Sudden regular crashes in Dorico - suggestions?

Hi, this is my first forum request. (Running Mac OS Sequoia 15.1.1)

I’ve been using Dorico without issue for months, but had a break of around 2 weeks. I just made myself a new template and started my first new project in it yesterday and Dorico crashed many times through the day. I do not have other music/sound Apps open, I use NotePerformer, and restarting, reinstalling NP, reinstalling Dorico have all not worked. The same occurs on older projects now as well. If anyone can interpret the crash log below let me know please - or if you would need to see the full crash report I can add that also.

Many thanks.

Time Awake Since Boot: 1200 seconds

System Integrity Protection: enabled

Crashed Thread: 0 Dispatch queue: com.apple.main-thread

Exception Type: EXC_BAD_ACCESS (SIGSEGV)
Exception Codes: KERN_INVALID_ADDRESS at 0x0000000000000000
Exception Codes: 0x0000000000000001, 0x0000000000000000

Termination Reason: Namespace SIGNAL, Code 11 Segmentation fault: 11
Terminating Process: exc handler [3067]

VM Region Info: 0 is not in any region. Bytes before following region: 4304633856
REGION TYPE START - END [ VSIZE] PRT/MAX SHRMOD REGION DETAIL
UNUSED SPACE AT START

Hi and welcome to the forum.

Go to Help → Create Diagnostic Report

This will create a zip file on your Desktop. Just attach it here and someone from Dorico will review it.

Excellent, thank you!

Dorico Diagnostics.zip (2.5 MB)

Some VST plugin is a usual culprit

Hi Dan - I have noticed that since unplugging my MIDI Keyboard from the USB hub and taking it direct to the Mac there has been no crash for an hour or so. But unusual that it would start doing this now when it has never before?

Not really, software/hardware executes non deterministically so something, a driver it seems, started to get excited for some reason.

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Thanks, I’ll look into a more robust peripherals setup - maybe with some more powered hubs.

A problem within RAM. Segment fault (SIGSEGV).
As @DanMcL has said, probably an audio plug-in is the culprit.

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Yah its a null reference somewhere. Try starting up with all plugins disabled.

So I’ve done a few things since this thread started:

  1. tidied up my USB (A) hub and now have MIDI keyboard going direct to the Mac
  2. Changed Dorico note input options by unticking 'Keystation88Mk3 (Transport)
    The result so far is zero crashes, and some anomalies I was having with keyboard note playback in Dorico (i.e. notes not sounding etc.) have stopped.
    Let me know if there’s any wider implications of unticking this option, otherwise I’ll leave it in place.

Many thanks everyone.

Greg

Hi @macgregordouglasfilm ,
apologies, we did not get back to you on this one. Actually, we had already earlier a look at the crash dumps from your diagnostics and we saw a well know pattern in the crash dumps and that relates to plugging of MIDI devices. I wanted to ask you if you do frequently plugging or unplugging of your keyboard(s)? But it could also be an electrical issue when the connectors are not properly inserted or so. I think the decisive thing here with you was going directly into your Mac with the MIDI keyboard now. Unticking that other option should have no impact, but you can try it out again.

Hi Ulf, thanks.

Yes the crashes have stopped, but since going direct to the Mac I’m still getting Keyboard anomalies. I think it’s clearly an issue with the keyboard itself. Thanks for getting back to me though - much appreciated.

Yes, I think so, too. The older keyboards get and the more dust settles on them , the more prone they become for issues like that. We also sometimes hear from other cases where e.g. pitch benders constantly sending data, and that making Dorico play out of tune. Keep an eye out :wink:

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