Not to mislead, I’m not here to discuss the cpu usage of VST Audio engine as I read previous discussions about that. I wanted to discuss and curious if anyone else is having any problems with the following: Dorico is becoming stuck in high cpu usage which causes then the cpu temps to ramp up and stay until I specifically terminate VST Audio Engine in task manager.
I had Dorico previously on an intel and now its on my Ryzen (5800x) as of a month or so. I’ve noticed now on the Ryzen, randomly after leaving my Dorico session on, that my cpu temps would spike to above 80c and vst audio engine would be idling around ~12%. I only noticed this was happening because of my fans going into high RPM to cool off the machine became quite loud. The real kicker is, after quitting/closing Dorico it didn’t fix the problem. My computer temps didn’t resume to normal idling temps (~40c for my computer) til I force ended the task of VST Audio engine (still idling at ~12%) which was still persistent after quitting Dorico.
This has happened twice as of now. I’m not sure as of yet how to force it to happen but I’d be happy to do anything further to investigate when it happens again.
The audio engine idling at 12% is not unusual. What is unusual though, if you quit Dorico then also the audio engine shall shut down. If it does not do, then it must be stuck somehow. Please install and run Process Explorer ( Process Explorer - Sysinternals | Microsoft Learn ) and if it happens again, find the VSTAudioEngine process, do a right click on it and choose “Create mini dump”. Zip it up and attach here please.
I would also like to have a remote screen sharing session with you, but that makes only sense, if you can consistently reproduce the case.
I’d be happy to provide a “mini dump”. As well, do a remote session in the future once we can figure out what is causing it. For the time being, whenever it happens again I’ve got the program to create the mini-dump and will post back here with the zip in the near future.
Hi @Ulf, while I’m not experiencing the high CPU issue (I’m on a different architecture), I have noticed that, when closing a project with many loaded virtual instruments/high RAM (15-18+GB) usage without quitting Dorico, the Audio Engine seems to only unload a portion (around 5-6GB) of what has been loaded into RAM. After noticing this I have begun to fully quit Dorico in-between project changes. Is this expected behavior?
Hi @kspierson , in fact, HSSE does not completely unload in order to speed up the loading of the next project. Do you use HSSE in your projects or other VSTinstruments like e.g. Kontakt? If you don’t use HSSE at all, then it could also be a memory leak somewhere. What if you load that same project again, does the memory usage go back to the previous amount or does it exceed?
Here is the requested mini-dump. So, when it happened this timed I noticed that one of the VEPRO instances hangs with it. I have two vepro instances. One of them disconnected when quitting Dorico and the other one continued to hang. I can’t tell if its Dorico or Vepro causing the hang-up.
Here is the attached mini-dump. Let me know if I could provide any more detail.
—The file ~6mbs in size zipped which I couldn’t get smaller so I couldn’t upload it directly to the forum due to the size restrictions. I’ve provided a gdrive link below.
Thanks for the data. And indeed, it looks like VEPro is blocking the audio engine. The audio engine loads a VEPro plug-in which communicates to the VEPro server, but that plug-in is blocking the audio engine’s main thread as it seems. So it also can’t respond to any command from Dorico anymore and therefore does not quit.
I don’t want to appear lazy by simply refusing and saying it’s not our problem, but it would be also good if you could get in touch with the guys from Vienna.
And to prove the point that it is really VEPro that is hanging the audio engine, could you please provide 3 mini dumps taken immediately after each other (I mean at the time when it happens)?
Thanks very much
Thank you for the quick response. I’ll loop in VEPRO guys and when it happens again I’ll take the 3 minidumps files as you suggest and will post back when I have them.
I’m back to provide you with so many mini-dumps lol. I’ve noticed this time that it’s actually one of two instances that actually hangs. Not sure if it’s the same one each time but Dorcio was actually playing back music fine when suddenly one of the vepro instances froze, no music would play from that instance, and the problem started up (temperature rising, hanging etc).
I’ve provided with the link below 3 stages of mini-dumps created which the Dorico staff has asked me to provide there as well to help get to the bottom of this. I took mini-dumps of all 3 troublemakers, Dorico, Dorico’s VSTAudioEngine, & Vepro 7.
Before the Freeze
During the Freeze
03a. After the Freeze (This is when I told Dorico to shut down using menu > exit, Dorico closes but since hanging everything remained in the task manager)
03b. Force Quit Dorico (I force quit Dorico alone which should invoke a quit of the VSTAudio engine but it does not)
Let me know if I can be of any more assistance. I’ve included VSL in on this problem too with the same mini-dumps.
I’m a little confused. There are folders for ‘before freeze’, ‘during freeze’ and ‘after freeze’.
Now, what does ‘after freeze’ mean? Because if it is not frozen, why did you need to force quit the app?
During freeze the audio engine is still serving it’s own message queue, so it does not appear to be frozen. In “After freeze” on the other hand the audio engine is blocked by the Vienna plug-in.
Did the guys from Vienna already get back to you?
We might need to install some developer tool on your system to get even more deeper insights. The tool is called Windows Performance Recorder. Do you happen to already having installed it?
Thank you for checking this out! My apologies for the confusion I’ll try to explain better.
“After the Freeze”, is when I took mini-dumps after I told Dorico to shut down using the menu>exit. However, after waiting a couple of mins it wouldn’t shut down. I took a mini-dump of all 3 programs before I used task manager to end task on Dorico. After Dorico was forced shut-down, VSTAudioEngine and VEPRO still remained hanging, so I took 2 more mini-dumps on them after Dorico was forced to quit using task manager.
I basically tried to give you/vepro guys as much details in each step I was taking in case one of them showed something important. I do see it was a little confusing though throwing so many mini-dumps at you so I apologize. To wrap up the poor explanation, Dorico was not frozen ever, and was still functioning minus any instruments that were connected to the frozen-instance of VEPRO. By frozen I simply mean “hanging” or “non-responsive” just to be clear.
No, the VEPRO guys have not got back to me as of yet. I provided the same mini-dumps and a little more details in the thread to cover everything we’ve been discussing thus far. Here is the thread here for your reference.
I do not have the “Windows Performance Recorder” installed, however, if you want me to have it installed to gather more information I’d be happy to.
I’ll reply back when I hear back from VEPRO. Thank you again for helping.
Hi Dillon, thanks for clarification. This now makes more sense to me.
So the audio engine is still unblocked during “freeze” and minds it’s own message loop, so that is fine. But after that it gets blocked by the Vienna plug-in which it apparently waits for a message from the VEPro server, and that answer never arrives. Therefore also the audio engine is stuck and won’t terminate any more.
So all together, yes, I do think its Vienna’s problem. I can load the dump file but don’t have their code and symbols, so can’t say anything about what is going on there. Hopefully they will reply in their forum, soon.
Let me know if I can do more for you or the Vienna guys.