Kontakt 4 Crashing In Sonar 8.5 Producer

[Annabelle]

Hi, it's Annabelle.

I just recently moved all my instruments from a spinning hard drive to a solid state drive, and no matter what I do, Kontakt sometimes does this "Error Unhandled Exception" thing in Sonar 8.5. It always did this with a spinning hard drive, but I wonder why it's doing it with a solid state drive as well. Do you know how I could prevent this from happening? It doesn't seem to happen in the standalone version. Why the VST version? Here's a minidump for ya. I hope this helps.

There's Always Tomorrow_12052024_171817.zip

[Sock Monkey]

The only 2 things that showed up in all my crash dump files were TTS-1 and Kontakt. 
So I moved on. Multiple times too. TTs-1 just crashed Sonar a week ago. It’s in a lot of old projects. 

I have actually found between Dim Pro / Rapture and Airs Xpand2  all I ever need for most sounds beyond bass, drums and piano. 
Did you get Dim Pro with 8.5? I can’t remember 

Edited December 9 by Sock Monkey

[Annabelle]

1 hour ago, Sock Monkey said:

The only 2 things that showed up in all my crash dump files were TTS-1 and Kontakt. 
So I moved on. Multiple times too. TTs-1 just crashed Sonar a week ago. It’s in a lot of old projects. 

I have actually found between Dim Pro / Rapture and Airs Xpand2  all I ever need for most sounds beyond bass, drums and piano. 
Did you get Dim Pro with 8.5? I can’t remember 

Yes, version 1.10. Though Kontakt doesn't always crash in Sonar, just every now and then. But what I really wonder is why it happens at the most inopportune moments.

[mettelus]

That dmp is for "The thread tried to read from or write to a virtual address for which it does not have the appropriate access." Sometimes this can be helped by running programs as Admin (or vice versa). If you Google "Exception Code 0xC0000005" that may give you more insight on your situation. Some Kontakt libraries are also RAM intensive, so not sure if that is coming into play for you... when loading those is your computer becoming RAM limited at all?

[Annabelle]

On 12/9/2024 at 2:31 PM, mettelus said:

That dmp is for "The thread tried to read from or write to a virtual address for which it does not have the appropriate access." Sometimes this can be helped by running programs as Admin (or vice versa). If you Google "Exception Code 0xC0000005" that may give you more insight on your situation. Some Kontakt libraries are also RAM intensive, so not sure if that is coming into play for you... when loading those is your computer becoming RAM limited at all?

You say, "The thread tried to read from or write to a virtual address for which it does not have the appropriate access.". Could you please explain to me what exactly that message means? I'm a little confused on that one!

[Bristol_Jonesey]

1 hour ago, Annabelle said:

You say, "The thread tried to read from or write to a virtual address for which it does not have the appropriate access.". Could you please explain to me what exactly that message means? I'm a little confused on that one!

As stated, you might need to run it "As Administrator" in order to work. Without that specific setting, it doesn't have permission to write to that address.

Edited Wednesday at 07:04 PM by Bristol_Jonesey

[mettelus]

1 hour ago, Annabelle said:

You say, "The thread tried to read from or write to a virtual address for which it does not have the appropriate access.". Could you please explain to me what exactly that message means? I'm a little confused on that one!

Windows has some embedded security features like "User Privileges" that only allow apps to access what the user allows. If you right click when launching an app, the option "Run as Administrator" should be on that list. IIRC, there were a small handful of VSTs that didn't like that, but I forget which ones they were in particular. Keep that in mind, since if you are running apps as Administrator, running them normally may also help (meaning try whichever mode you were not using to begin with).

The "virtual address" part is RAM. That was why I was wondering if Kontakt was using a lot of RAM on you... when RAM fills up, the computer begins caching to disk instead, so that error might also be a hiccup from the hard drive being used as "RAM."

[msmcleod]

12 hours ago, Annabelle said:

You say, "The thread tried to read from or write to a virtual address for which it does not have the appropriate access.". Could you please explain to me what exactly that message means? I'm a little confused on that one!

It has nothing to do with running as Administrator.

It simply means that the application tried to access memory it wasn't allowed to access.

All applications request memory from Windows as and when they need it.  Windows keeps a note of which applications have which bits of memory.  If an application tries to access memory that it wasn't given access to by Windows, you get this crash.

There are a bunch of scenarios that could cause this, the most common being:

1. Memory was given back to windows, but something still had a note of the original address  - think of this as you moving house, but you tried to enter your old house after selling it.

2. Something corrupted some existing memory.   Think of this as you having a note of a your friend's address, but you smudged the note and misread it, leading you to try to go to the wrong house.
 

[Annabelle]

20 hours ago, mettelus said:

Windows has some embedded security features like "User Privileges" that only allow apps to access what the user allows. If you right click when launching an app, the option "Run as Administrator" should be on that list. IIRC, there were a small handful of VSTs that didn't like that, but I forget which ones they were in particular. Keep that in mind, since if you are running apps as Administrator, running them normally may also help (meaning try whichever mode you were not using to begin with).

The "virtual address" part is RAM. That was why I was wondering if Kontakt was using a lot of RAM on you... when RAM fills up, the computer begins caching to disk instead, so that error might also be a hiccup from the hard drive being used as "RAM."

I'm not exactly sure how someone sight challenged like me, who can't write print, would smudge an address. Is that even possible in Braille?

[Annabelle]

20 hours ago, mettelus said:

Windows has some embedded security features like "User Privileges" that only allow apps to access what the user allows. If you right click when launching an app, the option "Run as Administrator" should be on that list. IIRC, there were a small handful of VSTs that didn't like that, but I forget which ones they were in particular. Keep that in mind, since if you are running apps as Administrator, running them normally may also help (meaning try whichever mode you were not using to begin with).

The "virtual address" part is RAM. That was why I was wondering if Kontakt was using a lot of RAM on you... when RAM fills up, the computer begins caching to disk instead, so that error might also be a hiccup from the hard drive being used as "RAM."

As I don't use a mouse, I would press the "Applications" key and press Enter on "Run As Administrator". Though I've never really done that with Sonar.

[pwallie]

most likely a ram issue, some of the kontakt libraries are large, how much ram do you have and how much ram does your kontakt library want to use (or actually use), also there are settings inside kontakt preferences for choosing hard disk streaming versus load everything into ram, maybe some tweaks thereabouts might help

/goodluck

[mettelus]

9 hours ago, Annabelle said:

I'm not exactly sure how someone sight challenged like me, who can't write print, would smudge an address. Is that even possible in Braille?

I forget which version of Windows you are running now and how much RAM you have? Going back to the OP, RAM is "virtual"... so that causes the errors you are seeing. The drive type will only affect load times, and some performance IF the hard drive is being used as "RAM" if the library is filling regular RAM up.

Maybe a better question is which Kontakt libraries are you using?

Another side comment with what @msmcleod said above. There are some known older apps that did not free up memory properly... so even though Windows "thinks" that RAM is free, it is still being used by an application that didn't "release it." Newer versions of Windows counter this a lot better so that it will crash out the application rather than the entire machine.

Back to simpler questions for you (rather than distracting you with technical stuff)... which Windows version are you running, how much RAM do you have, and which Kontakt 4 libraries were you using when you get that crash?

[Annabelle]

20 hours ago, mettelus said:

I forget which version of Windows you are running now and how much RAM you have? Going back to the OP, RAM is "virtual"... so that causes the errors you are seeing. The drive type will only affect load times, and some performance IF the hard drive is being used as "RAM" if the library is filling regular RAM up.

Maybe a better question is which Kontakt libraries are you using?

Another side comment with what @msmcleod said above. There are some known older apps that did not free up memory properly... so even though Windows "thinks" that RAM is free, it is still being used by an application that didn't "release it." Newer versions of Windows counter this a lot better so that it will crash out the application rather than the entire machine.

Back to simpler questions for you (rather than distracting you with technical stuff)... which Windows version are you running, how much RAM do you have, and which Kontakt 4 libraries were you using when you get that crash?

Windows 7 Professional 64-Bit, with 16 gigabytes of RAM. I mainly use the Kontakt 4 Library... The one that comes with the main Kontakt 4 installer, and is on the second, third, fourth, and fifth disks of the set.

[mettelus]

6 hours ago, Annabelle said:

Windows 7 Professional 64-Bit, with 16 gigabytes of RAM. I mainly use the Kontakt 4 Library... The one that comes with the main Kontakt 4 installer, and is on the second, third, fourth, and fifth disks of the set.

Thanks for the response. Your system specs should be fine with what you are trying to do. Are you comfortable with using the Command Prompt? If so, the issue could also be with Windows and running System File Check (SFC) may find something (it may take a few minutes to check all of the system files on your computer). I copied/pasted text from this post below for your convience.

**** Copied text below ****

Application Error 0xc0000005 (Access Violation) error is usually caused by your computer not being able to correctly process the files and settings required to run a particular program or installation. Despite the error showing when you try and use particular pieces of software, it has many different causes including faulty RAM problems, errors with the files of your PC and issues with the settings of your PC.

In this case, we suggest that you check for corrupted Windows system files. System File Checker (SFC) is a utility in Windows that scans for corrupted Windows system files. If it finds a problem, it will try to replace the problematic system files from a cached version that’s on your PC.

To run System File Checker (SFC), follow these steps:

1. In the search box on the taskbar, type command prompt, press and hold (or right-click) Command Prompt, then select Run as administrator > Yes.
2. At the command prompt, type sfc /scannow (note the space between sfc and the /). Scanning will take a few minutes.
3. If SFC finds corrupted files and replaces them, restart your PC and check if the issue persists.

[mettelus]

Another quick question, at what point with using Kontakt inside SONAR 8.5 are you getting the crash? Is it when inserting Kontakt itself, when loading a library, or when using a library? When you said you moved libraries, this came to mind. From NI's Kontakt web site,

If Kontakt only crashes in your DAW, click on the NI logo of Kontakt's window in your DAW and in standalone. If the versions are not the same, this is probably the source of the crash. We have a video to help you fixing it:

VST Plug-in Administration on Windows Computers

I just watched that video, and while it has voice descriptions, he is also bouncing around various apps quickly with visual pointers (so not sure if will be useful).

I was also going to suggest contacting NI directly, but their customer support page goes into a do loop that only exposes the Kontakt User forum rather than the ability to contact support directly ☹️