Bandlab Cakewalk taking up to 5 minutes to open project

[tdehan]

Since having to rebuild the OS and re-install all applications on my computer last week, Cakewalk is now taking up to 5 minutes and sometimes longer to open a project.  It also sits just as long showing the following:

VST Scan

Searching for plugins....

 Any ideas as to why it is so slow and how to speed it back up?

thanks

[tdehan]

Now Cakewalk is crashing with the following:

[MBGantt]

Shut off the VST scan is one thought. You can do that in one of the drop down menus but I do remember where. 

[bitflipper]

If all your plugins are showing up, disable the automatic scan-on-startup. There's no need for it until you next install a new VST.

What's probably happening is that one of your plugins isn't initializing during the scan, and may be what's raising the access violation. There is a debugging feature in the scanner that can help you zero in on which plugin is having the problem.

Press "P" to open the Preferences window and scroll down to VST Settings. Under "Scan Options", select "Manual Scan" from the dropdown list. That'll prevent the automatic scan. Check the box labeled "Generate Scan Log". Click the "Reset" button, then click "Scan".

After the scan completes, the debug log will be in %appdata%\cakewalk\logs. You can open it in Notepad. Feel free to post its contents here if you can't make sense of it.

 

[tdehan]

Thanks both MBGantt and bitflipper.  I will try your suggestions.

[mdiemer]

Also, check to see if there is a window which is waiting for a response from you. This one still gets me! Just minimize everything, and see if there is a little window politely asking you something.

[tdehan]

1 hour ago, bitflipper said:

If all your plugins are showing up, disable the automatic scan-on-startup. There's no need for it until you next install a new VST.

What's probably happening is that one of your plugins isn't initializing during the scan, and may be what's raising the access violation. There is a debugging feature in the scanner that can help you zero in on which plugin is having the problem.

Press "P" to open the Preferences window and scroll down to VST Settings. Under "Scan Options", select "Manual Scan" from the dropdown list. That'll prevent the automatic scan. Check the box labeled "Generate Scan Log". Click the "Reset" button, then click "Scan".

After the scan completes, the debug log will be in %appdata%\cakewalk\logs. You can open it in Notepad. Feel free to post its contents here if you can't make sense of it.

 

Ok, I followed your suggestion.  I've included the VstScan.log here.  There were a number of pop up windows about missing things when I ran RESET.  I wrote them all down and believe I fixed the issue.  However, after running a VST scan again and then opening my project it still crashes with the following.

I have a deadline that I need to finish this project today.  Any more help or suggestions are greatly appreciated.

VstScan.log

[bitflipper]

That error is most likely caused by a plugin in your project that didn't register properly. And it may not have registered because something went wrong during its installation, e.g. a dependency is missing.

Unfortunately, there wasn't anything helpful in the log. There were a lot of "deleted registry key" entries for various VST3 plugins. I don't know if that means they couldn't scan. Check a couple of them, see if they're in your plugin list, e.g. bx_limiter or Maag EQ4. If they are there, then those log entries don't mean anything.

Normally, my next step to determine which plugin is blowing up would be the crash dump. However, I'm assuming you haven't analyzed a crash dump before (here's an old post of mine about using WinDbg to do that), so the next best thing is the Windows Event Log. It should have a corresponding entry to the error shown in your screenshot, and if the error was raised by a plugin, it will show the internal name of the plugin. In the end it may turn out to be a plugin that didn't install and/or register properly.

Of course, you can always narrow it down by deleting plugins one-by-one until the project plays. However you do it, once you find the suspect plugin you can re-install it and if that doesn't do the trick, take it out of your project and substitute it with something else.

 

[tdehan]

Here is a .dmp file from the crash.  I don't know how to read it.  I did open it up in a debug viewer but don't know what I am looking at.  The 8th line down in the attached image is bolded.  I assume that is the issue?

Can't Help Falling In Love_01112021_134133.dmp

[tdehan]

This is what Event Viewer shows:

Log Name:      Application
Source:        Application Hang
Date:          1/11/2021 1:42:10 PM
Event ID:      1002
Task Category: (101)
Level:         Error
Keywords:      Classic
User:          N/A
Computer:      
Description:
The program Cakewalk.exe version 26.11.0.99 stopped interacting with Windows and was closed. To see if more information about the problem is available, check the problem history in the Security and Maintenance control panel.
 Process ID: 23b8
 Start Time: 01d6e861e9d68b92
 Termination Time: 66
 Application Path: D:\Program Files\Cakewalk\Cakewalk Core\Cakewalk.exe
 Report Id: 474688e0-6438-4059-882e-70f64a0a955a
 Faulting package full name: 
 Faulting package-relative application ID: 
 Hang type: Cross-thread

Event Xml:
<Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">
  <System>
    <Provider Name="Application Hang" />
    <EventID Qualifiers="0">1002</EventID>
    <Version>0</Version>
    <Level>2</Level>
    <Task>101</Task>
    <Opcode>0</Opcode>
    <Keywords>0x80000000000000</Keywords>
    <TimeCreated SystemTime="2021-01-11T21:42:10.6158262Z" />
    <EventRecordID>5846</EventRecordID>
    <Correlation />
    <Execution ProcessID="0" ThreadID="0" />
    <Channel>Application</Channel>
    <Computer>timmyd7</Computer>
    <Security />
  </System>
  <EventData>
    <Data>Cakewalk.exe</Data>
    <Data>26.11.0.99</Data>
    <Data>23b8</Data>
    <Data>01d6e861e9d68b92</Data>
    <Data>66</Data>
    <Data>D:\Program Files\Cakewalk\Cakewalk Core\Cakewalk.exe</Data>
    <Data>474688e0-6438-4059-882e-70f64a0a955a</Data>
    <Data>
    </Data>
    <Data>
    </Data>
    <Data>Cross-thread</Data>
    <Binary>430072006F00730073002D0074006800720065006100640000000000</Binary>
  </EventData>
</Event>

[tdehan]

I think I discovered the problem.  I believe it has something to do with the automation on one track.  When I remove the automation the issue goes away.