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Cakewalk freezing if left untouched for a while


Astral

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Hey there

Cakewalk hangs every time I leave it unattended. I usually leave Cakewalk and the project I am working on opened in the evening if I plan to work on it the next day. Well- the next day- I press play and it hanging and hanging and wheel is spinning, and if I click anywhere, everything turns gray and freezes. 

If this sounds familiar- few months ago I posted about the similar problem that was happening with my older computer.  The older computer was not able to start song at all. It would just hang, hang and then freeze. Kind of like this new computer, actually. The difference is that with the old computer, restarting it was not solving it. With this new computer, if I restart, it works normally. I can work for hours. No freezing, until I leave it sit for few hours. 

So with the old computer, I replaced my Seagate E drive (the recording drive) and it solved the issue. So with my newer (2017) computer, I am thinking- maybe the drives fall asleep and Cakewalk is not able to wake it up? So I am trying to play wav files with wav player and everything is responding. (The old computer had difficulties playing .wav files). What is the chance that I have another HDD failure ready to happen? 2 different computers have the same problem in a few months? I would not be surprised of Seagate failing, but could it be something else? Like right now I typed this entire message and ate a snack and it still frozen. The main Cakewalk Window does not even come from background- only cursor is visible. Any thoughts? I am off to restart... Thank you. 

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It is unlikely that this is a drive failure. It sounds like something is timing out. In today's world of battery operated computers a lot of the default settings in software and even hardware are designed to detect user activity and shut off if there is no evidence that anyone is using it. Check Windows power settings to be sure that everything is set to always on or the equivalent. Make sure you are not using a "power saving" drive that will turn itself off without getting a message from the OS.

Another possibility is that something is scheduled to run when there is no activity (software update etc.) and that they disconnect running applications when they come online. Check your schedules and your logs to see if anything unexpected started overnight.

As a kludge while waiting to find the answer, try hibernating your computer rather than just leaving it running. 

Edited by slartabartfast
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Thank you for your replies. This is a desktop, nothing should time out. I will double check, but I had all power settings on Never, this computer glows in the dark all night- I have 2 43" displays and they never turn off because in the past I had experience when graphic card would not wake up and restarting it by power off failed C drive (another computer). So I keep everything on. I did have WD Green in the past, that thing would fall asleep and would take almost a minute to wake up when needed, but not on this computer. I have M.2 SSD for C drive, 3 other SSDs, Western Digital Black and 2 Seagate HDDs. None supposed to sleep. I do have Norton Antivirus that likes to run processes while computer is inactive. But I did not know it may disconnect other running software. I dont remember this happening in the past- this is new issue with BandLab version of Cakewalk.  Not sure how I would disable it- worth to look in to it. Where can I check Schedules other than Norton? There are running services, but I would not mass with that- had once service stopping- was not able to run backups- I am not that smart to fix it.

USB power management? How would it affect Cakewalk? The mouth and keyboard are working, so as USB keyboard. Thank you. 

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First of all, do your monitors not have power switches? No need to waste electricity just because you are afraid your graphics driver will screw up if powered down. Turning them off at the power switch leaves everything else running unless you have a really weird setup. 

A USB stop might affect Cakewalk if you are using a peripheral (audio interface?) connected to them. Cakewalk might glitch if it tries to re-connect to an interface that is no longer available.  Windows updates are notorious for re-setting your power options. 

Finding scheduled applications is not as easy as it sounds because some of them do not behave the way Windows expects. You can check to see if anything shows up in the Windows Task Scheduler--at least some programs will use that as a way to start. If you are leaving your computer running, then it may also be affected by programs on the network not just your computer, or by software on the computer calling home to reauthorize etc. So it might be wise to disconnect from the network to see if it affects the problem.

https://windowsreport.com/schedule-tasks-windows-10/

You can find the logs that show what applications are doing unattended in the background under the Event Viewer.  Not an easy tool to use, but worth the effort if a simpler solution can be found. You may get useful information from the logs that will tell you more specifically what problem Cakewalk is having when you try to start it up again as well as an indication of what applications may be coming onboard during "inactivity."

https://www.howtogeek.com/school/using-windows-admin-tools-like-a-pro/lesson3/

I hibernate my Win 10 computer dozens of times a week without problems, so that is certainly an option. Hibernation generally puts the machine into a state that is resistant to messing up by other applications, but the scheduler will wake it up if that is set. Windows updates and some backup programs will do that on occasion. If you do not have space, you can move the hiberfil file to a bigger drive than C.

 

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Thank you for your replies. I have to sit down and try all your suggestions- I am working on urgent project due tomorrow, so can't test it right this second, but thank you- great ideas. 

As I pointed out earlier- the Keyboard, mouse and NI Kontrol keyboard are all working, so it is not likely USB going out (also I remember- when USB turns off, it leaves keyboard and mouse on, right?)

My audio interface is Thunderbolt 2 MOTU 1248 and 16A. The Thunderbolt connected by add on internal card to USB-C connected to Thunderbolt 3 to 2 converter. I dont know if any of these sleep. However, when Cakewalk hangs up, I can play audio files, which means- the soundcard is active. 

And yes, I do have power button on monitors. The thing is- I have to turn them off and turn them on exactly at the same time, otherwise, all my Cakewalk software synths windows jump on one screen, and then I have to drag them to the right screen one by one. They connected by Display Ports and if one goes off, everything moves to one that stays on- it is frustrating. When I come back I have everything on the wrong screens depending on what I turned on first. 

I had Cakewalk idle for couple of hours and it working. So it hangs when left overnight. Yes, there are many synths opened and installed, something may try to verify license but it should not disable cakewalk, you would think? Thank you. 

Edited by Astral
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5 hours ago, Noel Borthwick said:

It's could be possibly related to the asio driver not responding after the system wakes up.

Is the UI also frozen or does it only appear frozen when playback is started?

Sounds right. I have my CbB running and go do something else for a couple of hours.

When i come back, the first thing to do is turning off the audio engine and then turning it on again. That wakes CbB from the dead.

Well, at least for me. :)

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