Dorico 5 Audio Engine Issue

Dorico
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1

I am currently Sibelius user and want to test Dorico. When launching on Win Pro 11, RME UFX+ Thunderbolt sound card. Dorico can not get past “Wait for audio engine initialization” All other programs function (CUBASE 13, Wavelab 11, Nuendo 12 etc). I have found a thread saying to stop VSTAudioEngine and that does not solve issue. I would like to buy while sale is going on but need it to function prior.

  1. Is there a Safe mode start for this?
  2. Is there a way to ignore audio engine during start up?
    Any help is appreciated
    Screenshot 2024-09-02 091439
    Screenshot 2024-09-02 0914391301×1001 56.2 KB
2

No, in Dorico we do not have such safe start mode (yet), but you could do something similar, namely go to C:/Program Files/Common Files/ and rename temporarily the two folders VST and VST3 to something else. Then start Dorico and see how it behaves. If still bad, then also try to rename the folder C:/Program Files/Common Files/Steinberg/Components and see how that goes.

3

Thank you, both files renamed and then changed each back individually. It seems the VST 3 folder is cause for error. Is there a way to solve this without permanently renaming folder?

4

Try the following strategy:

    1. Rename the VST3 folder to let’s say _VST3
    1. Create a new, empty folder named VST3
    1. Then move half of all the plug-ins from _VST3 to VST3 and start and stop Dorico again
  • If it started fine, you continue with step 3.
  • If it did not start, you move half of the plug-ins you just moved to the VST3 out again and check Dorico’s start-up behaviour.

Do you get the principle? By always moving a half you can relatively quickly find the offending item even if you have lots of plug-ins.
Please also share with us your final findings.

5

And this is why they should teach algorithms 101 in music schools. :laughing:

6

Thanks for the info and sorry took so long to respond as had sessions all week. I moved VST3 plugins and alphabetically added them back. The following VST3 caused the issue (RHODES V8) It did not cause an issue on my M2 Mac though. See attached link to plugin. I do use this VST though can you please suggest a best method of adding it back to Cubase 12-13 and Nuendo 12?

7

Thanks for your insight

8

I’m not sure either. See, that plug-in behaves in Dorico so badly, that it can’t be even loaded for scanning somehow, therefore crashe the audio engine and nothing works at all. Now, how exactly does it behave with you in Cubase/Nuendo? Does it crash Cubendo and you can’t use it at all?
The Plug-in Manager in Cubendo has the possibility to unblock plug-ins at the risk of the user. Yet I wonder, Cubendo you can start despite that plug-in being around, right?

9

There is a pragmatic way to figure out which plugin is causing Dorico to hang if you are familiar with using a terminal.

Try to identify the Dorico VST scanner application running in the background.

ps aux | grep vstscanner

The process(es) list the plugin after the -p parameter. Remove that plugin and kill the hanging processes.

killall vstscanner

Then remove the plugin causing trouble and start Dorico again.

I hope the vstscanner becomes more fault-tolerant in the future.