk would begin to "buffer" and display "Not Responding" in the title bar. This would resolve itself after several seconds and would repeat after each new "mouse click" until the project was saved. The behavior would continue for each successive project. Only by restarting the computer would Cakewalk return to "normal" behavior. Restarting Cakewalk would not correct the problem, only restarting the computer. Next, I began counting the number of projects that I could work on before the behavior would return. I expected this to be random but was surprised to find that in fact it could be relied upon to appear every 17 project files loaded.

I have no clue what to investigate next ! Open to all suggestions. Happy to try anything to resolve this.

My next thought is a "Bad RAM stick". Don't want to mess under the hood unless others think it is worth the effort.

Thanks for any input!

Also notice that Playlist window sizing will not allow stretching to bottom when using fullscreen without jumping to top of screen. Does not maintain location when moving from full screen to normal display size.

After further investigation:

 A project that contains a loop that is saved in the "ON" state will load by itself in the "On" state. The same project when loaded from the playlist will load with the Loop function in the "Off" state and "crash/end" playback at the end of the loop marker.  

Just noticed this today as I have very few files that use the "Loop" function. Project will only play until end of loop and then stops abruptly to load and play next project. 

Currently running Ver 2020.11 and love it !

3 hours ago, scook said:

When to comes to per-project settings the only recourse for existing projects is change them one at a time.

To insure future projects are setup as needed, change the project templates.

DO NOT overwrite factory supplied templates as changes may get lost when updating the DAW.

Another way to insure custom templates are never overwritten is change the template path in preferences and write new templates into the new path.

The installers update the original default template path only.

 

Got it! Thanks

3 hours ago, Matthew Sorrels said:

It depends on the template you use to create the project (these are per-project settings).  But all the default templates get reinstalled every time you update.  So you either have to edit them and save them as new templates (and never use the defaults) or every time you make a new project you may have to tweak the project settings.

Thanks for the clarification. This helps with understanding any randomness of the issue. I am still left wondering, when did this setting begin affecting the selection of screensets during playback. I can certainly edit my files ( so many files) to adjust for the behavior, and take care going forward, but I am surprised that it is only in the latest releases that the behavior has revealed itself. Strangely, even my very old projects have this option checked. Anyway thanks for getting me on track ! 

4 hours ago, Promidi said:

The "MIDI Event Chase on Play" has always been there (All though in older versions of Cakewalk/Sonar it was called "Patch/Controller Searchback before play starts")

The "Include Note Events." feature was added in Sonar Platinum/Professional/Artist in the 2017.1 update

This is a per project setting.  There is no global setting for this as far as I know.

Thanks for the historical update. Since I have been a user since DOS versions it leaves me wondering why there is a sudden connection with changing "Screensets" during playback which is a new observed behavior. Anyway, The info leaves me able to correct the behavior, just a lot of files to go thru. 

On 10/31/2020 at 4:27 PM, Matthew Sorrels said:

MIDI Event Chase on Play and Include Note Events are both checked.  Zero Controllers When Play Stops is unchecked.

Thanks for this. When did this change? Is there a Global setting or only per project. This is effecting 1000's of my files UGH!

Playback "stumbles" when changing screensets.

Just noticed this behavior by accident. Playing a simple MIDI only project and changing Screensets causes playback to "stumble" or drop out momentarily. Can't say when this began, but I rolled back to last public release and the same thing occurs. Tried changing the MIDI playback buffers to "1000" with no change. Also experimented with Thread Scheduling models with no success there.

Love the recent updates.......love Cakewalk as always since 1992.

Regards to all the Bakers!

Audio Clicks SOLVED!

I was pursuing a problem where changing "Screensets" during playback of MIDI only project would stumble playback.  I was checking my "Preferences_ Configuration File " settings and decided to try changing the "Properties" Thread Scheduling Model to see what effect if any occurred. The setting when I opened the window was "2".

I lowered the demand to a setting of "1" and my Screenset issues was resolved. 

It has been so long that I have been putting up with the Audio Click when opening and closing projects that it took about 15 minutes before I realized that it was no longer happening.  

Hope that this helps someone else who might be looking to resolve this minor but very annoying behavior.

Cakewalk is still the best for me after 30 years.

I had to give up on my  Firestudio Interface because the driver was no longer compatible with Win10 after Version 1803. Presonus of course is no longer supporting the device. Hope that helps! 

I have a very consistent "click" or "pop" when each project is loaded or closed. This began with the previous version and I have found nothing to stop the behavior.

WIN Ver 1909 on Lenovo laptop i7 2.6 ghz with 12 Gig Ram. Tascam USB 3.0 20x20 with drivers from Feb 2020.

2020.4 started this issue and no change for 2020.05. Otherwise I am very happy. If only this annoying "pop" would go away! LOL.

All suggestions welcome! 

Thank yo to all for the input.......I will investigate and report any positive result.