Activation freeze on 64bit Hauptwerk preview

I use Hauptwerk 3.30 with 64bit preview on Snow Leopard 10.6.2 on an Intel Mac Pro with 4 GB of RAM with a Saffire Focusrite Pro 26 i/o Soundcard.
The organ I use is the Dry version of E.M. Skinner by Milan Digital Audio.

Occasionally after the organ loads, activation gets stuck at about 60%. No matter how many times I restart Hauptwerk, or the soundcard, the activation still fails. The only solution is a system restart.

This doesn't happen very often, and never happens on the 32bit version of Hauptwerk.
When this happens the log never has any errors. Instead the last lines when the activation fails are:

<p>2010-02-26-18-36-59: INF:2504 Starting audio and MIDI systems. [ACT:2401 Activating Hauptwerk.]</p>
<p>2010-02-26-18-36-59: INF:5120 Starting audio output device 'Pro26IO (0627)'. [ACT:5003 Starting the audio system.]</p>

When the organ loads successfully these lines also appear:

<p>2010-02-26-18-49-17: INF:2504 Starting audio and MIDI systems. [ACT:2401 Activating Hauptwerk.]</p>
<p>2010-02-26-18-49-17: INF:5120 Starting audio output device 'Pro26IO (0627)'. [ACT:5003 Starting the audio system.]</p>
<p>2010-02-26-18-49-18: INF:3823 Starting MIDI input port 'Pro26IO (0627) Plug 1' (device number 0). [ACT:3703 Starting the MIDI system.]</p>
<p>2010-02-26-18-49-18: INF:3827 Starting MIDI output port 'Pro26IO (0627) Plug 1' (device number 0). [ACT:3703 Starting the MIDI system.]</p>
<p>2010-02-26-18-49-18: INF:5197 Audio device ID 000004 started successfully using CoreAudio device 'Pro26IO (0627)' at 48000 Hz with a default stream resolution of 32 bits (stream format ID: 19), 26 channels, a buffer size of 384 sample frames and an overall Hauptwerk audio output latency of 480 sample frames. (Please note that some drivers do not report their latency correctly, and a reported latency of 88200 frames or more should be ignored.) [ACT:5003 Starting the audio system.]</p>
<p>2010-02-26-18-49-18: INF:5121 Started audio output device 'Pro26IO (0627)' successfully. [ACT:5003 Starting the audio system.]</p>
<p>2010-02-26-18-49-19: INF:2505 Audio and MIDI systems started successfully. Number of audio outputs: 2. Number of audio output groups: 1. Effective polyphony limit: 431. Output level adjustment: 4.0 dB. Enabled audio engine options: interpolation: Y, optimize for polyphony: Y, wind supply model: Y, swell box filters: Y, harmonic-shaping filters: Y, voicing filters: Y, keep memory active: N. [ACT:2401 Activating Hauptwerk.]</p>

I'm not sure whether this is a soundcard issue, a sample set issue, or something else. Most probably it's a combination. I don't know where to start.

Please help.
Arthur Bocaneanu

[mdyde]

Hello Arthur,

That suggests that the audio driver is causing the freeze when a 64-bit application. (I'm not sure exactly what method OS X uses to interface between 32-bit and 64-bit drivers and applications, but it usually manages it very well transparently.)

Do you have the latest driver and firmware installed for your Saffire Pro 26 I/O? If not, please try updating those.

Do you get the same issue if using a small sample set, such as St. Anne's?

Are you using the 32-bit (default) or 64-bit Snow Leopard kernel? If 64-bit, please see if using the 32-bit kernel fixes it (the default 32-bit kernel can run 64-bit applications natively, unlike Windows). If you're using the 32-bit kernel, please try the 64-bit (assuming the Saffire and other drivers support it - not all drivers do.)

If none of the above helps, please try temporarily configuring Hauptwerk to use just the Mac's built-in audio output. Assuming that works, then we know that the problem is specific to the Saffire driver (used with a 64-bit application), and I think you'll probably need to contact Focusrite for advice (we don't have a Saffire Pro 26 I/O here to try, I'm afraid).

Hope that helps to some degree.

I have finally found the actual problem, thanks to your suggestions Martin.
As you said, I tried loading different organ sets when the problem appeared. The smaller organs DID load correctly (such as the included St Anne Moseley), but somewhere over 2 GB the problem also appears.
After a while I found out that after about 10 min. the organ actually activates, but plays very badly, with big latency and glitches. So I checked the activity monitor and found out to my amazement it stated I had just 2 GB of ram installed, when I clearly knew I had 4 GB. So I also checked the system Properties, and there too, it said I had just 2 GB. After a restart, they both displayed correctly and the organ loaded and activated successfully.

The problem is obviously a system problem, and not a Hauptwerk or audio interface issue. Maybe it's even a hardware problem. I will check that the RAM modules are installed correctly. The biggest puzzlement to my is how does Hauptwerk manage to load a 3,70 GB RAM organ into just 2 GB without giving any errors and why it does this during the activation, and the normal loading time is not affected. I not sure, but I may have disabled the warnings, but still there is an error that cannot be disabled, if I remember correctly.

Anyway, just to answer your questions, the audio driver and its firmware are up to date. About the kernel, the EFI on the Mac I'm using only supports 32bit.

The reason I'm answering so late is because the organ is located in my church and I only go there once a week and not always have time for intensive testing. I postponed the answer to your very helpful reply until I got some concludent test results.

It's really helpful to have the creator of the awesome Hauptwerk system answer questions so quickly.
Thanks a lot,
Arthur

[mdyde]

Thanks, Arthur.

No problem, and glad to hear you've tracked the problem down.

The biggest puzzlement to my is how does Hauptwerk manage to load a 3,70 GB RAM organ into just 2 GB without giving any errors

The operating system will quite happily allow more memory to be allocated than the amount of physical/free memory, but will just start paging the data that was loaded first out to disk (making it extremely slow when Hauptwerk comes to access the data again, as it does during activation).

I not sure, but I may have disabled the warnings, but still there is an error that cannot be disabled, if I remember correctly.

I think you must just have disabled Hauptwerk's low-memory warning. If the warning is enabled (the default) it will always warn you when more than about 2/3 of your physical memory is being used by Hauptwerk.

If that warning's disabled, the OS will allow an almost unlimited amount of memory to be load (but paged out, giving very poor performance).

I'd recommend always keeping the low-memory warning enabled