Dorico bug: Wait for audio engine initialization

Hello

It seems, that Dorico crashes often, if I open more projects at the same time and switch quickly…
Unfortunately I always have to restart the computer, because, Dorico doesn’t load and is “Waiting for Audio engine”…

Is this a bug in Dorico 4.3.20?

Hopefully it will be fixed as quick as possible…!!!

Thanks and best regards!

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A reboot is rarely needed. You just need to terminate the VSTAudioEngine process before restarting Dorico.

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Hi @lycalp, if you have HALion Sonic 7 installed, please do the workaround from this thread.
If you don’t, please do from the menu Help > Create Diagnostics Report and post the corresponding zip file here. Thanks

Thanks @Janus
Where can I terminate this process? In Task Manager (Ctrl+Alt+Del) I can just terminate „Dorico“ itself, but it doesn‘t help. Is this process somewhere else to find?

Hi @lycalp , did you see my last posting about that issue with HALion Sonic 7 and a corresonding workaround?

And the TaskManager is unreliable in showing background processes. Instead please install the free Process Exporer (here). You can kill processes there by highlighting them, right-click and choose Kill from the popup-menu

This worked for me (doing a “force quit” for “VST Audio Engine” in my Mac’s Activity Monitor, then trying to re-open Dorico again. Thanks!
D.D.

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Yes, I get this lots. I just rebooted three times, End Tasked VSTAudioEngine. I never did get Dorico to load.

Hi @matt.whitby , sorry to hear that.
Since you can’t get to the Dorico menu, you can’t create a diagnostics report. Therefore, I attached a script file which does something very similar, but it works also without Dorico.
Please download and unzip the attached file. Then do a double click on it and a Terminal window will appear for a few seconds, telling you that it created a DoricoDiagnosticsReport on your Desktop, which you please attach to a reply here.
Thank you very much.
CreateDoricoDiagnosticsReport.bat.zip (809 Bytes)

It did after an hour load. I did just install a LOT of VSTs. Do you think it was being slow at background scanning all the new instruments?

It did not install plug-ins but did some scanning of the plug-ins to find out if they comply with the VST standards. If a plug-in fails such test (it is really just very basic) then the plug-in goes to the blacklist and won’t get loaded or displayed in Dorico anymore.
Still, your loading time is extremely long. Could it be same to this thread?

There the Windows security system bogged down everything by intercepting every plug-in access. The interesting part there was, that the initial scanning after booting up the machine took a very long time. Then closing and reopening Dorico, and it was normal again. And then after waiting a longer time and restarting, the scanning was slow again.
Do you experience something similar, @matt.whitby ?
And now that you have Dorico open, could you please do from the menu Help > Create Diagnostics Report? Thanks

Hi Ulf,

I hope this message finds you well. I’m experiencing a significant delay when opening Dorico on macOS due to the audio engine. Could you please assist me with this issue?

Attached is the diagnostic ZIP file for your reference.

Thank you very much in advance for your help.

Best regards,
Ricardo Teles

Dorico Diagnostics.zip (1.8 MB)

Hi @Ricardo_Teles , thanks for the data.

I see twofold in there: First, there are some crash files of the audio engine, where the audio engine goes down due to a crash inside of Superior Drummer. So consequently I would ask you to refrain from using that plug-in.

Second, the last 4 runs of the audio engine showed, that the logs suddenly breaks off in the middle of the plug-in scanning, but I can’t tell if it is because of a crash or maybe just the program dead-locked itself.
To find that out, please do the following:
While starting up Dorico, have the Activity Monitor app open and have a look for the VSTAudioEngine process. What is the status of that one after the start up? If the VSTAudioEngine and Dorico process go into a ‘non-responding’ state, then in Activity Monitor please create a spin dump. At the top middle of the Activity Monitor app is an icon showing a circle with three dots inside. Click on ther and from the pop-up menu choose ‘Spin Dump’. Follow the on-screen instructions and send me the corresponding dump file.

Thank you very much
Ulf

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I was having similar problem with Dorico 5 on my Win 10 (22H2) PC never finishing loading with a “Wait for Audio engine initialization” message and subsequent Warning to “Continue to Wait or Terminate” message box.

I am running a 3rd Party anti-virus (McAfee) which finally prompted me that it was blocking the VSTScanner precesses from network access so I added under the
"C:\Program Files\Steinberg\Dorico5\VSTAudioEngine\Components folder:
vstscanner.exe
vst2xscanner.exe
vstscannermaster.exe
to the excluded files list under Real-Time Scanning in the McAfee application. Now Dorico loads with a reasonable delay.

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Thank you @Rawl_Gelinas for that post. It has saved my bacon! Brilliant fix.
I use Norton and I did exactly the same as you, and it’s worked.

Actually, seems my problem is deeper. The problem has come back.

Hi Stephane, please stick to one thread. I know it is hard to be patient, but I will help you, trust me.

is this gonna be fixed while dorico is still in the single digit version numbers?

Hi @Mumpi,

“this” what? You didn’t describe the issue you are having, and the circumstances under which something unexpected happens on your system. (Your ironic statement will not help anyone to “fix” anything).

refering to the name of the thread and what has been written before: “Waiting for Audio engine”… still having to terminate VSTAudioEngine daily

ok, sorry that you have this issue: what would help the Team to help you with this issue would be a description of the circumstances under which this occurs, and uploading a Diagnostics zip file that you can create from the Help menu, and post it here.