Audio Engine stops after drag and drop of Audio file

[John Vere]

I’ve been trying to capture it on video but of course the minute I set that up it won’t do it. 
For a long time now I’ve had my workflow include the process of exporting chopped up audio tracks as 48/32 no dithering files and then I delete the chopped up track and drag the exported file in to replace the mess with a nice fresh continuous file. This has always worked flawlessly. 
I just installed the latest update. 
Within an hour of this I ran into this issue were as soon as I delete the old messy track and drag the new one in Cakewalk shuts down the audio engine and nothing will bring it back.
You can do most things like change veiws etc but project won’t play. 

I tried using undo to go back to the original track but still no audio engine. 
Only thing that works is just close and reopen the project. I don’t have to close Cakewalk. 
Dragging and dropping to the original track will cause the audio engine to stop. But if I drag it to empty space it doesn’t. 
It has happened about 4 times now. But it seems random. I always do exactly the same procedure each time. 
Seems the best way to prevent it is run OBS screen capture at same time! 

[OutrageProductions]

After you delete the chopped track and BEFORE you drag the consolidated clip back in, have you tried to save and then play the project with the track empty? What happens then?

There may be a dirty project condition that is causing it. I've seen that before, altho really rarely.

Edited November 13, 2023 by OutrageProductions

[Will.]

26 minutes ago, OutrageProductions said:

 have you tried to save and then play the project with the track empty? What happens then?

Its never a good idea to save a project when theres no audio. It will save as is. 

Trust me, I have walked that path before. 

[OutrageProductions]

35 minutes ago, Will. said:

Its never a good idea to save a project when theres no audio. It will save as is. 

Trust me, I have walked that path before. 

John made it sound as though this was a multiple track project where he was editing one-of-many tracks for consolidation. 

Of course, if there is only one track in the project,  then DUH! It won't play and there will be no audio engine enabled. 

Edited November 13, 2023 by OutrageProductions

[Will.]

57 minutes ago, OutrageProductions said:

John made it sound as though this was a multiple track project where he was editing one-of-many tracks for consolidation. 

Of course, if there is only one track in the project,  then DUH! It won't play and there will be no audio engine enabled. 

Again . . . Whether or not its a one track or a multiple track project its never a good idea to save the project as is. Trust me, I have walked that path before. 

[OutrageProductions]

You're funny.

You do you.

I've never had a project EVER that wasn't recoverable in some manner. Trust me.

Edited November 13, 2023 by OutrageProductions

[John Vere]

Saving before the drag and drop might be a solution.  Read on.  

I have a theory. The 3 tracks that crashed the audio engine all had had Melodyne applied. Of course I render immediately after working on a clip.  

This is one reason I like to consolidate so the new track is just a simple audio file not a zillion references to the original. 

So my theory is that even though I delete the audio from the track that the track is somehow still in reference to Melodyne. They actually say that when you look at the tracks info. 

But the big question is why is this now happening  if it never did before. 

 I finished that song in 2 days and now I’m back to working on a project that is 3 years old. I’m redoing vocals which will get chopped to death so we’ll see what happens when I consolidate it later today 

Of note is I am using a new audio interface. A Zoom L8. 
My buffer is at 256 like I’ve used forever. I never have changed this. 

FYI even midi only projects use the audio engine so that info is false. I’m a huge fan of saving as I work I assigned the V key so it’s right there in the Center. Undo doesn’t go away when you save and all your audio is still as it was until you actually close the project. 

Even then it is available until you Save As to a new location. It’s actually pretty hard to completely loose audio files. 

Undo was still working and I brought back the original track, But the Audio engine was still frozen. 

See - Brand new project, only a Midi track , Audio engine on.  

 

 

Edited November 13, 2023 by John Vere

[HOOK]

Why are you exporting a track and then importing that track when you could easily lasso the pieces, right click and "bounce to clips"?

[John Vere]

53 minutes ago, HOOK said:

Why are you exporting a track and then importing that track when you could easily lasso the pieces, right click and "bounce to clips"?

Because i never had any luck with that. And it opens the export dialogue anyhow so it’s no real difference. But thank for the suggestion it is another option I could try if this persists. 

[HOOK]

Wow.  Nah.  Try it.  It doesn't open export dialog.  It simply bounces to a clip....right there in place.  ALWAYS been like that.

[John Vere]

I’m just working on the third vocal track on this older project. All 3 are chopped up and have Melodyne on each clip. They will all be safely rendered . So I’ll try and see if this weird issue is going to happen . I’ll also try your bouncing method. I just seem to remember that gave me some unwanted results. Possibly the 3db issue?  
Isn’t there a bug with bouncing tracks that adds 3db of gain?  

[Base 57]

26 minutes ago, John Vere said:

Isn’t there a bug with bouncing tracks that adds 3db of gain?  

Bounce the Clips not the Track.

Bouncing the track may change the Interleave which could result in the 3db increase.

[John Vere]

Ok just tried this and yes brilliant. You can use this software for 30 years and still learn a better way to do something. I think I always use tracks and not clips. 
Big thanks to @HOOK

And @Base 57 for the clarification.  
Song is now finished and Even though there might have been an issue I’ll consider it fixed.  

[chuckebaby]

Bounce to clips is one of the most used features in Cakewalk if I had to guess.

Anytime you send a project to someone, you take all those tiny fragments (smaller clips) and bounce them to one whole clip. You can also drag the first clip to the song start so they all line up. It's online bouncing, no FX are printed (unless you have clip FX/or pro channel in some cases- See post FX).

Glad you are using this feature. It's a necessity. 

Cheers.