All the crash dump files (e.g., Cubase 9.5.21.3 64bit 2018.4.14 4.59.dmp) have these common characters in the file header: “MDMP“§±a”. Does anyone recognize these?
In the past I’ve used my hexeditor, UltraEdit, (switched into ASCII mode) to view the crash dumps. It can be helpful if you search for text like .dll, .exe, plugin, etc. But to peakae’s point, it often is time consuming and yields no usable results in the end. The other technique I use is to make a guess as to which plugin is causing the problem and then (temporarily) zip-archive it and re-load the crashing project. Needless to say, neither of these methods are desirable.
If a crash dump file viewer is not available, then what about a debugger?
For example, using a command line switch or key modifier, Cubase would start in debug mode forcing it to load just one plugin at a time, and reporting the results to screen:
Loading ABC … success
Loading DEF … success
Loading GHI … success
Loading JKL … fail!
The readout would either pause after each plugin (requiring a key-press to continue), or scroll quickly and stop only when a failure occurs. If none occurs, it would load the project as usual and exit the debug mode. Ideally, the results would also be written to a file for subsequent viewing and analysis.
Cubase already reports some of this information in the initial splash screen, however it goes by so fast that you can’t see what’s happening. If this information could be: 1) enhanced; 2) slowed-down; and 3) saved to file (as described above), it would be very useful!
Of course this doesn’t help if a project crashes on exit (or if Cubase itself crashes after closing a project), nor does it help if Cubase crashes in the middle of a session. However it would nonetheless be a welcomed addition because if the above scenarios are serious and cause a project to crash when next loaded, at least you’ll know what happened.
Would anyone else find this useful?