vst~ crashes Max5

Mari Kimura's icon

When I try to load in a plug-in message into Max5, the program crashes. Anyone any pointers to what I maybe doing wrong?

Emmanuel Jourdan's icon

On 15 oct. 08, at 19:07, Mari Kimura wrote:

> When I try to load in a plug-in message into Max5, the program
> crashes. Anyone any pointers to what I maybe doing wrong?

plug-in name, version? computer? OS? Max version? Crashlog. Unless you
provide more information, this kind of bug report is not going to help
us fixing your problem.

Best,
ej

Mari Kimura's icon

It's Max 5.0.4
MacbookPro 10.5.4
(2.4 GHz core 2 duo)

I can simply open the vst~ help, click on 'plug' message, load in any vst plug in I have (such as TC|Native, or any CstPlugIns.

A few seconds later, after you hear the hard-drive churning, Max 5 suddenly quits with message "The application MaxMSP quit unexpectedly".

Is this specific enough?

Mari Kimura's icon

Crash log? Is this it?

-----------
Process: MaxMSP [34296]
Path: /Applications/Max5/MaxMSP.app/Contents/MacOS/MaxMSP
Identifier: com.cycling74.MaxMSP
Version: 5.0.4 (35808) (5.0.4)
Code Type: X86 (Native)
Parent Process: launchd [99]

Date/Time: 2008-10-15 13:52:29.355 -0400
OS Version: Mac OS X 10.5.4 (9E17)
Report Version: 6

Exception Type: EXC_BAD_ACCESS (SIGBUS)
Exception Codes: KERN_PROTECTION_FAILURE at 0x0000000000000000
Crashed Thread: 0

Thread 0 Crashed:
0 ???     0000000000 0 + 0
1 com.cycling74.vst~     0x183e117b vst_loadplug + 445
2 com.cycling74.vst~     0x183e4add vst_doplug + 420
3 com.cycling74.MaxMSP     0x0002d31d defer + 97
4 com.cycling74.MaxAPI     0x027ff153 defer_medium + 67
5 com.cycling74.vst~     0x183de124 vst_plug + 234
6 com.cycling74.MaxMSP     0x000184dc typedmess_fun + 782
7 com.cycling74.MaxMSP     0x0005c5d7 outlet_anything + 477
8 com.cycling74.MaxMSP     0x000184dc typedmess_fun + 782
9 com.cycling74.MaxMSP     0x00018a0d typedmess + 83
10 com.cycling74.MaxMSP     0x00019091 aeval + 917
11 com.cycling74.MaxMSP     0x0000551a atombuf_eval + 152
12 com.cycling74.MaxAPI     0x0280a0c0 atombuf_eval + 60
13 com.cycling74.message     0x17b10143 jmessage_atombuf_eval + 429
14 com.cycling74.message     0x17b1049f jmessage_bang + 129
15 com.cycling74.message     0x17b10540 jmessage_mousedown + 150
16 com.cycling74.MaxMSP     0x000ac42d object_method + 901
17 com.cycling74.MaxMSP     0x000fc2fb BoxComponent::sendMouseMessage(juce::MouseEvent const&, symbol*, double, double) + 265
18 com.cycling74.MaxMSP     0x000ff16e BoxComponent::mouseDown(juce::MouseEvent const&) + 234
19 com.cycling74.MaxMSP     0x002e36ba juce::Component::internalMouseDown(int, int) + 506
20 com.cycling74.MaxMSP     0x00422950 juce::ComponentPeer::handleMouseDown(int, int, long long) + 432
21 com.cycling74.MaxMSP     0x002a4241 juce::HIViewComponentPeer::handleMouseEvent(OpaqueEventHandlerCallRef*, OpaqueEventRef*) + 849
22 com.cycling74.MaxMSP     0x002a4d95 juce::HIViewComponentPeer::handleWindowEvent(OpaqueEventHandlerCallRef*, OpaqueEventRef*, void*) + 277
23 com.apple.HIToolbox     0x927b3763 DispatchEventToHandlers(EventTargetRec*, OpaqueEventRef*, HandlerCallRec*) + 1181
24 com.apple.HIToolbox     0x927b2b9d SendEventToEventTargetInternal(OpaqueEventRef*, OpaqueEventTargetRef*, HandlerCallRec*) + 405
25 com.apple.HIToolbox     0x927cf4ee SendEventToEventTarget + 52
26 com.apple.HIToolbox     0x927e1b90 ToolboxEventDispatcherHandler(OpaqueEventHandlerCallRef*, OpaqueEventRef*, void*) + 1208
27 com.apple.HIToolbox     0x927b3b1c DispatchEventToHandlers(EventTargetRec*, OpaqueEventRef*, HandlerCallRec*) + 2134
28 com.apple.HIToolbox     0x927b2b9d SendEventToEventTargetInternal(OpaqueEventRef*, OpaqueEventTargetRef*, HandlerCallRec*) + 405
29 com.apple.HIToolbox     0x927cf4ee SendEventToEventTarget + 52
30 com.cycling74.MaxMSP     0x0029bd8a juce::juce_dispatchNextMessageOnSystemQueue(bool) + 234
31 com.cycling74.MaxMSP     0x002aaaf3 juce::MessageManager::runDispatchLoop() + 131
32 com.cycling74.MaxMSP     0x002a63ff juce::JUCEApplication::main(juce::String&, juce::JUCEApplication*) + 415
33 com.cycling74.MaxMSP     0x002a662a juce::JUCEApplication::main(int, char**, juce::JUCEApplication*) + 90
34 com.cycling74.MaxMSP     0x001c5a22 main + 76
35 com.cycling74.MaxMSP     0x00002742 _start + 216
36 com.cycling74.MaxMSP     0x00002669 start + 41

Andrew Pask's icon

Weird. Does this happen for all your plugs?

take it to Ben, he'll get you going.

Support at cycling 74 dot com.

Please include the full crash log, including all the gunk at the bottom which tells us what binaries you have loaded, and let us know exactly which plugs you are trying.

-A

Ben Bracken's icon

Hi Mari,

The first thing i'd recommend is a clean wipe and an update to Max 5.0.5.

first, remove the following files:

~/Library/Preferences/Max 5 Preferences Folder
/Applications/Max5

The download and install Max 5.0.5:

If you are still experiencing problems, lets take it off-list. Just email support at cycling 74 dot com. Send me a simple example patch that shows me exactly how you are loading vsts as well as the names and exact version numbers of some of the vsts that are causing this crash.

-Ben

Hans Mittendorf's icon

So what happened? I have all my vst plug-ins crashing too.

f.e's icon

Worse here (Max 5.0.5, Win XP Pro SP2), i can't even load the vst~ object. Max freezes and i have to quit with the task manager...

f.e

mdk's icon

i have the same problem when my registry entry for vst plugs points at the root of my plugin directory.

if i edit the registry to point at a subfolder then it generally works, so obviously a particular plugin is causing the problem.

so is there a way to find out what that is, without going through them all one by one because i have a lot of plugins so doing that manually would take a long time.

Hans Mittendorf's icon

It seems that there are several differences, because when I load Halion into 4.6 it crashes. When I load it into Max5 it works fine.

f.e's icon
f.e's icon

As i would love to make my concerts with the software i paid for, i
would love to be able, at least, to load the f****** vst~ object,
indeed. No offense, but it's pissing me off, really, deeply.

Love

f.e

f.e chanfrault | aka | personal computer music
> >>>>>> http://www.personal-computer-music.com
> >>>>>> | film soundtracks, sound art, music |

mdk's icon

Quote: f.e wrote on Tue, 20 January 2009 18:22
----------------------------------------------------
> vst~ doesn't scan your vst plugins folder (c74, correct me if i'm
> wrong). Only Max does, if you want it by adding your plugin folder to
> the search path. So it's not the problem.

I appreciate the response, but as the docs say :

Note that upon first loading vst~ the system VST folder will be added to the max search path. On the Macintosh this is generally /Library/Audio/Plug-ins/VST/ and on windows this is the folder specified in the VstPluginsPath string value under the registry key HKLMSoftwareVST.

:)

Emmanuel Jourdan's icon

That's correct. If you have any problem try to isolate, include
detailed information, steps to reproduce otherwise we can only
speculate.

Best,
ej

f.e's icon

I'll do a proper bug report, tomorrow morning, i swear :-)

best

f.e

Andrew Pask's icon

What value do you have set for VSTPluginsPath in

HKLMSOFTWAREVST

?

If you have a value there - is there anything in the folder it points to? This folder gets added to the search path when you start up vst~. I'm guessing that it's this adding stage which is causing problems. Take every thing out of that folder, restart MaxMSP and try again.

Let us know.

-A

mdk's icon

I bit the bullet and decided to work through it all manually.

The first problem I found was the PolyAna vst, which caused Max to freeze when adding the search path for that plug. I've moved the plug out of the way for now.

The second problem is really strange :)

If i go through adding my plugin folders one-by-one, then I dont get any problems, but when i try to add the top level folder it freezes.

Is there a log file somewhere where you record what is being scanned? If Max just kept a record of each plugin as it scanned the folder then it would be really easy to find the culprit (if indeed it was the same one causing the freeze each time)

on a similar note, i also cant add my top level samples folder because max just freezes. The folder is quite large with 43.5 GB of samples and 93,906 files. I havent yet gone through adding each subfolder to see if there is some kind of limit on size or number of files which causes the freeze.

Andrew Pask's icon

>on a similar note, i also cant add my top level samples folder >because max just freezes. The folder is quite large with 43.5 GB >of samples and 93,906 files.

Does it freeze or does it just sit there and chew for ages? Does the samples folder need to be in the search path for the sampler plug to work?

-A

mdk's icon

it chews, then stops and sits there, exactly the same as with my vst directories.

the samples folder is just audio, its not required by any plugin, I just want to have my samples available from the browser. As it is at the moment the browser is only useful for finding patches.

back to the vst issue, Im triple checking everything now and i've found that the same folder added at different times causes different behaviour.

e.g.

1. added all 'instrument' subfolders one by one, no problem, added top level 'drums' subfolder, it froze.

2. restart max, start with adding 'drums' subfolder, no problem.

So i dont really know where to go from here.

Andrew Pask's icon

The next thing which has to happen is that we have try and recreate it.

Please list exactly what plugs are causing this behaviour. We need OS versions, and plug versions.

This goes for everyone else in this completely messed up thread.
More details please! We'll try and see if we can reproduce, but so far we haven't been able to .

Thanks

-A

Andrew Pask's icon

Also,

I think this multi gigabyte sample library thing is another issue altogether. We can try and recreate that. If anyone else has more evidence of Windows search paths choking on large sample libraries, please send them to support.

-A

Andrew Pask's icon

Mr mdk,

Could we please get an idea of the folder structure and number of files in your sample lib?

Open command prompt.
cd to the samples folder
Type: dir /s > listing.txt

Please send this into support at cycling74 dot com

Attention Kane

Thanks

-A

mdk's icon

Quote: Andrew Pask wrote on Thu, 22 January 2009 18:36
----------------------------------------------------
> Mr mdk,
>
> Could we please get an idea of the folder structure and number of files in your sample lib?

no problem. i'll get that to you later tonight.

thelizard's icon

just to confirm everything, the vst~ object isn't even loading on my system.

I have xp service pack 3, amd athlon 64 x2

Max hangs. Both the message window and patcher window turn white, and the title bar says "Not Responding". I'm going to let it sit for a little bit more, as I have a large VST collection, but it's already been sitting for about six or seven minutes now.

Andrew Pask's icon

In order to make sense of this freezing we need to know if the registry key I mentioned earlier in this thread exists on your computer and how big your VST folder is.

Open command prompt.
cd to the folder referenced in the VST plug path registry key
Type: dir /s > listing.txt

Send the file into support.

Thanks

-A

f.e's icon
Andrew Pask's icon

Yeah - the issue is with the search path harvesting which goes on when the vst~ object is started. This is a somewhat larger problem which will require effort to optimise the database. In the meantime, the best way for people to minimise the amount of time it takes for vst~ to start up is to keep their registry-defined VST folders small, say, under a gigabyte.

The case with this particular plug is pretty interesting. We'll have a look at that.

-A

yurki's icon

hi all,
I had the same problem with vst~. I found
another solution in case you already know
which vst to use:
1. copy the dll of the vst you want to use to the same
folder you saved you patch in. Or to a shared folder, and
share it with option>file preferences.
2. type in the full name of the dll as an argument in your vst~.
for example: [vst~ absynth4.dll]

in this case, it won't search your whole vst folder...

visa tapani's icon

This is an old thread, but I just had the same problem as many others here, ie: when loading the vst~ object Max hangs. Both the message window and patcher window turn white, and the title bar says "Not Responding". I let it stay there for an hour, so it wasn't the case that loading the VST plugin path just took a long time.

I found out that the problem was the plugin Camel Audio Alchemy. When I removed it and all its files, there was no problem. Unfortunately this is one of my key VST plugins, so removing is is not a satisfactory solution...