Cakewalk opens only one time per session

[Richard L. Baumann]

I haven't found this topic or anything similar to it in any of the forums, so I'm hoping that this is the proper place to post it.

 

What is happening is that after I boot up my Windows 10 64-bit laptop, at any time afterwards if I try to open a *.cwp file or a *.mid file, the file opens successfully in Cakewalk by Bandlab.  If I then close the Cakewalk session and then attempt to launch it at any time thereafter in the same Windows session, nothing happens.  There is no response.  Double-clicking on any file that Cakewalk normally opens causes nothing to happen, and attempting to launch Cakewalk from the Start menu also causes nothing to happen.  If I then reboot Windows and try either of these options again, Cakewalk successfully opens and loads the file if a file had been double-clicked.  But then any subsequent attempt to re-open any other file associated with Cakewalk, or Cakewalk itself, again leads to no action.  I've studied this thoroughly and have concluded that I can open Cakewalk by Bandlab only one time per session.  Has anyone else encountered this problem, and if so, did you find a fix for it?

[Variorum]

I've had the same problem in the past... it turned out to be an issue with my M-Audio interface (the MIDI driver part). If I turned my keyboard on or off while Cakewalk was running, sometimes the driver would would get all wonky and refuse to unload when Cakewalk was shut down. There were two indicators of this; the little keyboard icon in the Windows task bar (bottom right of the screen) would stick around after Cakewalk was shut down, and bringing up Task Manager showed that Cakewalk (or at least one of its processes) was still running. Unfortunately, it was impossible to kill that process, so I had to reboot in order to get Cakewalk to restart.

Can't say for sure your problem is identical, but I'd lean heavily towards an audio or MIDI driver causing the problem.

[scook]

A driver issue is a good candidate. Cakewalk may appear to be shutdown because the UI is closed but the program is probably still running and waiting on a reply from a driver. The program should still be visible in the Task Manager.

[sjoens]

Confirmed here.

Edited April 7, 2019 by sjoens

[msmcleod]

I've had this issue recently, and narrowed it down to an old 32-bit plugin (RedShift Pickup Replace). Cakewalk appears to shutdown, but is still active in Task Manager.

If I kill it in Task Manager, I can start up again.

What I do now, is bounce the track then delete the plugin, and save the project. I still have to kill Cakewalk in Task Manager for one more time, but subsequent sessions are fine.