Dorico has always been super stable for me. Today something strange is going, apparently related to the attached file. The program sometimes runs when I have this file open but then it suddenly freezes up when I have this plus about 3 or 4 other Dorico files open (no problem in the past). Weirdest part is this though - see the screenshots. When I force close Dorico I am left with these two boxes on my desktop. I have to open Task Manager and force close ‘VST Audio Engine’ to get them to go away.
Is all of this related?
I tried to delete a bunch of stuff from my C drive over the holidays and I’m always careful not to delete things that i.e. Dorico might need. Maybe I messed up? One of the boxes say ‘402 files missing’ or something like that, which I’ve never seen.
Any suggestions as to what may be happening? Of course I am in the middle of a project for a client!
A bit more intel. After a crash, when I restart Dorico, I get the box saying ‘Dorico shut down improperly, do you want to try and recover…’. andI say yes. Each time it tries to open one of the 4 files that were open, I see ‘Not responding’ for a moment in the extreme top left of the window. Sometimes the process just hangs and sometimes it manages to get all 4 open.
Next time it crashes, I suggest restarting Dorico and not opening the files. Then do Help > Create Diagnostic Report and upload the zip file it creates here.
when you did not get that message box about 402 missing files in the past, then indeed you must have somehow deleted some content files from some HALion Sonic library.
That’s why following is happening:
You additionally load another project file which uses one of the missing sound files, then HALion Sonic will open that Missing Files dialog. Because HALion Sonic is hosted in the VSTAudioEngine background task, that dialog is locking the main thread of the VSTAudioEngine indefinitely. Under such circumstance the audio engine can’t respond to any requests from Dorico any more and consequently also Dorico locks up, waiting for an answer that never comes.
So the next time Dorico freezes, have a look for any open alert or message box and prompt them so that they go away, then Dorico should come back to life again. If such blocking dialogs are hidden behind other windows, you need to hover with the mouse over the Dorico icon on your Task Bar, that will show all open windows as a preview. You click on the preview and that will bring that window to front.
On the other hand, your real problem is that you have missing content files. If we solve that, then also the freezing will go away. I will send you a private message via this board on how to proceed. Please check
Wow, thanks Ulf! Great to get a response from the very top! I’m going to sleep now, I will check back around 1 pm EST. I must say again that freezing of any kind has been extremely rare for me. I am usually not doing very intensive stuff compared to some here.
Just a quick summary: The issue was that mset’s Iconica Sketch installation was somehow incomplete or got corrupted, therefore that “missing files” dialog popped up and blocked everything. A reinstall of Iconica Sketch fixed it all.
