This happened for a THIRD time tonight.  I stopped working around 6 PM to go hang with the family and watch a football game.  Came back just now at midnight, and the 64 bit server was giving me the spinning beach ball again. Nothing to do but force quit.

I hope those crash reports can tell you guys something!

This happens every day like clockwork.  It doesn't have to be overnight either.  I worked this morning for a couple hours, then left for the rest of the day.  I'm back in the studio now (about 8 hrs later) and the 64 bit VE Pro server is "not responding" with the spinning beach ball.

Does it just not like to sit idle?  I don't have any routine things running in my system, no screen savers, no sleeping drives etc.  Any ideas, anyone??

Does it happen even with an empty server or a server with an empty instance in it? Does it matter whether you're connected or not?

When I get this film cue finished, I'll try some different tests as you suggest.

Thanks.  Hopefully you got my four crash report texts I emailed to you guys?

Yes, we got them, thanks. Unfortunately they're not very revealing.

I've had similar, eg., beach ball o doom during adequate playback (but of course I could not access the GUI); quits overnight, and today began with a hang and very soon a crash; this last one appears to be due to the display waking. I think (from crash reports) a lot of it is GUI-related on the Mac...

Yesterday I restarted the computer and then opened the 64 bit VE Pro server.  I did not load a Metaframe.  I left it running empty all day while I was out.  The EMPTY server did not crash after 9 hours (more than enough time for it to crash as in earlier posts above).

Before I went to bed, I loaded one of my Orchestra default Metaframes (described in earlier post).  This one had 3 instances, 2 with 16 stereo channels each with a Kontakt loaded with LASS.  The 3rd had several stereo Kontakt's and a Stylus RMX.

This morning, the VE Pro 64 bit server had "hung".  That's how it's described in the crash report, a "hang".  Spinning beach ball, and the Force Quit menu reports it as "not responding".

I do NOT have a screen saver on my system.  I do have 2 monitors.  I do turn the monitors off at night.  This crash is 100% repeatable on my system. I have the latest revision of VE Pro, and Mac OS 10.6.4  Nothing but VE Pro was running.

I have sent the crash report and the Metaframe file to support, under my earlier tech ticket number.

Hello Paul, 

Thanks for the reports. We´re still trying to get to the bottom of this. Seems like the GUI of one of the involved plug-ins is causing this, but unfortunately the hang reports don´t reveal much....

We´ll do our best to reproduce this with an unused computer (not so easy to find one and then simply.... well, wait... busy times at Vienna, with VI PRO coming soon.

Thanks for your patience and help!

Best,

Paul

Here, the 32-bit server is the one which won't stay up overnight. I should turn them off anyway,  but just reporting the fact. After the 32 quits, the x64 hangs. One suspect was PLAY (seems, wants to be the capo di tutti capo), but it sure isn't restricted to that; the other suspect is BFD2, which has an elaborate GUI; in fact a 32-piece preset won't show a complete GUI until loaded manually. I think in general where there's an involved GUI inside VE Pro it can be problematic.

Gianna,

On my system the 32 bit server is rock solid and it has 16 stereo channels with 16 stereo PLAY 2's ( I assume you have the newest version of Play 2).  It has never hung or crashed ever, since building this VI Frame with the new Play 2's.

Paul,

I hope I can help more.  One thing I want to make clear ( and I have no idea how these things interact ):  My crashes are all happening with absolutely nothing going on.  There are no plugin GUI's open ever when these crashes occur, and the system is just sitting idle.  Does VE Pro have to keep track of the plugin GUI's even when they are all closed? 

Also just to make clear, the last overnight crash happened with the VE Pro 64 bit server in standalone mode.  No Logic 9 or anything else was open and the system was idle with all GUI's closed.

Thanks for trying to track it down!

NEW INFO:

Today I made a smaller MetaFrame for the 64 bit VE Pro Server:  3 instances: A -1 empty instance of VI Special Edition, 11 instances of Kontakt 4 with LASS,   B - 1 instance of VI Spec Ed,  8 instances of Kontakt 4 with LASS,    C -1 instance of VI Spec Ed,  7 instances of Kontakt 4 with various things like RA, StormDrum 1 loops, etc.

So there were no other plugins except VI Spec Ed (all empty) and the Kontakt 4's (latest revision).  So I would think that if this is a plugin GUI, it has to be one of those two, and would suspect Kontakt 4.

AGAIN NOTE: that NO plugin GUI's were open and this was in standalone mode with the system completely idle.  Screens were off, but NO screen savers.

I am emailing the Metaframe and crash report.

After the above crash, I opened the 64 bit Server and made a single instance of VE with 1 empty VI Spec Ed, and 11 Kontakts.  This set up crashed within about 6 to 7 hours (that's how much time elapsed before I checked it).

I'm going to keep getting simpler and simpler to see where it stops crashing....

I'm happy to report that this "unexpected" crashing no longer happens on my system.  I'm not sure what to credit with the fix, but here's what has changed in my system since this used to be a problem:

VE Pro has been updated

Logic 9 has had a few updates

Kontakt 4 has had some minor fixes

I switched from using an Maudio ProFire 610 as the audio interface to the new Avid Omni HD I/O

I added a 2nd slave computer, a Macbook Pro 2.16 Ghz Intel Core Duo with 2 Gig RAM

So in the midst of all those changes, something in my rig got absolutely rock solid.  I've had the same orchestral template open and working now for at least 72 hours straight with no problems at all.

I haven't had any quits, and for a while now, no hangs with the x64 server caused by display sleep. And the 32-bit server has quit only once, after quite a long time sleep.

It seems that since VI Pro and VE Pro went to the current build, things are quite a bit smoother overall.

I have a vague hypothesis, in general that where there is more than one elaborate GUI inside VE Pro it's problematic a couple of ways. Such as BFD2 with Kore2 in the same instance. Play is the thing I choose to take out of the mix; fortunately I'm not very invested in their product. EWQL has had these, pretty good deals this month, but I don't know when they'll ever go to x64, I'm not biting.