Does anyone else get frequent crashes when closing Kontakt FX?

[tack]

I just want to underline that the issue I'm describing in this thread is a crash caused only when closing FX windows. Any other problem (and I've no doubt there are many) would be unrelated to this one.

It also seems to happen most frequently when I step away from my PC from a period of time. Usually when I get up in the morning, wake my PC, and then close a Kontakt FX window is when the probability increases drastically of a crash. But even that's inconsistent, as sometimes it will crash just while in the middle of an actively worked project.

Anyway, suffice it to say, it happened again this morning as I logged in (with Reaper still running). This stack trace is a little different in the most recent few frames. This and the previous crash intersect at Kontakt.dll!00007ffe6eed5f54(). It'd probably be really educational to know what that address resolves to.

This all mirrors what happened a couple years ago. At that time, I'd actually attached a breakpoint at that intersecting address, and indeed could trip it each time I closed the FX window. So that function, whatever it is, is clearly involved in unmapping the window, it's just that sometimes it crashes and sometimes it doesn't.

(Obviously then it was unrelated to multiprocessor support being enabled within Kontakt, since I reproduced the crash with that disabled. Which is good, because I wasn't too thrilled about the % RT CPU increase after having disabled it.)

Exception thrown at 0x00007FFE6EED0411 (Kontakt.dll) in reaper.exe: 0xC0000005: Access violation reading location 0x0000000000000010.

Unhandled exception at 0x00007FFE6EED0411 (Kontakt.dll) in reaper.exe: 0xC000041D: An unhandled exception was encountered during a user callback.


>	Kontakt.dll!00007ffe6eed0411()	Unknown	No symbols loaded.
 	Kontakt.dll!00007ffe6eed6569()	Unknown	No symbols loaded.
 	Kontakt.dll!00007ffe6eed5f54()	Unknown	No symbols loaded.
 	Kontakt.dll!00007ffe6ee9777f()	Unknown	No symbols loaded.
 	Kontakt.dll!00007ffe6ee975c8()	Unknown	No symbols loaded.
 	Kontakt.dll!00007ffe6ee97416()	Unknown	No symbols loaded.
 	Kontakt.dll!00007ffe6eab88b6()	Unknown	No symbols loaded.
 	Kontakt.dll!00007ffe6ea445bb()	Unknown	No symbols loaded.
 	Kontakt.dll!00007ffe6ee4c96b()	Unknown	No symbols loaded.
 	Kontakt.dll!00007ffe6e8eb6f4()	Unknown	No symbols loaded.
 	Kontakt.dll!00007ffe6ee4bc61()	Unknown	No symbols loaded.
 	Kontakt.dll!00007ffe6e977524()	Unknown	No symbols loaded.
 	Kontakt.dll!00007ffe6e8e957d()	Unknown	No symbols loaded.
 	Kontakt.dll!00007ffe6e8eb774()	Unknown	No symbols loaded.
 	Kontakt.dll!00007ffe6ee90b15()	Unknown	No symbols loaded.
 	Kontakt.dll!00007ffe6ee3b999()	Unknown	No symbols loaded.
 	Kontakt.dll!00007ffe6ee3e663()	Unknown	No symbols loaded.
 	Kontakt.dll!00007ffe6ee3e794()	Unknown	No symbols loaded.
 	Kontakt.dll!00007ffe6ee3f117()	Unknown	No symbols loaded.
 	Kontakt.dll!00007ffe6ee9570e()	Unknown	No symbols loaded.
 	Kontakt.dll!00007ffe6ee3e1f8()	Unknown	No symbols loaded.
 	reaper.exe!00000001407b6a1c()	Unknown	No symbols loaded.
 	reaper.exe!00000001403236f2()	Unknown	No symbols loaded.
 	reaper.exe!0000000140322ab5()	Unknown	No symbols loaded.
 	reaper.exe!000000014032203d()	Unknown	No symbols loaded.
 	[External Code]		Annotated Frame
 	reaper.exe!00000001407bd546()	Unknown	No symbols loaded.
 	[External Code]		Annotated Frame
 	reaper.exe!00000001403221a8()	Unknown	No symbols loaded.
 	reaper.exe!000000014032203d()	Unknown	No symbols loaded.
 	[External Code]		Annotated Frame
 	reaper.exe!00000001407bd546()	Unknown	No symbols loaded.
 	[External Code]		Annotated Frame
 	reaper.exe!0000000140384398()	Unknown	No symbols loaded.
 	reaper.exe!00000001407eb051()	Unknown	No symbols loaded.
 	[External Code]		Annotated Frame

[EvilDragon]

I had a maybe unrelated but similar crash with Waldorf Largo, when removing the plugin it crashed Reaper completely. I narrowed it down to the plugin option "Inform plugin when number of track channels changes" (or something like that) being enabled. As soon as I disabled that option, no more crash. Not sure it applies here, but just mentioning it.

Also. one more thing: Kontakt and sleeping/waking the computer are also not very good friends.

[tack]

Originally Posted by EvilDragon

I narrowed it down to the plugin option "Inform plugin when number of track channels changes" (or something like that) being enabled.

I'm willing to try anything, but unfortunately that was already disabled for Kontakt.

Originally Posted by EvilDragon

Also. one more thing: Kontakt and sleeping/waking the computer are also not very good friends.

Some apps don't get along with it very well, yes. But it's almost certainly unrelated since it happens at other times while actively using Reaper (like, for example, just 30 seconds ago ).

[hopi]

I can't say 'never' but can say very rarely... then again don't often have a lot of instances loaded... I'm in a portable reaper FWIW

both omni and kontakt pretty stable

Oh and Win7 64

another friend who runs a lot of kontakt single instances on many tabs for live playing... never reported any problems either and he would cuz he can't have crashes

[EvilDragon]

Tack, can you get this to happen in a project that solely has Kontakt instances and no other plugins?

I'd like to try such a project over here, provided we can agree on the libraries that we have that could push things.

Let's say; Spitfire SCS, SSS, SSB, SSW, Percussion, Masse, Komplete 12 Ultimate.


What say ye?

[tack]

Originally Posted by EvilDragon

Tack, can you get this to happen in a project that solely has Kontakt instances and no other plugins?

[...]
Let's say; Spitfire SCS, SSS, SSB, SSW, Percussion, Masse, Komplete 12 Ultimate.

Sounds like a great idea! Pretty much at all times I have a shell project running with SCS Ensembles and Vintage D for background idea noodling. So I can make a stripped down project without plugins and see if that triggers it.

I don't suppose you have Galaxy Vintage D? I can make do with The Grandeur but I've a thing for Vintage D.

[tack]

Also, does "without plugins" mean no JSFX as well?

[Hartley Mays]

I run 20 or more instances of Kontakt and open/close the FX window frequently because I use the option to only have one open at a time. I haven't experienced any crashes. This is on Windows 7, and glancing through this post, it appears everyone having the problem is on 10 and us lucky ones are on 7. It would seem unlikely (?) and it's not a large sample of users, but might be an avenue worth pursuing? Was there a W10 "upgrade" in the timeframe the problem started?

Hartley

[EvilDragon]

Originally Posted by tack

Sounds like a great idea! Pretty much at all times I have a shell project running with SCS Ensembles and Vintage D for background idea noodling. So I can make a stripped down project without plugins and see if that triggers it.

I don't suppose you have Galaxy Vintage D? I can make do with The Grandeur but I've a thing for Vintage D.

I don't really use sampled pianos, but if you must, I have Noire, The Giant and Una Corda (not that I use them a lot, although the particle engine in Noire is fun indeed).

JSFX is fine I suppose. But if we're really nailing it down, it should be all about Kontakt, nevermind the sound of the project...

[tack]

Originally Posted by EvilDragon

I don't really use sampled pianos, but if you must, I have Noire, The Giant and Una Corda (not that I use them a lot, although the particle engine in Noire is fun indeed).

The Grandeur is part of Komplete 12U so you should have it. I'll load that one in.

[EvilDragon]

I don't have it installed. The three I mentioned are the only ones that I have installed.


Also, will likely need the custom action you're using for closing/opening stuff, too, of course

[cyoder]

I don't know if it's a related issue since I don't have outright crashes, but I have a lot of GUI hangs using Kontakt in Reaper, usually either when closing the FX window or hitting space to play the project.

After digging into threads like this, I've been trying combinations of settings: Kontakt as a separate process, turning off Kontakt multicore, enabling "Run FX when stopped", offlining Kontakt on muted tracks, making sure the track I'm working with is record armed, and Kontakt has gotten snappier in general, except when I open an instrument in edit mode. Once I do that, even if everything was snappy right before, moving the playhead, starting playback, or closing the FX window can then cause hanging, usually around 10-20 seconds, though sometimes longer. Not the worst, but adds up to be pretty frustrating when I'm editing an instrument against MIDI in Reaper all day.

[cutnpaste]

The problem is with the Kontakt users, you keep buying their junk quit buying their product that will get Kontakt attention.

[mschnell]

Unfortunately regarding the very many libraries that are available only in Kontakt format, you don't have a choice.

And in fact you don't need to (directly) buy Kontakt at all, but use the free player for 3rd party libraries (e.g. I don't own a license).

-Michael

[tack]

Originally Posted by EvilDragon

Also, will likely need the custom action you're using for closing/opening stuff, too, of course

Yep, of course, that's the easy part.

Now here's an interesting thing. Maybe. I put together the stripped down project, and did the reproduces-the-problem-much-of-the-time test of returning to my PC after leaving it overnight. No issues.

Then I had to reload a project to do, you know, real stuff , and at the point I loaded that project, the PCM Lexicon LexRandomHall plugin complained about refusing to operate in the presence of a debugger. (But amusingly it will happily work if you attach the debugger after it loads. Lame.) I didn't feel like dealing reloading the project, so I just slapped a couple Pro-R instances on in its place.

And, interestingly, no crashes since then. Can't be sure, of course, because it's so intermittent. And I haven't been using my DAW as much in the past couple days as the few days prior. But it would be an interesting discovery if that's the culprit.

In which case it could come down to the Lexicon itself or the fact that it's an iLok plugin. If things remain stable for the next week or two with other verbs then I'll do some other tests with iLok plugins and see. And then I'll go back to the Lexicon to see if it starts crashing again. And if it does, I'll send it to a dedicated process to see if that helps. (If it does, that will generate more questions, because putting Kontakt in a dedicated process, which would have been separate from the Lexicon, didn't have any effect. So the crash can't be explained by some weird interaction between the two living in the same process space.)


Anyway, current status is undetermined and I'll report back here in a couple weeks with my findings (or sooner if I can make the stripped down project crash).

[EvilDragon]

Actually I wouldn't be surprised if it were some other plugin causing instability. Now, for what reason would it happen when closing the UI of an unrelated plugin, who knows?

[Tod]

Originally Posted by EvilDragon

Actually I wouldn't be surprised if it were some other plugin causing instability. Now, for what reason would it happen when closing the UI of an unrelated plugin, who knows?

there are also some Kontakt instruments that can cause crashes, I had one from
a good company that caused me all kinds of problems. It got to the point that
opening a project and working for a minute or 2, Reaper would go into its non
responsive mode.

As soon as I found the problem I removed the problem nki and no more crashes.

[EvilDragon]

See, would be nice to know which patch from which library... Staying vague like that is never a good thing.

[Tod]

Originally Posted by EvilDragon

See, would be nice to know which patch from which library... Staying vague like that is never a good thing.

Yeah sorry ED, I really like the company and the folks so I didn't want to post it in plublic. I'll tell you or anyone else if you PM me.

[EvilDragon]

Personal feelings and bug reports should never be tied together, for the benefit of the whole userbase of the supposedly buggy product. Keeping it hush-hush like that is just weird and makes no sense, no matter how much one likes a particular vendor.

[Judders]

Originally Posted by EvilDragon

Personal feelings and bug reports should never be tied together, for the benefit of the whole userbase of the supposedly buggy product. Keeping it hush-hush like that is just weird and makes no sense, no matter how much one likes a particular vendor.

+1

Agreed

[Tod]

Originally Posted by EvilDragon

Personal feelings and bug reports should never be tied together, for the benefit of the whole userbase of the supposedly buggy product. Keeping it hush-hush like that is just weird and makes no sense, no matter how much one likes a particular vendor.

Your going to make me do it aren't you ED.

So here it is for the world to see: Indiginus, Renegade Acoustic Guitar.

I've communicated with them and they will see what they can do.

[tack]

Originally Posted by EvilDragon

Actually I wouldn't be surprised if it were some other plugin causing instability.

These things are always rather hard (or at least tedious) to converge on, but what I can say is running without any Lexicon plugins in my project for a couple days, I didn't experience any crashes. Removed the Pro-R instances and swapped back in the Lexicon RHall instances, and got my first crash within an hour.

Next experiments:

1. Replace Lexicon PCM with some other iLok-based plugin (to see if the problem is actually somehow the PACE crap).
2. Run the Lexicon as a dedicated process.

[tack]

Result from #1 came out in short order: crash reproduced with UVI Relayer.

I decided to try a couple more iLok-based plugins before moving onto #2.

[EvilDragon]

Interesting find!

Now I wonder if the same thing would happen with ANY iLok plugin (even instrument, like Falcon), and if it can be reduced to just a single instance of Kontakt and single instance of iLok plugin.

[RobertP]

Just for information, I have not had any problems ever with Kontakt paired with ilok or ilok plugs, only with kontakt as documented on this forum.

[tack]

Originally Posted by EvilDragon

Now I wonder if the same thing would happen with ANY iLok plugin (even instrument, like Falcon), and if it can be reduced to just a single instance of Kontakt and single instance of iLok plugin.

Considering it takes some time and use to trigger, the simpler the project (like 1 Kontakt instance and 1 plugin), the less likely I am to actually do anything with it, and so the less likely reproduction will be.

Anyway, just got a crash with Blackhole when closing a Kontakt FX window. So that's 3 for 3 at this point: all the projects with iLok-based reverbs I've tried have crashed, while Pro-R has not.

I still have some more work to do to gain enough confidence in this hypothesis, including trying a few other non-iLok plugins. Currently I'm trying the Lexicon again running in a dedicated process.

[Mornats]

Hey Tack, did you manage to solve this in the end?

I'm having similar issues. In my orchestral template I've got 40+ tracks with all of Spitfire Studio Orchestra (core) on there. Each instance of Kontakt is wrapped in Komplete Kontrol and I have a (disabled by default) Izotope Neutron on each instrument track too. When I open up the FX window to switch the Komplete Kontrol focus to that instance the window will hang when I hit the close icon. It'll hang for 6-7 seconds and will usually close. If I try to click anywhere whilst it's hanging it'll typically crash. All instruments are sent to a reverb buss with Valhalla Room on there.

During that time my S61 keyboard will hang too (i.e. I can't use the transport controls until the window closes).

I don't have any iLok plugins running in this template although I do have a few installed to the iLok manager (not the dongle) are installed on the PC.

I've running Reaper 6.02, Kontakt 6.21, Komplete Kontrol 2.2.1 on Windows 10.

[tack]

Originally Posted by Mornats

Hey Tack, did you manage to solve this in the end?

Nope, I'm afraid I never got to the bottom of it.

I did establish that the Lexicon (or iLok plugins in general) was a red herring.

I mitigated the problem having Reaper run Kontakt as a dedicated process. Previously I said this didn't help, but while it doesn't completely eliminate the instability, for some reason it seems less frequent and at least when it does crash, it doesn't take Reaper down with it. Then I can offline/online Kontakt and recover.

(Now that I think about it, I haven't experienced a crash in probably two weeks now, which is really unprecedented.)

The behavior you're describing does sound like a different issue, though. Related, for sure, but the signature is fairly different. In my case, the issue consistently has these properties:

1. It only occurs when closing a Kontakt FX window.
2. There is no hanging/pausing: Kontakt immediately terminates.

My best advice right now is to try running Komplete Kontrol as a dedicated instance and see if that has any effect.

[Mornats]

My issue was also only when I closed down the FX window (my post above was written a bit ambiguously when describing that).

I tried running Komplete Kontrol as a dedicated process and it hung my entire PC! Once I'd managed to get it to restart it wouldn't even complete the opening of the project (it hung when loading it). So I don't think that fix works for me

Something may help to know is that if I open up another plugin on the same track and close it I don't get the hanging. It's just with Kontakt inside Komplete Kontrol.

I'll keep trying things and will report back if I get any further.

[Tod]

On another note, I've had Kontakt, then Reaper crash on me twice in the last couple of days. However, I know why this is.

Both times I loaded a script I'm working on and when I hit the "Apply" button, then try to close the script editor before it finishes compiling, a message appears that Kontakt has an error and is shutting down, then right behind it Reaper announces that it is also shutting down too.

[Mornats]

I just tried setting Komplete Kontrol to run in a dedicated instance again and it's worked. It's stopped Reaper hanging whilst closing the FX window. Yay! I have to close the FX window separately to the FX now but that's not too much of a hassle compared to the hanging.