Is there some way to have multiple projects reliably open simultaneously? I don’t do it because I’ve always had trouble but now have a need for it. So I tried the following which should work but Dorico freezes in both projects
Does anybody have a method that works?
Attached is the diagnostic if interested
Dorico Diagnostics.zip (1.2 MB)
It depends what you’re trying to do with each project.
If you create a New second project, you will be given the option to enable or disable playback; as with opening a second project.
Invariably, I either want to keep the second project silent (to copy something, or make an adjustment, print and close); or I’ll allow both projects to be enabled, and I’ll wait for the loading when I switch.
In the example above there wasn’t an option it just opened without playback.
But it’s simple really, I don’t want to temp the freeze gods (it always freezes - not crashes I think) - so just one project as reference without playback and the other with playback as I showed above.
The use case I give is simple enough but it’s not working so again looking for a series of steps that works.
There’s an option you can set in Preferences>Play>Project Activation
That’s fine but is irrelevant - mine is set to not activate, yet when I eventually activate in the example above I get a freeze. Is this working for people, or is there some better way.
If your app prefs are set not to activate, then you don’t need to disable playback as your second step.
Clarifying that was disabling playback on P1 because I want to give it to P2 in a later step. Playback has to transfer from P1 to P2 correct? You can’t have two active playback sessions, all that is about is just setting them both to off so there’s a clean slate.
We’re spinning around here - point is I get freezes, maybe nobody else does but I’ve got a diagnostic above.
When you switch projects that are both nominally active Dorico will unload the first and load the second… There should be no need for, nor benefit from manual intervention.
Spinning - agree. I do have very occasional freezes. Usually on shutdown (rather than swapping projects) and usually projects using VSTs like Omnisphere (rather than the mainstream libraries).
Doubtless @Ulf will review your diagnostics and provide insight.
Here’s what I do.
Playback then works in 2nd project, and if I switch to 1st project, the samples all load again.
Thanks @Janus for bringing this thread to my attention.
Yes, there is a crash file contained in Dan’s diagnostics, I will take a look tomorrow morning.
Hi @DanMcL , actually, your diagnostics zip is some how broken and the contained crash dump file has only zero bytes. Could you please create another diagnostics report and attach here? Thanks
@Ulf yeah the forum had some uploading problem, here you go, this is the same one …
Dorico Diagnostics.zip (1.2 MB)
Sorry, no, the same problem again.
Could you please repeat the test and bring Dorico to freeze.
Hopefully a new, non-corrupted crash dump will come out. Thanks
Strangely, this exact sequence has always resulted in zero playback and forced restart for me after closing Project 2 and returning to Project 1.
I can’t remember if you’re already using it or not, but this is where VEPro really shines. I just leave all my usual libraries open in VEPro and use it to host all the VSTs instead of Dorico. When I switch between projects it only takes a couple of seconds for Dorico to reconnect to the all sounds as they are already loaded in VEPro and ready to use.
Yeah I use VEPro, but with NP4 my new workflow is to use NP4 for initial writing and orchestration, and I switch to NP for only for final rendering, so this is all with NP.
I hope a better diag - no it looks empty too? Thats what it’s creating …
Dorico Diagnostics.zip (1.2 MB)
’
Hi @DanMcL , so you repeated the test with the 2 projects and got a freezing again, right?
See, the dump file in the diagnostics is exactly the same as in the diagnostics a few days ago. That means, no newer dump file got created even though you had a freeze again.
Can you please check again? And if it is freezing again have a look for the VSTAudioEngine process, is that one still around.
It’s best if you download the free utility called Process Explorer (it works more reliable than Task Manager). And if the audio engine process is sill there, do a right click on it and choose from the pop-up menue Create Mini Dump. Thanks a lot
@Ulf OK got some time in on it this morning. It’s not freezing but I found some things. Switching back and forth between two projects I’m unable to get one of them to fully activate, the transport bar is stuck at this, while clicking notes sounds the MIDI keyboard doesn’t. This project is a full orchestra using NP4
But then I found something new, simply raising the window of a project automatically activates it and deactivates the other - this is new behavior I wasn’t aware of. No setting in prefs to enable or disable, might be nice to have that, I’d prefer turning it off.
Anyhow is working so far, much better than in the past, this must have gotten some work and I happened to hit a glitch above. Switching back and forth by window activation appears to be the way it wants to work now.
Hi @DanMcL , I also find the behaviour a bit erratic but in the end you get both to play back. First you have to be a bit patient, because instruments need to get loaded and presets applied. This may take a while, it depends on the hosting machine, but could be between 30s and 1 min for large projects. If it still does not play, click on the button again to deactivate and then activate after 3 seconds. In most cases it will play again. Or you have to do this several times, but eventually it starts playing back again.