Unhandled Exception - dmp files unreadable

[JustinY]

HELP! Cakewalk newbie here.

Cakewalk crashes every time I hit stop after playback. Fatal error, Unhandled Exception. I can't identify the problem since the .dmp files are unreadable (possibly corrupt). Most recent dmp file attached if anyone wants to see if they can open it.

No idea what to do if the dmp file can't be read.

Running Windows 10, 16GB RAM, Intel Core i7-6700

Whats Next_04202020_150309.dmp

[Matthew Sorrels]

You need a debugger to read a dump file, you can't just open it.

Your crash is inside Cakewalk, not inside a plugin, only someone from Cakewalk could tell you more about what exactly crashed.  But looking at the dump your version of mfc120u.dll, mfc120.dll and mfc140u.dll aren't current.  You may need to update your Visual Studio runtimes.  Since Cakewalk uses MFC having older versions can cause issues.  I'd consider updating them.

The other interesting thing is the main Cakewalk thread is doing a GdiPlus.dll!ConvexRasterizer which is an operation for drawing on the screen.  It's not crashing in that thread, but the fact it's doing something with the screen usually points to a problem with your video card drivers.  Do you have an embeded video in the project?

My simple advice, run Windows Update and update every single thing you can.  Then go here

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/2977003/the-latest-supported-visual-c-downloads

And download and install at least the Visual Studio 2015, 2017 and 2019 64-bit version and the Visual Studio 2013 installer (the first one in that section should be fine).

Then go get the most recent version of your video card driver and install that.  Then see if Cakewalk still crashes.

[JustinY]

2 minutes ago, Matthew Sorrels said:

You need a debugger to read a dump file, you can't just open it.

Thanks, Matthew. I downloaded a few dmp readers, but one told me the files were possibly corrupt and the other, Blue Window(?), couldn't open it. Could have been user error.

[JustinY]

5 minutes ago, Matthew Sorrels said:

The other interesting thing is the main Cakewalk thread is doing a GdiPlus.dll!ConvexRasterizer which is an operation for drawing on the screen.  It's not crashing in that thread, but the fact it's doing something with the screen usually points to a problem with your video card drivers.  Do you have an embeded video in the project?

No embeded videos in the project so that is interesting.

I'll try everything you suggested.

Thanks!

[Matthew Sorrels]

1 hour ago, JustinY said:

Thanks, Matthew. I downloaded a few dmp readers, but one told me the files were possibly corrupt and the other, Blue Window(?), couldn't open it. Could have been user error.

Those can be sort of hit or miss.  If you really want to look at a crash dump I'd recommend installing Visual Studio 2019 Community edition (it's free at Microsoft).  Then inside it do a file->open and pick the .dmp file.  Then start debugging.  It will let you see everything involved in the crash that it can pull out.  It's exactly what I did with your crash.  There is only so much you can do without the symbols for the programs you are debugging though, but you can at least get a feel for what may have happened.

Cakewalk uses a DLL for video and it was loaded in your crash, but I think it's always loaded (even if you don't have a video as part of the project) but crashes painting the screen like that aren't all that common unless some video driver is a problem.  Reading a crash is kind of like solving a puzzle, a lot of it is just guessing though.  Good luck.