Suddenly -- no movement of playback head and no sound

Dorico
1

I’ve tried restarting my laptop twice to no avail. Also, other audio applications (YouTube, Spotify, etc.) seem to be working OK. Any ideas?

2

Is the project activated?

3

Yes. Checked that twice.

4

Please create a new project from piano template, enter a few notes and then do Help > Create Diagnostic Report. The corresponding zip file attach here to a reply. Thanks

5

I ran the diagnostics and have a DoricoDiagnostics.zip file on my desktop. It’s 9.2mB so I can’t upload it here. I guess I even need help with that…:frowning:

6

You can email it directly to Ulf at u dot stoermer at steinberg dot de.

8

You have a comma instead of a period (dot). Also you shouldn’t post the address. There’s a reason they use dot and at and not . and @

Jesper

9

Thanks. Better glasses are needed…:slight_smile:

11

You can edit the post and delete it. Click the pencil icon. Or the three dots and trash the whole post.

Jesper

Sorry to be such a nitpicker.

12

When I click on delete, I get a message that says there was an error in deleting the post and that I need to contact the administrator. This is NOT my best moment…:frowning:

13

I meant either delete just the address, or if you click the 3 dots instead of the pencil, then click the trash can.

Jesper

14

HI @CharlieM22 , the data arrived, thanks.

Now, looking at it you have 2 mixer channels in Solo mode, that means all others than those 2 can be heard. The first one is the channel for the metronome (aka DoricoBeep) and the other one stems from one of the 8 NotePerformer instance you have in that project. To clear the Solo state, press the global Solo button in the Mixer window where it says Deactivate All:

15

First of all, a PROFOUND thanks!! I can’t imagine how I got things into this state except that the last thing I did on the keyboard was to try a bunch of key combinations to disable the Slur function without having to hit ESC so I could keep entering notes. I certainly won’t do that again!. ESC is not that inconvenient.

Secondly, I have a background in software development (which may not mean much at this point) and I was wondering: Is there anything I could have seen in the Diagnostic Report that I sent you that could have shown me the problem and saved you the time and hassle of having to look at it and see such a trivial fix?

Thanks again!! I’m sure you hear it all the time…the Dorico team is the BEST.

Take care,
charlie

16

I guess that’s it :slight_smile:

Shift-S vs. Alt/Opt-S

To solo selected instruments and mute other instruments, select at least one note belonging to each instrument that you want to solo, then press Alt/Opt-S or choose Play > and then Solo Selected Instruments

end the slur on the currently selected note in any of the following ways:

  • Press Shift-S.
17

Hi @CharlieM22 ,
first, you are more than welcome, and @TonH already explained how you could get into that situation.
And yes, you could have figured that yourself. In the diagnostics in the AudioEngine subfolder is a file mixerdoc.txt, it contains the mixer state at the time you took the diagnostics. Because it is all xml it is quite easy to read and understand and it shows all parameters unless they have the default value. So that’s why in such cases like yours, I firstly search for solo, mute or gain. Solo/mute speak for themselves, with gain I search for faders that are maybe pulled down to minus infinity (or -1.0 in our domain). Next I check the file audiodevicedoc.txt and see if in/out ports are available and properly mapped.

So you see, this is all not rocket science but all somewhat necessary to run a mixer.
Have fun diving deeper into the Dorico realm. :smiley:

18

Hi Ulf,
Can you point me a bit deeper into the XML in mixerdoc.txt – or maybe give me a map of the structure of the XML – to show me where you discovered the problem I was having?

I sincerely appreciate your expertise (and that of the entire Dorico development team), and thank you again for responding so quickly to my freak out…:-).

In a former life (circa 1988), I ran the Electronic Composing and Arranging Program at the Grove School in LA where one of my courses was teaching students how to read and write SysEx messages in hexadecimal as well as learn the ins and outs of Finale 1.0, Professional Composer and Professional Performer. It is so both exciting and amazing to see what you all have done to envision, design, develop, deploy, and continually evolve Dorico. I know that its sophisticated functionality and flexibility are ultimately a reflection of exceptional software architecture combined with a disciplined development methodology.

Congratulations doesn’t even come close!

Thanks again.

Take care,
charlie

19

Hi Charlie,

thank you so much for your kind words on Dorico.

Regarding the XML, the easiest I think is following:

  • Load a project with a few players and create a diagnostic report
  • Unzip it and take out the mixerdoc.txt, put it somewhere safe where it does not get overwritten
  • Press the solo or mute button on some channel and do another diagnostic report.
  • Then you have 2 mixerdoc.txt files that you can compare against each other.
  • The default state of solo and mute is off, but with the state of on it can be found in the XML.
  • Now with solo or mute engaged it’s easy to find in the file with as simple text search.

That is basically the first thing I do when I receive diagnostics on no-audio reports.

Of course, solo/mute is not always the problem, so then the quest continues and I look for
correct audio connections to the audio driver, or missing contents and so on.

Cheers,

Ulf