Dorico Freezes for About 30 Seconds at Each (Auto-)Save

Dorico
1

Hi!

So I am new to Dorico and so far I really like it (I just crossgraded from Finale) and I am working on my first projects in Dorico. However, I am running into a very disruptive issue and I was wondering if you have any advice.

Every time I hit save or autosave kicks in, Dorico will freeze for about 30 seconds. That interrupts my flow and slows me down considerably. I had to decrease the auto-save feature to 15 minutes to have less disruptions, but it’s giving up on a useful feature, and I was wondering if there’s anything else I can do.

I don’t really care about the quality of the sound out of Dorico itself. I just want to be able to hear a note when I select it or move it to make sure it’s the correct pitch, so I am not interested in using any particular VST in Dorico. The ugly synth sound from Finale was fine. I never use the “play” function.

Below are things I have tried so far, some of them after reading other posts on similar issues.

  1. Things that made a noticeable difference so far:
  • I disabled “generate preview thumbnails” (I gained a few seconds in saving time).
  1. Things that didn’t have any noticeable effect so far:
  • I cleared the audio engine cache
  • I reset the audio engine data
  • I picked “Silence” as default playback template
  • I picked a different driver for ASIO (built-in audio instead of my audio interface)
  • I deactivated the VST Instruments in the Play tab
  • I muted the VST Instruments in the Play tab

About the project:
I only use one flow at the moment. There are 18 players in my setup and about 20 layouts. There are about 100 measures in this particular project. The notations are pretty involved with articulations, chords, lyrics, slurs and dynamics but I haven’t done any manual layout adjustments yet.

In the Play tab (that I otherwise never use) I see 4 instances of Halion Sonic and one instance of Groove Agent SE.

Closing the project also creates similar freeze time, even after saving.

About my system:
Dorico Pro 5.1.70.2200
Mac Studio M2 Ultra 128 GB
Ventura 13.7.1
Also I have a large number of VSTs in my VST folder (over 250).
The file size is 10.7 MB. The project lives on a local drive (connected in USB 3.0, no otherwise issue). The autosaves live on the SSD startup drive.

Thank you :slight_smile:
Lorenzi

2

Lorenzi,
welcome to the Dorico forum.
What you describe is not normal. I use a much older still Intel machine and those delays are fractions of a second here.
Firstly I would create a Diagnostic file and post it, this will help the developers to pinpoint the issue most certainly.
I wonder whether your audio interface might play into this. Can you run Dorico without it being connected?
Also, you could run Dorico temporarily completely without sounds (by going to Play Mode and choosing “Silent” as Playing Template).
Another thing I would try is to move the project file temporarily to your local SSD drive - in case there is something wonky about the USB connection.

3

That’s likely to be the cause, as large numbers of VSTs do seem to be a problem.

The Silent template usually results in smaller files and faster save times, because the state of each VST in use is saved (so that the correct instruments and settings can be used next time) – so it’s surprising that this didn’t change anything.

I’d definitely test saving to a different drive: if that doesn’t work, upload a Diagnostic Report (from the Help menu).

4

Hi @benwiggy , the amount of installed plug-ins is not decisive in this case, what matters is the amount of plug-in instances are actually in use in the project.

@Lorenzi , while that project is loaded, please do from the Dorico menu Help > Create Diagnostic Report and post here the corresponding zip file. Thanks

1 Like
5

So it looks like problem solved, thank you!
What seems to have fixed it is first I changed the Playback Template to “None” as @k_b suggested and the saving time went from 30 seconds to almost instant!
I then picked “HALion Sonic Selection” for Playback Template and the saving time still remains under a few seconds.
The size of my file also considerably decreased by changing that one option—it’s now 2.1 MB.
If you’re curious, the Playback Template was previously set to “Iconica…Olympus, GASE”. I have no idea what any of those are—I assume VSTs.

Thanks again!