Sound Disappears with Saffire Pro 24

I have been having a mysterious problem with Hauptwerk where the sounds suddenly stops in the middle of playing, or after the organ has been left idle for a few minutes there is no sound without doing something that causes a reset like going into organ settings.

I assumed after speaking to Focusrite that this was a problem with my Focusrite Saffire Pro 24 setup, so replaced the Firewire 400 card with a newer 800 card, which Focusrite have found to be compatible. This change, however, did not get rid of the problem.

The problem it seems only occurs with Hauptwerk. I can leave something like contrebombarde.com playing for 12 hours and it keeps going with the same interruptions.

I can see no obvious problem in the Saffire MixControl or the Windows sound settings. My machine is running Windows 10 with 128GB RAM and Dual E5-2640 processors.

I'd be grateful for any advice on what might be causing this problem.

Thank you.

Interesting! A customer of mine has reported a similar problem, though using a different interface (M-Audio Fast Track C600, USB).
Were you previously using Windows 7, and if so, did the problem appear after upgrading to Win 10?

If I remember rightly this particular machine was a clean install with Windows 10.

I've been through the optimization process set out in the file at the top of this forum section, but I'm just going through it again in case I've missed something. I'm familiar enough with eliminating the kind of audio glitches one gets due to Windows 10 meddling with the system at inappropriate moments, but I've never had anything quite like this.

I suggest you check your computer's RAM for errors.

Just type 'memory' into Windows search at bottom left and the built in checker
will show.

Even if your RAM is OK it is a good idea to check it now and again because
Hauptwerk uses a lot of memory and reaches parts that other programs never
see. Even one error is enough to cause problems.

csw900

I have had a same problem (sound disappears with Saffire Pro 24 in combination with Hauptwerk) with a system in my country and solved this. On the systems a clean Windows10 has installed.

- See page 214 - 216 of the Hauptwerk user guide for optimalisation your PC and check this in your PC
- take a look in the eventlog (system and applications section) and solve all errors mentioned there
- remove all APP's except the Microsoft store APP (you can use CCleaner for this using the Tools option and then uninstall); Microsoft only has a command line option (PowerShell) to remove APP's
- remove all video related software except the driver. nVidia and ATI installs a lot of game stuff which has a high priority in Windows
- disable Turbo Boost, EIST and C-State in the BIOS
- don't use the Edge browser because after stopping the browser 3 of the 4 processes stays (are still running). Install Firefox and make this the default browser of the PC (for viewing the HW log file, etc.)
- turn off Windows defender/Microsoft Security (default installed and active in Windows 8.1 and 10)
- disable and remove OneDrive (http://www.howtogeek.com/225973/how-to-disable-onedrive-and-remove-it-from-file-explorer-on-windows-10/) and other cloud storage services like Dropbox, Google Drive, iCloud Drive, etc.
- disable searchindexer

Thank you. I'll follow up on all these suggestions. I have already done most of these things as the PC is a dedicated organ PC, but hopefully one of them will be the culprit. I also have 4 Samsung SSDs in RAID format as the hard drive and wondered if Windows could be managing that in a way that causes glitches.

I'll report back once I've gone through the list.

[mdyde]

Hello Philip,

To add to others' replies:

When the problem occurs, does the audio level meter continue to respond on Hauptwerk's 'Audio, MIDI and Performance' large control panel ('View | Large control panels ...')? (If so, the audio driver is still calling Hauptwerk for audio streaming.)

If it does, do the signal level meters continue to respond in the Focusrite driver's control panel?

Do you have the Focusrite's ASIO driver selected on Hauptwerk's 'General settings | Audio outputs' screen?

Also, do you have the Focusrite selected as Windows' default audio playback device and/or recording device? You can check by right-clicking on the loudspeaker symbol in the Windows System Tray at the right-hand side of Windows 10's Task Bar and selecting 'Playback devices'. If you do, then Windows (or any other running application that might produce sounds, such as an email client, Web browser or messaging application) might try to play a sound through it whilst Hauptwerk is already streaming audio through it, potentially causing the ASIO driver to stop streaming audio from Hauptwerk (or to change the device's sample rate). It's very important that you either don't have your audio interface selected as the Windows default audio playback/recording devices, or that you make absolutely sure that nothing else at all might be running that might try to produce sounds whilst using the audio interface's ASIO driver (e.g. for Hauptwerk), since ASIO drivers often require exclusive access to the audio interface's hardware. In practice the latter might be tricky to do, especially for other programs that might be running in the background and play audio occasional alerts/noises/etc (although changing Windows' sound scheme to 'no sounds' might be sufficient).

Hi Martin,

I've tried the various things suggested above--practically stripped the system bare, not even sparing the calculator--but the problem persists.

In answer to your specific questions, when the problem occurs, the Audio meter in Hauptwerk does nothing. Not even one green bar shows, but the Polyphony is stuck with a certain number of green bars, and lights do flash for MIDI IN when keys are depressed. The only difference since I made some of these changes is that going in and out of Audio setting does not restart the Audio--it was necessary to restart Hauptwerk, although that may have been caused by pressing an armload of keys to try and get something to register on the Audio meter.

For Audio outputs I have ASIO: ASIO Saffire, which is the only option.

The Playback device is Saffire Audio in Windows as there is no other sound card, but Windows has always been set to No Sound.

Thanks,

Philip

[mdyde]

Hello Philip,

Please try:

- Make sure you have the latest version of the BIOS installed for your PC's motherboard. (Check on its manufacturer's website.)

- Make sure that you have all current Windows updates installed. (Use Windows Update to check for updates, apply all available, reboot, then keep repeating until there are no more. Note that you might need to click the 'check for updates' button *twice* before Windows actually performs the check.)

- Make sure that you have the current version of the driver for the Hauptwerk USB key installed, which is available on our main downloads page: http://www.downloadhauptwerk.com/ . (It doesn't hurt to re-install it if unsure.)

- Also make sure you have the latest drivers and firmware installed for any other devices you're using on the PC, and especially your audio/MIDI interface(s). (Check on their manufacturers' websites.)

- Make sure you're using the current version of Hauptwerk, i.e. specifically v4.2.1, which can be checked via 'Help | About Hauptwerk' in Hauptwerk and downloaded if needed from our main downloads page: http://www.downloadhauptwerk.com/ .

- Make sure you've checked the PC's RAM for errors, as previously mentioned.

- Also test its hard-drive for errors (if applicable), selecting the option to perform a full surface scan.

- Disable any power saving options in Windows, (temporarily) disable the screen saver, and fully disable anything being put automatically to sleep (including the computer itself, the disks, USB ports, etc.). E.g. perhaps some part of the system is going to sleep, indirectly causing the ASIO driver to freeze.

- Reboot if you updated anything.

- After loading the organ in Hauptwerk, use 'Help | View activity log' and make sure that Hauptwerk hasn't logged any warnings about MIDI feedback. A MIDI feedback loop could certainly cause a freeze.

- See whether the problem occurs with the default St. Anne's organ (which uses a sample rate of 44.1 kHz, whereas most other sample sets use 48 kHz, which might possibly cause a conflict if Windows tried to play sound through your audio interface at 44.1 kHz whilst Hauptwerk was trying to use its ASIO driver at 48 kHz).

Hello Martin,

I've been through everything and the problem seems to be cured (at least it has not happened for the last six hours). I think the cure came from one of two things:

1. Removing the built Windows Groove app, which I did not use.
2. Re-installing the Sentinel software and choosing the Repair function. Does Hauptwerk check for the USB key after 15-20 minutes or something? That was always when the crash seemed to occur.

Hopefully it will keep running smoothly.

Thanks to you and others for your help

Philip

I had problems with audio stopping with my Focusrite Scarlett 18i20 this week. In checking the Device Manager screen I found that there was no driver for my ethernet port. I hadn't noticed this since I only use WiFi with this PC. Reinstalled the driver for the unused port and haven't had a problem since.

I'd deal with any item on the Device Manager screen that shows the exclamation mark (!) or some other indication of a problem.

[mdyde]

I've been through everything and the problem seems to be cured (at least it has not happened for the last six hours). I think the cure came from one of two things:

1. Removing the built Windows Groove app, which I did not use.
2. Re-installing the Sentinel software and choosing the Repair function. Does Hauptwerk check for the USB key after 15-20 minutes or something? That was always when the crash seemed to occur.

Hopefully it will keep running smoothly.

Hello Philip,

Glad to hear it appears to be working properly now, whatever the original cause might have been.

Hauptwerk itself doesn't specifically call the Sentinel driver periodically, but Hauptwerk does have the driver loaded, so if the driver itself crashed/hung (for whatever reason), then that could crash/hang Hauptwerk indirectly. Hence it's conceivable that re-installing the driver could have resolved some driver corruption/incompatibility issue. Also an older version of the driver might not properly have been compatible with the latest Windows 10 updates.

After a while this problem returned to my system, so I tried several more things such as killing Windows Defender completely (turning it off only makes it stay off for a while). Still nothing cured the problem, so I decided to get rid of the Saffire Pro 24 with its Firewire connection and replace it with a Scarlett 6i6 (Gen 1) and ... sad to say, I still have the problem. The sound still goes off when the organ is idle and I have to reset by going into organ settings.

I'm at a loss. What next? Change the PC?

[mdyde]

Hello Philip,

Sorry to hear it's come back.

Since your new Scarlett 6i6 is also made by Focusrite (as your Saffire Pro 24 was), I wouldn't be surprised if its ASIO driver was the same internally (or shared a lot of the components) with your previous interface's diver, so it's probably not unreasonable to suspect that the same issue could affect both of those interfaces (especially given that the problem is highly likely to be a driver problem or compatibility issue). However, your new interface uses USB, whereas the previous one was FireWire, so the change has at least helped to rule out your PC's FireWire port/card as relevant to the issue.

Really I think you need to work with Focusrite to get it resolved, since they're the people that will know definitively what their drivers and hardware are doing.

However, since your have the Focusrite selected as your default Windows playback and recording devices, my first guess would still be that something other that Hauptwerk is trying to play some sound through the interface, causing its ASIO driver to stop (since many ASIO drivers require exclusive access to their hardware). Hence if you have any other sound card that you can enable (e.g. in the motherboard's BIOS) or install temporarily, then I think it would be worthwhile trying that, setting that other 'spare' sound card as the default Windows playback and recording device. (Reboot after changing.) You could then at least eliminate that possible cause. Failing that, I really don't, I'm afraid, other than to suggest working with Focusrite. Fundamentally, the issue is that their ASIO driver is stopping for some reason.

Thank you Martin.

I will follow up on your suggestions and report back. I have disabled all Windows sounds, but perhaps something is trying to interfere.

Philip