Network Adapter crashing Cakewalk?

[Dave K.]

Here's a weird thing.

I recently started using NordVPN on my DAW computer, and any time there is a change in VPN connectivity while Cakewalk is running, I experience a fatal exception that crashes Cakewalk.

Nominally this isn't a problem, except when there's an unexpected interruption in my VPN connection.  If NordVPN changes its connectivity status (either to connect or to disconnect), within a few seconds Cakewalk throws an error message that reads:

 

Quote

A fatal error has occurred.

Module:   C:\Program Files\Avid\Pro Tools\CFnd.dll

A crash dump file has been created here:
C:\Users\user\AppData\Roaming\Cakewalk\Cakewalk Core\MiniDumps\__10102020_131059.dmp

Exception code: c0000005
Address: 0000000000870459A:0000000000000065:0000000000000065

As a result of this error Cakewalk is about to exit abnormally.
Should Cakewalk attempt to save a recovery copy of your work?

(The crash dump file changes each time, but it also appears to simply be the data and time of the system when the exception occurs.)

Note that I can generate this message reliably irrespective of whether or not Cakewalk actually has a project open:  in the attached image I did it immediately after startup of Cakewalk.

I did find this exact error message being dealt with over on the Avid forums:

I do have Pro Tools and Avid Link on this computer.  This behavior persists even if I have neither Pro Tools nor Avid Link running in the background or have had them running at any time since a fresh boot of the computer.

https://duc.avid.com/showthread.php?t=400096

It appears that user had help from Cakewalk devs to eliminate their problem.  But their solution did not work for me.

As of now, I'm still 100% reliably able to recreate this problem.

While I was initially inclined to blame NordVPN itself, it also appears that I can reliably generate this exception by disabling the network adapters via Windows Control Panel, too.  Behavior is exactly the same whether I'm disabling or enabling the associated network adapter within Control Panel.

So it appears that Cakewalk, in the current incarnation, is highly sensitive to changes in internet connectivity.  I'm a long-time user, and I still have Sonar Platinum on this computer, and was able to recreate this behavior there, as well, so this is not a new problem.

Does anybody know a way to get Cakewalk not to care about the Internet?  I suppose I could try disabling my network card every time I need to use the program and switching back on (something I used to do when I was working on a laptop), but this is non-ideal because I've taken to keeping track of mix revisions from clients in emails or online, and having a browser open to track those notes is very useful to me.  I have already tried blocking Cakewalk from all Internet access via the Windows Firewall, but that didn't solve the problem either.

Any thoughts?

[Jeremy Oakes]

The problem is with one of Pro Tools components. Cfnd.dll

Googling to find out about this file got me 19 700 odd hits, the first pages being Avid forums etc. So its a known issue for some.

I sometimes use ExpressVPN  to logon to a work server, I don’t have any problems even if my ADSL gets cut off momentarily,. It takes just under 2 minutes for the modem to get the signal back. Cakewalk doesn’t even twitch.

IMO you need to chase up with Avid.

Cheers,

J

[Dave K.]

On 10/10/2020 at 5:49 PM, Jeremy Oakes said:

IMO you need to chase up with Avid.

You're almost definitely correct that this is a problem caused by Pro Tools.  The problem is that Avid will almost definitely decline to care because I'm using a build that isn't technically supported within their extremely narrow specified hardware for support (I'm also using a version of Pro Tools several years old because that's what is compatible with Windows 7).

[Starship Krupa]

On 10/10/2020 at 10:24 AM, Moseph said:

it appears that Cakewalk, in the current incarnation, is highly sensitive to changes in internet connectivity

Considering that in order to even install and validate the license it used to be impossible on a computer that was not connected to the Internet, I would not characterize it as such. I've run Cakewalk for years and many times lost my connection to the Internet, and it never caused a crash.

From what you describe, and from my Google search that revealed people having similar troubles with that CFND.DLL in other programs as well, I would say that Cakewalk will crash due to this defective .DLL situation. You also, BTW, are running CbB on an OS that is not officially supported. You do have my sympathy, I have friends who are clinging to old versions of Pro Tools, which in turn holds up their migration to current OSes. This is due to licensing changes and the lingering terror that upgrading PT and the OS will render their DAW useless.

It looks like @Mad Musicologist figured out a solution to this a couple of years ago, as described in the Avid support forum. I will paste his entire message, with his solution, in the hope that it will help you.  If it does, please let us know so that others may be helped by this thread:

Quote

(Mad Musicologist, obviously a standup guy, said)

Hi there.
I am only a guest: a user who encountered a similar issue with ProTools and Cakewalk by Bandlab.
The Cakewalk friends in the forum directed me to this thread which seems to be unsolved.
With their expertise - and not with help from AVID, I am afraid to say - I could get rid of the issue and hope what I will relay here might eventually help you here to solve your issue.

Cakewalk wrote: Here is what I got from the dumps you sent (thanks):

Unhandled exception at 0x000000000ABE5F5A (CFnd.dll) in Silkroad_07082018_070006.dmp: 0xC0000005: Access violation reading location 0x0000000000000000.
This means the DLL is accessing a null pointer.

The crash occurs on a thread from CFnd.dll so the crash is not in response from a direct call from Cakewalk.
15824 0 Worker Thread ntdll.dll thread CFnd.dll!000000000abe5f5a

I'm pretty sure that this is directly in response to the digiasio.dll being loaded because CFnd.dll is loaded soon after digiasio.dll is loaded when Cakewalk starts up. The reason the DLL is loaded is because they are exposing this as a standard ASIO DLL. If they don't want it loaded they shouldn't be exposing an ASIO device for public consumption

Below is the logged info I get from the dump. You can see that the digiasio.dll gets loaded first and several other Pro tools dll's then load as a result. Finally shortly afterwards it crashes in CFnd.dll. This is something only Avid can look into since I don't have any further info.

BTW you have another ASIO dll being loaded ctasio64.dll. This looks like something from Creative labs. I probably has no bearing but its best to uninstall it if you aren't using it.

'Silkroad_07082018_070006.dmp' (Minidump): Loaded '*c:\Windows\System32\digiasio.dll'. No matching binary found.
'Silkroad_07082018_070006.dmp' (Minidump): Loaded '*C:\Program Files\Avid\Pro Tools\DirectIO.dll'. No matching binary found.
'Silkroad_07082018_070006.dmp' (Minidump): Loaded '*C:\Program Files\Avid\Pro Tools\DSI.dll'. No matching binary found.
'Silkroad_07082018_070006.dmp' (Minidump): Loaded '*C:\Program Files\Avid\Pro Tools\DigiPlatformSupport.dll'. No matching binary found.
'Silkroad_07082018_070006.dmp' (Minidump): Loaded '*C:\Program Files\Avid\Pro Tools\DHS.dll'. No matching binary found.
'Silkroad_07082018_070006.dmp' (Minidump): Loaded '*C:\Program Files\Avid\Pro Tools\CFnd.dll'. No matching binary found.
'Silkroad_07082018_070006.dmp' (Minidump): Loaded 'C:\Windows\System32\IPHLPAPI.DLL'. Cannot find or open the PDB file.
'Silkroad_07082018_070006.dmp' (Minidump): Loaded 'C:\Windows\System32\mpr.dll'. Cannot find or open the PDB file.
'Silkroad_07082018_070006.dmp' (Minidump): Loaded 'C:\Windows\System32\msi.dll'. Cannot find or open the PDB file.
'Silkroad_07082018_070006.dmp' (Minidump): Loaded 'C:\Windows\System32\dbghelp.dll'. Cannot find or open the PDB file.
'Silkroad_07082018_070006.dmp' (Minidump): Loaded '*C:\Windows\System32\urlmon.dll'. No matching binary found.
'Silkroad_07082018_070006.dmp' (Minidump): Loaded '*C:\Windows\System32\iertutil.dll'. No matching binary found.
'Silkroad_07082018_070006.dmp' (Minidump): Loaded '*C:\Program Files\Avid\Pro Tools\AFnd.dll'. No matching binary found.
'Silkroad_07082018_070006.dmp' (Minidump): Loaded '*C:\Program Files\Avid\Pro Tools\DFW.dll'. No matching binary found.
'Silkroad_07082018_070006.dmp' (Minidump): Loaded '*C:\Program Files\Avid\Pro Tools\Avicuuc42.dll'. Module was built without symbols.
'Silkroad_07082018_070006.dmp' (Minidump): Loaded '*C:\Program Files\Avid\Pro Tools\Avicuin42.dll'. Module was built without symbols.
'Silkroad_07082018_070006.dmp' (Minidump): Loaded '*C:\Program Files\Avid\Pro Tools\DFW_KeyHook.dll'. No matching binary found.
'Silkroad_07082018_070006.dmp' (Minidump): Loaded '*C:\Program Files\Avid\Pro Tools\Avicudt42.dll'. Module was built without symbols.

Unhandled exception at 0x000000000ABE5F5A (CFnd.dll) in Silkroad_07082018_070006.dmp: 0xC0000005: Access violation reading location 0x0000000000000000.

I bet renaming digiasio.dll will mask the problem.

Thanks for your posts, Cakewalk friend, brillant.
I shall put that all in the thread I have with AVID.
Of course I can try out renaming that digiasio.dll, first I'd have to see the properties:
Years ago, when PtoTools was made by Digidesign, I had an LE version which I abandoned (Cakewalk Sonar was way better then!) but never deinstalled from my PC.
I turned back to PT as alternative DAW when there was the "Gibson Crash" and it was unclear what youd happen to Cakewalk after that. At that time of course I deinstalled the old PT version. But I am not sure if I did that only after installing the new PT version and some how what dll "survived" on my PC. I'll check that tonight...
If that dll is older than2 years, I will even try to delete it, start PT, and if that works, I will shred it from my bin.
Sure I will tell here, and there.
Thankx again.

(in the evening...)
Searching my PC for that file digiasio.dll, I found 2 of them with identical name but different ages (one of 2015, the other one from April 2018), and in different locations.
I deleted the older one and first tried to open ProTools, and a session there. No problem encountered.
Now I opened Cakewalk, NOT as admin, - - - NO PROBLEMS ANYMORE! Yay!
But I shall watch this....

So maybe I am not the only one with that "installation history", although such a search might take some time, for PCs: I found the bad one at
C:\Windows\SysWOW64, , no idea about Macs: please try by yourselves. This bad one I will shred now from my bin. Rest in pieces.

 

[bitflipper]

^^^ That explanation makes sense.

When I initially read the top post, I struggled to imagine a scenario in which a ProTools component could possibly crash Cakewalk. The only thing I could come up with was using a ProTools component within Cakewalk, e.g. a software instrument, but to the best of my knowledge that isn't even possible. Using an Avid-supplied ASIO driver, however, could very well explain everything.

I had a similar experience after running Samplitude. Like the OP, I had started shopping around for a backup DAW during the Gibsonacolypse and settled on Samplitude as a good candidate. However, it installed its own ASIO driver and SONAR didn't like it. I reverted to the ASIO driver that came with my interface and the problem was easily resolved. 

If changing your ASIO driver isn't a convenient solution, just switch to WASAPI for Cakewalk.

As an aside, Cakewalk is not sensitive to network issues. You can actually run it just fine with no network connection at all, something many users do in order to make their DAWs more efficient.

[scook]

16 minutes ago, bitflipper said:

I had a similar experience after running Samplitude. Like the OP, I had started shopping around for a backup DAW during the Gibsonacolypse and settled on Samplitude as a good candidate. However, it installed its own ASIO driver and SONAR didn't like it. I reverted to the ASIO driver that came with my interface and the problem was easily resolved. 

IIRC, Samplitude installs a re-badged version of ASIO4All,

Like all generic ASIO drivers (Cubase and Fruity Loops install them too), they should not be installed if one has a manufacturer supplied driver.

This may be the case with Avid too, IDK not having used ProTools or recall reading about this before.

If this is the case, one way to avoid problems is remove all the entries in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\ASIO except for the drivers provided by the hardware manufacturer.

There should be at most one ASIO driver per interface.

[bitflipper]

You have better recall than me, Steve. I blame it on 50+ years as a cannabis consumer. But you're right; Samplitude's was indeed a customized ASIO4All. Why they felt a need to install that beats the heck outa me. Unless the OP is using Avid hardware, it's likely that his driver might even be ASIO4All as well. All the more reason to switch it out.

[Xoo]

Saves them having to write multiple driver interfaces - they just write an ASIO interface and let ASIO4All etc handle the wrapping if a real ASIO driver doesn't exist.  Makes a lot of sense from a coding perspective (especially if you're primarily aiming at "pro" users).

[bitflipper]

Yes, but it's not the DAW designer's job to write hardware drivers. That sort of practice dates back to DOS days, when you went out and bought a printer specifically because WordPerfect had a driver for it. Printer manufacturers in turn mimicked the Epson command set because WordPerfect had Epson drivers. This was the main driver - pardon the pun - of the widespread adoption of Windows: application developers no longer had to be responsible for hardware drivers. 

 

[Xoo]

My bad terminology - I don't mean driver interfaces, I meant using different "driver" APIs (sure, they're not all drivers in terms of pure Windows nomenclature).  Rather than having to interface to ASIO, WDM, DirectX, MME, WASAPI, just write an ASIO interface layer and pass the buck to an off-the-shelf translation layer for non-ASIO soundcards.

[Dave K.]

On 10/14/2020 at 9:58 PM, Starship Krupa said:

It looks like @Mad Musicologist figured out a solution to this a couple of years ago, as described in the Avid support forum. I will paste his entire message, with his solution, in the hope that it will help you.  If it does, please let us know so that others may be helped by this thread

So I finally had some time away from projects this weekend, and it looks like the culprit was indeed "digiasio.dll", which was placed into two different directories (1 in the Windows/System32 and 1 in Windows/SysWOW64).  I pulled them both out of their folders and Cakewalk stayed online through a VPN status changeover.

I will need to do some additional testing for Pro Tools, but no indications of problems yet. 

If I'm honest I use it maybe twice a year, so if that breaks it's less critical for me.

Thanks for your help everybody!

Edited November 9, 2020 by Moseph

[Noel Borthwick]

Just saw this. There original diagnosis of the problem was by me. This issue had nothing to do with your network interface but it's a faulty asio driver that crashes when loaded.

As long as you uninstall it remove the dll it should work fine. Looks like you figured out how to do that.