A droppout has stopped the audio engine (1)

[Giacco]

Hi Everyone!

This is my first post and I have to thank you in advance for your patience and to the lots of knowledge I’ve been harvesting from this forum for years.
 

I’m just a newbe but I’m having fun mixing the multitracks for an home-made album my band and I have been recording this year. Only recorded instruments and free plugins. I start from around 20 tracks (4 for drum kit, 2 for harmonic harp, 4 for vocals, 4 for bass, 2 for guitar and some additionals for environmental sounds). Mixing and duplicating and adding sends and auxs and busses and plugins and soon (many hours later) this ended to be a 65 tracks + 17 busses mix.
And there he comes, eventually, the infamous “A droppout has stopped the audio engine (1)” when playing back. At first I didn’t bother too much, I had already experienced occasional errors like this and in the end I’ve only added some sends and a couple of distortions since last working version. But I was underevaluating the danger: since then I’ve been having the same error, in always different and apparently random portions of the mix, sistematically. So I’m stuck.
Previous versions are working but they are many hours of work away from the current one.

This is my setup:
*Cakewalk by Bandlab Updated to 28.11.0.21
*Win10 in ASUS laptop
*I7 4720-HQ CPU, 4 core, 8 threads, 2.6 GHz
*16 GB RAM DDR3
*Samsung SSD 870 EVO 1TB
*NvidiaGeforce GTX 950M GPU 4GB dedicated + 8GB shared

and I was running Cakewalk in 48KHz, 32 bit, sampling rate
512KB playing I/O buffer
256KB recording I/O buffer
Mixing only with my laptop, on FlexASIO in ASIO mode – 960 samples buffer
but everything was recorded with Focusrite 18i8 – 2ndGen thu USB

For days and nights I’ve scanning the forum and the internet.

-        I lengthened the Driver buffer size, downloading and using FlexASIO GUI. Crashes even at 4800 samples. Higher sizes, up to 8192 seems to reduce the error rate, but at the expenses of a spooky continuous rain of pops and clicks.

-        I kept the Driver buffer size to 4800 and the I/O internal buffer to 2048Kb. Crashes

-        I tried mixing using the Focusrite interface, with its own FocusriteASIO drivers. Crashes

-        I tried playng previous versions of the mix, many hours back and no crashes

-        I tried freezing every track before playing. Crashes

-        I sent the frozen mix to my band mate, who had no crashes whatsoever…..

-        I uninstalled FlexASIO and reinstalled

-        CHKDSK and a C: defrag

-        I downloaded all sort of memory checkers and run them overnight. No RAM failures

-        I Downloaded DPC Latency Checker and run it: no abnormal peaks at dropout

-        So I followed the forum (http://forum.cakewalk.com/Revert-to-default-settings-and-preferences-m3785831.aspx) again and deleted AUD.ini , Cakewalk.ini and TTSEQ.ini + perfomed a config reset startup with ctrl+cakewalk.exe + deleted regedit keys. All that doesn’t work eather.

-        Same as before + clean reinstallation of Cakewalk (http://www.cakewalk.com/Support/Knowledge-Base/2007013392/SONAR-2015-Clean-Install-Instructions). Same issue, always at random.

At project export no interruptions but the final mp3 is missing some parts.
The performance module is showing a 25% max CPU usage during playback and the disk icon is glowing yellow, but only when frozen tracks are being played.

Please, help me. All the work done in this months could be lost and the album not seing the light of the day.
Thank you all


 

[Lord Tim]

FlexASIO is the first thing I would have eliminated since it's not a real driver, and switched to WASAPI mode but it sounds like something else is at play here. Your machine is a little underpowered for such a big mix but it shouldn't cause crashes at all. Those buffer sizes are HUGE and you shouldn't ever need to pump it up that high at all, I'd recommend something lower regardless of dropouts.

Let's first clean out the old ASIO registry keys for a start:

Open the Registry Editor, then first save a backup by doing File > Export, and choose ALL as the option.

Then go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\ASIO and delete all of the entries inside that key. This will bork any ASIO devices on your system at this point, so you'll need to reinstall your Focusrite ones if you plan to use that interface,

Quite a few people here run Focusrite interfaces (myself included) and their drivers are solid, so I'd suggest that first.

After all of the drivers are back in, start up Cakewalk and see what it does. You'll likely need to go in and choose the correct driver model, your Focusrite timing masters, which device, etc.

If it works, great. If not, let's do a system integrity scan.

Start a CMD prompt as Administrator and type this:

DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth

This will scan for corrupted files. It'll take a while though.

Then type this:

sfc /scannow

If these both complete successfully, reboot and try to launch Cakewalk again.

If it crashes then, try opening up in Safe Mode by starting Cakewalk and holding down shift when you load your project. Say NO to loading each plugin, and see if it plays then (don't save over your project while in this state though!). If it still crashes with no plugins loaded, that's not great.

 

Try updating your Microsoft Redistributables next:

 

The last thing I'd recommend if you're entirely out of options is to get a crash dump over to the Bakers so they can look into what could be causing it. Info here:

 

Good luck, let us know if any of these things worked  

Edited May 31, 2023 by Lord Tim

[Giacco]

Thank you very much Lord Tim!
I'll try all your suggestions this evening after work. All my finger crossed...
The only point I'd like to recall, however, is that even playing the project through Focusrite produce the same crashes, despite having solid ASIO drivers. 

Thank you thank you!

[Lord Tim]

Yeah, that's why I'm thinking it's more than just a driver issue at play here. Possibly one of those other rogue entries in the Registry causing it, but more likely something is broken in the system.

If you've done a clean install of Cakewalk, we can practically rule that out as the root cause of it (anything is possible of course, but it's unlikely at this stage) so I'd be looking at plugins or environment next.

[Giacco]

Hi!
No luck todate.

- I tried deletin all entries in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\ASIO. There were FLexASIO, Focusrite Thunderbolt ASIO and Focusrite USB ASIO. Then I reinstalled FlexASIO, not the Focusrite because unfortunately I'm at home without the interface (left in rehersal garage). . So, this ended up being just a clean FlexASIO installation, if you want. No positive results. Like said, however When I tried to mix with the interface and drivers, I have had no luck eather.

- I tried DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth and sfc /scannow. Screenshot attached (in Italian, sorry). Same result

- I tried with safe Mode. The system message I got was not about plugins, though. Rely "No", like you said. Always dropout

- I tried installing the Redistributable over my recent clean installation. No results

At this point I'm thinking of adding details, maybe useless, but who knows: 
1 - I noticed that this broken song version plays with no issues if some of the tracks are muted. i.e.: the harp aux and all the bass aux, surely the two most unrelated instruments. Still experience the nasty dropout with only one of those muted. Things in common between harp and bass tracks: they all have multiple compressors, reverb, MEqualizer, and, last to be added, Vastaus distortion.

2 - I have been forced to switch back to 32 bit driver resolution, from the default 64 - double precision. This choice has to be with TDR Nova plugin, known to have issues with 64 bits reso. Can this cause some issues to the other plugins.

I thank you. But I'm even more desperate now...

[msmcleod]

Don't use aggregate devices like FlexASIO - only use your manufacturer's official ASIO driver.

if you're working without your interface, set Cakewalk to use WASAPI Exclusive or WASAPI Shared, then switch back to ASIO when you have your interface again.

[Lord Tim]

^^ this.

This is why I suggested the Focusrite drivers before anything else, since we know they're solid and work for many people here. If you can get those working first, then you can explore other alternatives.

I'd still recommend against FlexASIO though.

Uninstall that, and do a registry cleanout for your ASIO entries and reinstall the Focusrite drivers only and see how that goes.

You're right that a few plugins have issues with the double precision engine, so keeping that off probably isn't a bad idea in general. On a lower spec'd machine like yours, especially running 32 bit depth, this is asking for dropouts. 

This is a laptop, yeah? There's a good chance it's also set to be kind to your battery rather than giving maximum performance, so definitely check your power profile settings too.

To clarify, is it actually crashing or is it just dropping out? This is an important difference to help sort out the problem. A crash is suggesting something is broken somewhere, but a dropout could mean a bunch of factors that could be causing it.

[Giacco]

Ok, now I see. Thank you very much!
So, after implementing your suggestion precisely, I would expect to have cleaned up every possible conlict between drivers, having thus only Focusrite's ASIO installed, right? But working without the interface, am I still able to select WASAPI on the driver mode, even if I have no choice of drivers to select from (Focusrite ASIO is not listed as long as I don't have the interface phisically connected)? Sorry for the perhaps stupid question, I'm not expert at all on the topic.

Yes, I'm mixing without interface, using my laptop, always plugged to the power source, so no battery saving setup is involved. the laptop in question, as listed above, is equipped with CPU i7-4720HQ and 16 GB RAM, a dedicated 4 GB GPU and SSD Hd. Is this really to be considered lower spec machine for the job? Sorry to know...

 

Quote

To clarify, is it actually crashing or is it just dropping out? This is an important difference to help sort out the problem. A crash is suggesting something is broken somewhere, but a dropout could mean a bunch of factors that could be causing it.

Nono, my apologies, I talking badly: I'm always and only experiencing "A droppout has stopped the audio engine (1)" error messages from Cakewalk after few seonds of playback. Often anticipated by occasional pops and clicks. So, as far as I can understand, no proper crashing.

Ok,  I'll update you as soon as I try your suggestion (in the right way, this time). Thank you!

 

[msmcleod]

29 minutes ago, Giacco said:

Ok, now I see. Thank you very much!
So, after implementing your suggestion precisely, I would expect to have cleaned up every possible conlict between drivers, having thus only Focusrite's ASIO installed, right? But working without the interface, am I still able to select WASAPI on the driver mode, even if I have no choice of drivers to select from (Focusrite ASIO is not listed as long as I don't have the interface phisically connected)? Sorry for the perhaps stupid question, I'm not expert at all on the topic.
 

When you switch to WASAPI, you won't get any ASIO drivers listed as you're no longer using ASIO.

You should get your laptop's onboard soundcard listed as a device under WASAPI though, so choose this.  This device will be fine for mixing.

When you plugin in your Focusrite again, switch back over to ASIO mode and choose the Focusrite ASIO driver.

[Lord Tim]

1 hour ago, Giacco said:

Yes, I'm mixing without interface, using my laptop, always plugged to the power source, so no battery saving setup is involved. the laptop in question, as listed above, is equipped with CPU i7-4720HQ and 16 GB RAM, a dedicated 4 GB GPU and SSD Hd. Is this really to be considered lower spec machine for the job? Sorry to know...

It is, but I was using an old Dual Core laptop for ages and running fairly large projects. It was painful and I had to be really careful to freeze off tracks or play with my latency slider, but it worked, so yours should be able to do the job fine if you're careful with how you load it up. It's a lot more powerful than what I was using.

Even plugged in, a lot of laptop manufacturers set their power profiles to be fairly safe, so this is definitely still one good place to look and see if you're running at your full power.

it's good that you ran those system tests and they came back clear, but now that we know it's a dropout rather than a crash, they were probably unnecessary (but still good to know just in case something else is going on). 

Dropout Code (1) means "Audio processing took longer than the buffers allotted time slice." which points to your audio interface's buffer being part of the problem, so if it's still happening only with the Focusrite installed, I'm starting to suspect something may be interfering with your USB or hogging your PCI bus, which is not sending through data as fast as it should. Power profiles that have energy saving on USB ports is a big cause of this, and so is running your audio device into a USB hub first before going to your laptop.

 

Additional thoughts:

What plugins have you got running in the project and how many instances of each? This could be a thing - as you found, some don't like the Double Precision engine, so this could be another good place to look.

When you stared in Safe Mode, and said NO to loading each plugin, are you saying it still produced a dropout with no plugins at all loaded? That's definitely leading back to it not being a CPU issue but something to do with how it's getting the data to and from your audio interface.

[Giacco]

Update:
Ok. I cleaned up HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\ASIO again and have no other ASIO drivers than Focusrite's.
- run CbB selecting WASAPI/shared: Realtek High Definition Audio does appear in Unit tab - No dropout message but no sound. Only a quick glitch

- ASIO without Interface doesn't sound obviously, because no Units are available for it

- Focusrite ASIO w/t interface give me dropout error at any buffer size

- WASAPI/exclusive does strange but somewhat interesting things: does sound for some times with sudden freezing and a continuous repetition of the last buffer-size audio forever, like a broken superfast LP disk. No dropout messages in this case too. With buffer sizes above 9684 samples - 202 ms, however, it keeps on playing flawlessly till the end, provided I don't click, mute, solo anything. Only some tracks are not being played, but showing glowing Vmeters as if they were. That would be already supergreat for me! If only.... the sound itself is significantly different (much worse/boxy) to what I've been having  with FlexASIO till that day, and I have been mixing accordig to that sound for months. 

Additional info 1: I've managed to isolate one particular plugin, Wider, on a semi-final bus, disablig which also the remaining "not playing" tracks are playing. Why?

Additional info 2: Comes to my mind that weeks ago, on the same project but in an earlier stage, CbB woke up one morning telling me "A corrupt audio region was detected and padded with silence". I found no sign of this silenced region and kept mixing and saving on. Can it be related?

Additional question: may or may not be an issue but I'm not sure what bit resolution I have to pick up for my drivers (the button on the right of "Enable double precision 64 bit engine", which I have disabled as said. Since Focusrite has only 24 bit I think everything is coded in 24, but WASAPI comes with 16 by dafault and FlexASIO 32, for example. What have I to choose? 

[Giacco]

May I still hope for someone's help? 
I'm stuck with a almost completed mix that I need as hell...

[Fridgeman]

Yeah i have issue with audio engine dropping out too, and i dont even have big mixes, like it does it with as little as one track!!!.....im about to buy a new computer preying that will solve the issue?...it does'nt do it with fruity loops , so its something to do with driver settings......i love sonar(cakewalk)....i really wish this issue could be fixed...both my current computers are older, windows 10, 16 gig ram 3.4 processor....i5...niether have ssd drive..maybe it does have to do with the relationship with usb and computer?,.....im going to set my new computer up for only music, the lag, im thinkin thats cause theres too much stuff goin on in the background......i dont know.....highly frustrating!!!!.......im a musician, i just want to create without these technical issues!!!!........ i also have a lag with mouse and keyboard.....what is 64 bit engine in driver preferences anyway???

[Lord Tim]

1 hour ago, Fridgeman said:

Yeah i have issue with audio engine dropping out too, and i dont even have big mixes, like it does it with as little as one track!!!.....im about to buy a new computer preying that will solve the issue?...it does'nt do it with fruity loops , so its something to do with driver settings......i love sonar(cakewalk)....i really wish this issue could be fixed...both my current computers are older, windows 10, 16 gig ram 3.4 processor....i5...niether have ssd drive..maybe it does have to do with the relationship with usb and computer?,.....im going to set my new computer up for only music, the lag, im thinkin thats cause theres too much stuff goin on in the background......i dont know.....highly frustrating!!!!.......im a musician, i just want to create without these technical issues!!!!........ i also have a lag with mouse and keyboard.....what is 64 bit engine in driver preferences anyway???

Please start a new thread with your issue. On the surface a lot of these things can look similar but might have radically different causes and fixes and these threads can get confusing and tangled really fast.

[Lord Tim]

On 6/8/2023 at 6:36 AM, Giacco said:

Update:
Ok. I cleaned up HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\ASIO again and have no other ASIO drivers than Focusrite's.
- run CbB selecting WASAPI/shared: Realtek High Definition Audio does appear in Unit tab - No dropout message but no sound. Only a quick glitch

- ASIO without Interface doesn't sound obviously, because no Units are available for it

- Focusrite ASIO w/t interface give me dropout error at any buffer size

- WASAPI/exclusive does strange but somewhat interesting things: does sound for some times with sudden freezing and a continuous repetition of the last buffer-size audio forever, like a broken superfast LP disk. No dropout messages in this case too. With buffer sizes above 9684 samples - 202 ms, however, it keeps on playing flawlessly till the end, provided I don't click, mute, solo anything. Only some tracks are not being played, but showing glowing Vmeters as if they were. That would be already supergreat for me! If only.... the sound itself is significantly different (much worse/boxy) to what I've been having  with FlexASIO till that day, and I have been mixing accordig to that sound for months. 

Additional info 1: I've managed to isolate one particular plugin, Wider, on a semi-final bus, disablig which also the remaining "not playing" tracks are playing. Why?

Additional info 2: Comes to my mind that weeks ago, on the same project but in an earlier stage, CbB woke up one morning telling me "A corrupt audio region was detected and padded with silence". I found no sign of this silenced region and kept mixing and saving on. Can it be related?

Additional question: may or may not be an issue but I'm not sure what bit resolution I have to pick up for my drivers (the button on the right of "Enable double precision 64 bit engine", which I have disabled as said. Since Focusrite has only 24 bit I think everything is coded in 24, but WASAPI comes with 16 by dafault and FlexASIO 32, for example. What have I to choose? 

OK, this is all kind of confusing all up. It's like there's certain things that are getting confused with other things and non-related stuff which is muddying the waters. I'll address the Realtek stuff in a bit, but let's talk ASIO first.

Taking it slowly, can go over each point with me to explain exactly what you've done?

1. You've cleaned out the registry and have ONLY installed the ASIO driver for the Focusrite? Nothing else?

2. With the Focusrite plugged in, and you've chosen ASIO mode in the Driver Model in CbB, your project will get a dropout with every buffer setting.

3. If you remove Wider from your chain, the project plays

Is this all correct?

Some plugins can be glitchy and will cause a denormalization that stops the engine, and some especially really don't play nice with double precision 64 bit audio.

If it's the case with Wider, I'd suggest finding one of the many other great stereo imager plugins and using that instead.

The bit depth of the interface has nothing really to do with the audio engine, so don't worry that your interface is 24 bit and there's this 64 bit thing. It's 2 different things entirely. 

Regarding the "corrupt audio region" thing, that can happen if there was some kind of disk error. It shouldn't be affecting playback at all, but it's worth doing a disk scan to make sure there's no errors for a start. It's possible there was some kind of write error at some point and it broke a WAV. You can try saving a temp copy of the project and deleting tracks until you can find the offending one (there's a feature request where a corrupt region was highlighted in some way - that would be super handy in this case!)

Why the sound of WASAPI is boxy sounding is a complete mystery, it shouldn't sound like anything (glitches aside if there are any). I'm wondering if this is maybe running through any of those dumb Windows enhancements, eg: Spatial Audio, some kind of EQ, etc. on the system? ASIO wouldn't be taking that path at all, so wouldn't be using any of the enhancements.

[John Vere]

Please watch this video I just released for this very reason. People get confused about the different drivers etc. This video explains it all very clearly and hopefully will sort out your issue. My main point in the video is very clear

Audio interface = Manufactures ASIO driver

On Board Computer Audio= WASAPI mode, Exclusive if it supports it or Shared if not.   

But I also cover properly setting up windows system. You can have issues when you set a buffer way to high like that. Most people mix using 256 or 512. 

 

[Giacco]

Thanks a lot JohnnyV! Very useful and pointful tutorial. I'm going to follow every instruction to make sure I've got everything correctly.

And, of course thanks very much Lord Tim! I'm very gratetful to all the time and efforts you are putting into helping me.

To answer you properly:
 

Quote

1. You've cleaned out the registry and have ONLY installed the ASIO driver for the Focusrite? Nothing else?
2. With the Focusrite plugged in, and you've chosen ASIO mode in the Driver Model in CbB, your project will get a dropout with every buffer setting.

Yes. Exactly.

 

Quote

3. If you remove Wider from your chain, the project plays

Yes, kindof. 
I know there are other great stereo imagers out there, and I use them. The Wider plugin, though,  is one of my favourites mainly because of the effects it has on the mix and the ease of use. I've been using it for years now on submaster busses without any issues till now. That said, the thing is: under WASAPI/exc and huge of buffer sizes, Wider seems to prevent some tracks from playing, or better, some tracks show red Vmeters start to end, without any sound coming out trom them and disabling wider they too start to play. But this doesn't happen with all the other driver mode. 
If I got you correctly, it seems that the stream of audio data is taking a different route under WASAPI than under every other driver mode and that could also be causing the "strange sounding mix" symptom. 

To be clear: till now I've always been using FlexASIO, following some threads found in this very forum, with excellent results. Probably this defective project, that have been mixed under FlexASIO from the beginning, now sunds odd under WASAPI.

*It is worth noticing that I can isolate other plugins that have negative effect on the dropout appearance rate: Vastaus distortion for example. And this is only a simple distortion, among many others...
On top of that, I experienced the dropout error even with all the track frozen. My big question here, thus, is how can it be that sorting out all track plugins (not Wider, this is on a bus, though) I still have the same issue that I'm having without freezing but if I manually turn off some of them, i.e. Vastaus, I can playback more or less fine?

*The "corrupt audio region" error came on the same project at an earlier stage but, as said, without a region find function, I didn't came across any audio issue and I ignored it. I want to stress, however, that I repeatedly performed both chkdsk, defrag and RAM check utilities, without any negative outcome.

*Thank you for having sorted out the bit depth thing for me. 
Thank you for everything, anyway

At this point, can I send the frozen project to someone for debugging or am I asking too much?

[msmcleod]

12 hours ago, Giacco said:

To be clear: till now I've always been using FlexASIO, following some threads found in this very forum, with excellent results. Probably this defective project, that have been mixed under FlexASIO from the beginning, now sunds odd under WASAPI.

If it sounds different under WASAPI, then it could be that you've got some of the Windows "sound enhancements" switched on, such as:

• Low Frequency Protection
• Room Correction
• Loudness Equalization
• Spatial Sound

Go into the "Sound" part of settings, then look at the device preferences.  You definitely want these switched off when using any DAW.

[Giacco]

Thnak you msmcleod! For sure I have to check Windows settings.

Nswer to JohnnyV: 

Quote

But I also cover properly setting up windows system. You can have issues when you set a buffer way to high like that. Most people mix using 256 or 512. 

I've been forced to pump high values of buffer size because of the dropout error code - (1), which, in the manual, points to a too low buffer size as the first and most common troubleshooting. Anyway, under WASAPI this seems to have some kind of influence. Not speaking of causality, though...