Strange crash situation when opening project

[Gjøran Jakobsen]

I'm currently experiencing a strange problem with my CbB installation.

Yesterday I got rid of my old MIDI keyboard, and replaced it with a Nektar Impact LX88+. To use all the fancy bells and whistles of the new keyboard, I installed the Cakewalk integration package from Nektar. That's when all hell broke loose.

Immediately after adding the control surface, I got a message box saying that no audio device was available. In the preferences dialog, I could see that my audio interface (Roland Quad-Capture) had mysteriously disappeared from the list of available devices. First I tried to simply restart CbB, but that did not fix anything.

Then I uninstalled and reinstalled the Quad-Capture device driver, and also upgraded CbB to the newest version. The list of available devices would now be filled up with cryptic entries that made no sense to me. However, the Quad-Capture was also listed, but every time I tried to select it and click Apply, I would get an error message about the current audio format not being supported on any device. However, after a couple of reboots and a bit of experimenting with the settings, things suddenly seemed to be back to normal again.

But much to my disappointment, as soon as I tried to open a project, CbB would terminate. This happens consistently whenever I try to open an existing project or create a new one - even if it's empty. CbB will perform the usual actions as indicated by the popups in the lower right corner, but just when it's ready to update the GUI, the application dies. No error message or anything - it just disappears. This is obviously a bit of a showstopper, so I really need to find out what's going on.

I also observe that the Quad-Capture will repeatedly disappear from the list of available devices. Rebooting the computer fixes this, but it's still annoying.

Any suggestions on where to begin the troubleshooting?
 

[martsave martin s]

do you use ASIO has device in cake preference?

[Gjøran Jakobsen]

39 minutes ago, martsave martin s said:

do you use ASIO has device in cake preference?

Yes, the driver mode has always been set to ASIO.

[martsave martin s]

i dont know what cause your problems im also use a Roland-quad capture with no issue

[John Vere]

At this point I would un install all the software that came with the Nektar    and see if the problem goes away. 
Also make sure the sample rate is set correctly in all locations. Windows, Cakewalk and the ASIO panel for the interface. 

[Gjøran Jakobsen]

1 hour ago, John Vere said:

At this point I would un install all the software that came with the Nektar    and see if the problem goes away. 
Also make sure the sample rate is set correctly in all locations. Windows, Cakewalk and the ASIO panel for the interface. 

Thanks for your answer! It didn't really solve my problem, but I still appreciate the attempt to help.

I have done a little more testing, and have narrowed it down quite a bit. I checked the sample rate as suggested. The setting in CbB and ASIO panel were both 24bit/48kHz while the setting in Windows was 16/48. I wasn't even aware that there was such a setting in Windows - I have never adjusted it before. Now it's 24/48 everywhere.

As for the Nektar software, I haven't uninstalled it (yet). However I did delete the control surface that was set up for using the DAW controls of the LX88+. Now I can load projects and everything works like a charm. Well, everything except the DAW controls, that is. Whenever I try to enable DAW integration by inserting a new control surface entry, we're back to the same problem again - everything looks fine and dandy until a project is opened, and then the application dies.

I did mention the audio interface disappearing from the list of available devices, and I now know why that happens. The application isn't really terminating - it's still alive in the background, but draws nothing to the screen. The interesting thing is that it can't be killed from Task Manager. It only says "you need admin privileges to do this". But if I try again with admin privs, it says "access denied" and still refuses to die. Anyway, this "ghost process" is obviously still holding on to the audio interface, which explains why it is unavailable when I start a new CbB process. It dies after a few minutes, but it looks like the audio interface is somehow never released, because it stays unavailable even after the old process is gone.

So the problem definitely has something to do with the Nektar software, but that doesn't make it OK for the CbB process to just stop responding and slowly die in a corner. I will try to contact customer support at Nektar to see if they have any tricks up their sleeve. In the mean time, any other suggestions would be appreciated!