Possible Memory Leak Saving Track Template

[Fred's Gratis Scores]

Hi,

I have the latest version of Cakewalk By BandLab (2021.12) and a small-medium sized orchestral project template with 214 tracks and about 53 soft synths. Every time I save a folder+tracks as a track template, it eats up about 5G of memory and does not release it until I close Cakewalk. My system is Windows 10 with 32GB system memory. Also, it takes over a minute for the save to complete.

Monitoring memory usage with Windows Task manager, this is what I'm experiencing:

1. Start and log in to the computer: 5.3GB out of 32GB memory used.
2. Start Cakewalk: 5.6GB total / 145.3MB Cakewalk used
3. Load Template (214 tracks, ~53 soft synths, 47 track/synths in Archive state): 15.3GB total / 8.7GB Cakewalk used
4. Save Track template that uses Kontakt and 3 instruments with all samples purged: 20.6GB total / 14.3GB Cakewalk used (does not go down afterwards)
5. Save another Track template of Kontakt with 3 instruments and all samples purged: 25.2GB total / 18.8GB Cakewalk used (does not go down even after several minutes)
6. Save another Track template of Kontakt with 2 instruments and all samples purged: 29.6GB total / 23.2GB Cakewalk used (still is not going down) - my system memory is now maxed out and Cakewalk is noticeably slower (I would expect that with maxed system memory).
7. Close project: 12.9GB total / 7.7GB Cakewalk used - I would expect this to go back down to ~140MB used by Cakewalk. Still does not go down after waiting several minutes.
8. Close Cakewalk: 5.2GB system memory used. Seems all Cakewalk memory recovered.

I don't think this is a new issue, I've been experiencing slow track template save times since track templates were fixed (was that this year or last? I don't remember). I'm just now noticing the memory that it's eating up and not releasing. I haven't checked yet what happens with memory on a project with no tracks or busses, but I do know it's significantly faster. I'd be willing to gather that memory usage data if it would help.

I think someone else was seeing slow track template save times during the 2021.12 pre-release, but I don't remember who it was.

Thanks!

Edited December 21, 2021 by Fred's Gratis Scores
Copy-Pasta error on point 6.

[Fred's Gratis Scores]

I'm seeing the same symptoms (Cakewalk memory going up and not being released) on a blank project with the same track templates loaded I was using above, just not to the 5GB extreme each time. With 4 track templates loaded, Cakewalk sat at ~1GB of memory. After saving the same track templates I did on my OP, Cakewalk is now sitting at 2.8GB memory used and is not going down after waiting several minutes.

[Noel Borthwick]

Please PM me a copy of the template file.

[msmcleod]

@Fred's Gratis Scores / @Noel Borthwick  - I can reproduce this with track templates containing Kontakt, but not with other VSTi's.

Observations:

• Closing and reopening the project,  without closing Cakewalk itself,  reclaims the memory
• After exporting the template, if I then delete the Kontakt instance from the synth rack, then undo, this also reclaims the memory
• Exporting the template multiple times, doesn't significantly increase the memory used

So I suspect this is a Kontakt issue, specifically that Kontakt doesn't free up the memory it's claimed until all instances have been released from memory.

As all of the memory is freed up once Kontakt has gone, I don't think this is a leak as such - it's just that Kontakt has reserved that memory and will use it as needed if you start adding additional libraries.

[Noel Borthwick]

To clarify, if you save as a track template multiple times from the same project, does it keep cumulatively eating up memory on each save from within the same project?

[Fred's Gratis Scores]

1 hour ago, Noel Borthwick said:

To clarify, if you save as a track template multiple times from the same project, does it keep cumulatively eating up memory on each save from within the same project?

Yes, each time a track template is saved from the same project, the memory usage increases.

6 hours ago, msmcleod said:

@Fred's Gratis Scores / @Noel Borthwick  - I can reproduce this with track templates containing Kontakt, but not with other VSTi's.

Observations:

• Closing and reopening the project,  without closing Cakewalk itself,  reclaims the memory
• After exporting the template, if I then delete the Kontakt instance from the synth rack, then undo, this also reclaims the memory
• Exporting the template multiple times, doesn't significantly increase the memory used

So I suspect this is a Kontakt issue, specifically that Kontakt doesn't free up the memory it's claimed until all instances have been released from memory.

As all of the memory is freed up once Kontakt has gone, I don't think this is a leak as such - it's just that Kontakt has reserved that memory and will use it as needed if you start adding additional libraries.

Closing the project without closing Cakewalk to reclaim memory does not work for me, I have to exit Cakewalk to reclaim the memory. The first release of memory in the graph below is closing the project without closing Cakewalk, the second is closing Cakewalk.

I will try this with some VSTs other than Kontact to see how they fair.

[Noel Borthwick]

Interesting. We'll double check to see if something isn't being released. 

[Fred's Gratis Scores]

Thanks @Noel Borthwick

To follow up on my side, I have verified that the same problem exists when using VSTs other than Kontakt:

1. Start Cakewalk and load template project:
   8.9GB Cakewalk memory used as expected baseline
    
2. Save Spitfire BBC-SO B Trombone as track template, 1 track, 1 instance:
   14.4GB Cakewalk memory used, does not go down
    
3. Save AmpleSound Guitar LP as track template, 1 track, 1 instance:
   19GB Cakewalk memory used, does not go down
    
4. Save Surge Synth as track template with 2 tracks, 2 instances:
   23.2GB Cakewalk memory used
   Dropped a bit to 22.3GB used after about a minute.
    
5. Close project without closing Cakewalk (no project loaded):
   7.5GB Cakewalk memory used, does not go down

Hope this helps.

Edited December 21, 2021 by Fred's Gratis Scores

[Matthew Simon Fletcher]

On 12/21/2021 at 3:52 AM, Fred's Gratis Scores said:

Hi,

I have the latest version of Cakewalk By BandLab (2021.12) and a small-medium sized orchestral project template with 214 tracks and about 53 soft synths. Every time I save a folder+tracks as a track template, it eats up about 5G of memory and does not release it until I close Cakewalk. My system is Windows 10 with 32GB system memory. Also, it takes over a minute for the save to complete.

Monitoring memory usage with Windows Task manager, this is what I'm experiencing:

1. Start and log in to the computer: 5.3GB out of 32GB memory used.
2. Start Cakewalk: 5.6GB total / 145.3MB Cakewalk used
3. Load Template (214 tracks, ~53 soft synths, 47 track/synths in Archive state): 15.3GB total / 8.7GB Cakewalk used
4. Save Track template that uses Kontakt and 3 instruments with all samples purged: 20.6GB total / 14.3GB Cakewalk used (does not go down afterwards)
5. Save another Track template of Kontakt with 3 instruments and all samples purged: 25.2GB total / 18.8GB Cakewalk used (does not go down even after several minutes)
6. Save another Track template of Kontakt with 2 instruments and all samples purged: 29.6GB total / 23.2GB Cakewalk used (still is not going down) - my system memory is now maxed out and Cakewalk is noticeably slower (I would expect that with maxed system memory).
7. Close project: 12.9GB total / 7.7GB Cakewalk used - I would expect this to go back down to ~140MB used by Cakewalk. Still does not go down after waiting several minutes.
8. Close Cakewalk: 5.2GB system memory used. Seems all Cakewalk memory recovered.

I don't think this is a new issue, I've been experiencing slow track template save times since track templates were fixed (was that this year or last? I don't remember). I'm just now noticing the memory that it's eating up and not releasing. I haven't checked yet what happens with memory on a project with no tracks or busses, but I do know it's significantly faster. I'd be willing to gather that memory usage data if it would help.

I think someone else was seeing slow track template save times during the 2021.12 pre-release, but I don't remember who it was.

Thanks!

 

Hello!

That was probably me - i'd been having some back and forth discussion with Noel and co about track template performance, but focussed more on moving tracks within them

So I hadn't actually tested saving track templates in the latest build, but i've just given it a go now.

Baseline RAM: 3.3GB

RAM on saving a drum template (comprising 99 tracks across four instances of Vienna Ensemble pro): 4.0GB

RAM having completed the track template save: 3.5GB

That save activity took 2 minutes which seems like a worsening of performance versus a previous build, but can't say for definite. In any case, it seems long to create a file that's only 12MB in size. It also would demonstrate that the issue is occuring with plugins other than Kontakt and that something isn't being released, given the memory is higher versus baseline.

 

I can also confirm that if save the same track template again, the usage will go even higher.

New baseline: 3.5GB

New peak: 5.5GB (very briefly, it was around 4.2GB mostly then shot-up in the last few seconds)

New post change: 3.6GB

Again this took approximately 2 mins to complete with Cakewalk frozen during this time period.

You've already got my project template if you want to debug an example file Noel

 

Edited December 22, 2021 by Matthew Simon Fletcher

[Matthew Simon Fletcher]

For interest I decided to save a track template that included all  tracks in the project (approx. 500)

Following on from above, the baseline usage was 3.6GB

Surprisingly the peak usage didn't appear to go above 5.5GB

Post change I believe it was around 3.7GB.

 

Given this had approximately 4-5 times the content of the initial one, I was surprised that it seemed to complete in a similar time frame (2 mins) and the resource didn't seem to go significantly higher, although it still exhbits the same issue of memory not being released and a long wait time.
Looking at resource monitor there was no maxing out of CPU, RAM or disk, so I'm wondering what the limiting factor is to performance? Something that isn't multi-threaded? CPU was only around 10% so doesn't even look like any cores were being maxed out.

Edited December 22, 2021 by Matthew Simon Fletcher

[chris.r]

If I may suggest, checking also with some of these plugins:

• UVI Workstation (library I used: Acousticsamples Strategy)
• IKM Amplitube 4 (with Fender I/II collections)
• Waves V12 plugin (in my case Echosphere)

Using combination of these in a track template here is locking Cakewalk in the processes when closing, occupying about 500-700MB in the memory.

Edited December 23, 2021 by chris.r

[Noel Borthwick]

@chris.r please capture a dump from task manager and send us a link. We can't investigate hangs with out this.

[chris.r]

On 12/23/2021 at 6:57 PM, Noel Borthwick said:

@chris.r please capture a dump from task manager and send us a link. We can't investigate hangs with out this.

For unknown reason I didn't see this response before and didn't get any notification for it, strange.

Thanks Noel, will do when I update to the latest Cakewalk (don't know yet when).