[SOLVED] Some Projects (2017. 2018 & 2019) won't open

[Bapu]

I have some CbB projects form 2017, 2018 and 2019 that no longer open.

They get to the end that says "Almost Ready" and then CbB closes with no error.

How can I find out what is causing this?

 

[SOLUTION] A plugin called LimitX by Bill Wall Plugins is the source of this behavior. I had forgotten that I discovered this last year (2019) and reported it to Bill Wall. He said he cannot duplicate it.

 

Edited December 24, 2020 by Bapu

[scook]

Check the Windows Event Log

See if there are any dumps in %appdata%\Cakewalk\Cakewalk Core\MiniDumps

Run the project in safe-mode (hold down the SHIFT key while loading the project). It may be enough to load in safe-mode. If not, it may be plug-in related. Safe-mode allows control over loading each plug-in instance.

[paulo]

 

50 minutes ago, Bapu said:

what is causing this?

It's probably fed up of hearing you telling everyone that you like Studio One better..........

[Bapu]

4 hours ago, scook said:

Check the Windows Event Log

See if there are any dumps in %appdata%\Cakewalk\Cakewalk Core\MiniDumps

Run the project in safe-mode (hold down the SHIFT key while loading the project). It may be enough to load in safe-mode. If not, it may be plug-in related. Safe-mode allows control over loading each plug-in instance.

No mini dumps.

I can open the projects in safe mode by declining all plugins (rather than one by one). 

 

 

[scook]

1 hour ago, Bapu said:

I can open the projects in safe mode by declining all plugins (rather than one by one). 

That's a start and suggests an issue with one or more plug-ins.

[Matthew Sorrels]

10 hours ago, Bapu said:

I have some CbB projects form 2017, 2018 and 2019 that no longer open.

They get to the end that says "Almost Ready" and then CbB closes with no error.

How can I find out what is causing this?

 

Use Sysinternals ProcMon setup to filter on cakewalk.exe and just show the file system activity .  Start it up and load the project.  You'll be able to see the last plugin it loaded just before it crashed.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/procmon

You could also add a filter for the path starting with your plugin directory (and/or the VST3 plugin directory) or maybe filter on path ending with .dll or .vst3

Might help you narrow it down. 

If someone said to me this was happening on a bunch of old project and asked me to guess what it was I'd suspect they are/were using Prochannel Softube plugins, cause those are all kind of broken, if you have updated.

 

[Bapu]

8 hours ago, Matthew Sorrels said:

You could also add a filter for the path starting with your plugin directory (and/or the VST3 plugin directory) or maybe filter on path ending with .dll or .vst3

I'm not sure what you mean here.

I will try procmon.

[Matthew Sorrels]

A filter like this would only show entries from Cakewalk that the path ends in .dll or .vst3 (so it would just list the DLL's cakewalk loads)

The last thing it loads before it crashes is at least suspect #1.  You could also add lines so the path has start with your plugin directory (since Cakewalk loads DLL's from everywhere).  It's not 100% accurate but it does let you look at what Cakewalk is doing just before it dies (without having to install a run a real debugger).

[Bapu]

@Matthew Sorrels ProcMon didn't really tell me anything. But I found the errant plugin. FYI it was a plugin called LimitX by Bill Wall plugins. It seems to only cause this behavior in CbB.  

[Bapu]

I only have 3 projects that used that plugin.

[Matthew Sorrels]

15 minutes ago, Bapu said:

@Matthew Sorrels ProcMon didn't really tell me anything. But I found the errant plugin. FYI it was a plugin called LimitX by Bill Wall plugins. It seems to only cause this behavior in CbB.  

Using tools like ProcMon can be tricky and lead you no where.  Usually a crash dump is better but sometimes the crash is so bad the code that collects the dump can't work, so you don't even get a dump.  The ProcMon filter trick also doesn't work so well with bitbridged plugins (the 32 bit plugin is loaded in another process). 

 

[Noel Borthwick]

28 minutes ago, Bapu said:

@Matthew Sorrels ProcMon didn't really tell me anything. But I found the errant plugin. FYI it was a plugin called LimitX by Bill Wall plugins. It seems to only cause this behavior in CbB.  

It only causes the behavior in cbb because it's corrupting the right chunk of memory to trigger the crash

The app vanishing without a crash is almost surely caused by the plugin corrupting the heap. Heap corruption is like Russian roulette. It may or may not occur even from one version to another of the app because it is random. 

heap corruption issues are best diagnosed in a debugger using appverifier but even there it can be tricky to find.