SFP-crash after startup when starting explorer - SOLVED!

[zounds]

I reinstalled SFP4.5 on a new DAW (see signature).
After starting the computer (Win XP SP3, loads SFP in hidden mode - i changed the registry-entry therefore by adding the -s commandlinswitch) the following happens:

As soon as I start Windows Explorer or right-click the Start-Button in the Taskbar, I get a crash-message from SFP and have to close it (sometimes the computer even freezes).

After I close and re-open SFP again the problem is gone - I can open explorer or right-click start-button as much as I want, the system is stable then.

I also have a shortcut for opening explorer with another "home-directory" (not the start-menu) on my desktop, and with that shortcut there are no problems, even if direct after startup.

It neither helps to close SFP and re-open it manually after startup (but before opening explorer) - the problem when opening explorer for a first time stays. No matter if SFP is hidden or not.

I somehow have the feeling it has something to do with the start menu, but I have no clue at all, from where that strange behavior would come.

Any ideas?

[Janni]

Hmm... maybe your startup-project is damaged...
afaik, startup- and default(new)-project (which is loaded on normal start) are two different things.
Just try to open your startup-pro manually to see if there are some
error messages...
I had that problem when a startup project (freshly generated from the installer)
had wrong i/o-modules or when I had optimaster in it.
Hope that helps!
Cheers from koeln!
Jan

[zounds]

just tried it out, but that wasn't the reason.

I have the startup running at the moment, after manually opening it. besides, i saved the startup also as the default project.

if i wouldn't try to start explorer or right-click the start-button in the task-bar, the system wouldn't crash anyway. it's only in these 2 special cases.

i am not that much familiar with the registry-handling but the only change i made was adding the "-s" in the registry-path
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run\InitPulsar , so that
"C:\Scope_4_5\App\Bin\SFP.exe -s" is the current value.
Since that is a change under the "Run"-Section (start, startup, start menue...) I somehow have the feeling that there is some interferation between the displaying of the start-menue in explorer or so (just being in the dark...). Somehow when the first "conflict" is forced, this "regenerates" somehow.

It's really a strange error

Thanks for any hints anyway, I'll try them all out.

PS: You people here on the board rule!

[dbmac]

You might have something that launches at startup that inhibits scope from initializing properly.
Run "msconfig" to see what you have starting up at the same time as Scope. Quite often a hardware app (mouse or video card usually) will be the culprit. You can uncheck the startup option and see what happens.
Another tip - refrain from mouse activity and opening files while Scope is booting. I've seen this interfere with proper project loading.

edit...

I just noticed this in your post:

"Since that is a change under the "Run"-Section (start, startup, start menue...)"

It sounds like you may have a redundant startup situation, you may be attempting to launch scope twice at startup. That registry edit you made may be your issue.

In Scope Set/Setting/Projects - uncheck the "active" box beside the "save project as sartup" line.

Reboot and see if Scope still starts up

/dave

[zounds]

@dave: ok, this seems to be going into the right direction.

i looked into the msconfig, and i think there might be some motherboard-apps which start themselves in the background which could be disturbing the startup. since i don't know what each of these does, i'll try out deactivating them one by one at a later time.

moreover the redundancy-problem may also be a problem. i did not "add" the whole InitPulsarEntry to the registry, it was already there. I only changed it, adding the "-s" to the entry. nonetheless, i deactivated the "save project as startup"-button in the sfp-settings, and now strangely sfp is not startet after booting the system anyway. on the other side, when starting it manually then, everything works fine from beginning.

regarding the "mouse"-sensibility of sfp, i already avoided starting programs too soon after startup or moving the mouse, so that should not be the problem. I'll investigate further the redundancy-theory as well as the startup-disturbance-theory

If you have any ideas meanwhile, your posts are always appreciated.

I'll report when finding out more. Thanx so far!

[dbmac]

If you have any ideas meanwhile, your posts are always appreciated.

I thought you were also trying to launch Scope from the "C:\Documents and Settings\user\Start Menu\Programs\Startup" folder as well as the reg entry.

So forget the redundancy angle.

/dave

[zounds]

hehe nah, that folder is empty (only desktop.ini)

anyway, I know now where to search and I'll report these days.

[zounds]

ok, i did a whole lot of things to eliminate causes, since i also had several hangs in xp and also in cubase.

i updated my bios and asus-mobo-utilities, used regcure for the registry (nice effect: waveshell-terror from cubase and didn't recognise some other plugs including the XTC-plugs any more...), restoring the savepoints in regcure to old status (yay, waveshell-terror solved and all the other plugs incl. XTC were back!), had some "usb fail with sp3"-patch from windows, but all in all no positive effect. Even deactivating almost everything in ms-config for startup had no avail.

I also removed the "-s" switch off the registry, but the errors are still the same.

Now a list of the typical reproducable errors i stumbled upon up to now:

- after starting up XP, the sfp-software will crash when i right-click on the start-button or on the mycomputer-icon for the first time. i can restart sfp and that problem stops occuring, it occurs only 1 time after startup. afterwards system is stable. sometimes after clicking away the crash-reportmessage the system will hang and i have to restart. i try to do as few mouse-moves as possible, cause that may influence it (not shure).
event-display says to these crashes, that the module "cdxp.dll" is involved. (i only have an internal cd/dvdrw-combidrive with newest firmware and running on s-ata)

- after exiting either cubase or sfp-software system will hang (not every time, but quite often)

- with scope-software running, i experience problems with a few other application, which i cannot start any more (error-message, then closing after clicking it away). for example the phonostar-player (a webradio-client with recording-abilities). without sfp-software it starts, with sfp "on" it crashes while starting.

systeminfos for shared/conflict shows IRQ23 is shared by one of my pulsar2 and USB2.0.
i only have 3 pci-slots on my mobo and all are in use (pulsar1+2x pulsar2). the computer is in acpi-mode. i've read in other threads, that this shouldn't be a problem, but i am unsure. could that be the reason for some of the trouble?

well, and sometimes while working in cubase the system freezed also (with the typical sound-loop), but I'll have to check if this is still the case (i've just put in a midifilter filtering out the active sensing-data to the xtc-project).

nothing more to report for now (and not much more to try out, so ideas are welcome...).

[garyb]

is that the only usb 2.0 controller? you can disable it in the bios. the Scope card can't share an irq with anything else.

[nightscope]

systeminfos for shared/conflict shows IRQ23 is shared by one of my pulsar2 and USB2.0.
i only have 3 pci-slots on my mobo and all are in use (pulsar1+2x pulsar2). the computer is in acpi-mode. i've read in other threads, that this shouldn't be a problem, but i am unsure. could that be the reason for some of the trouble?

As gary says, no IRQ sharing.

ns

[zounds]

ok, as i could only disable the whole usb2-driver in the bios, and acpi handles irq-sharing afaiu via the os, i just deactivated the two usb-controllers which are shown as shared in the device-manager (in bios still on and i still use usb2.0 on two ports (for mouse and printer), but two other ports are now not working. they have current on it but that is all).

i played a bit around and tried to force a freeze, but for now everything is stable! let's see how the behaviour is on the long term, since i only tested for 30 minutes now...

the other problems still occur as every time, but they are minor and at the moment I can live with them (the, lets call it "rightclick"-crash and a few other apps not starting when sfp is running). I'll do something about them another time (must have something to do with cdxp.dll I guess).

I'll report these days if the freezes are totally gone, but I am of good cheer.

Thanks so much again, garyb, nightscope!

[garyb]

cheers!

also, although i said bios, i meant DEVICE MANAGER!

well, i guess you got my meaning through osmosis, or more likely good old reasoning.

[astroman]

... event-display says to these crashes, that the module "cdxp.dll" is involved. (i only have an internal cd/dvdrw-combidrive with newest firmware and running on s-ata)...

I guess that's the Scope 'CD-driver' to read Akai Disks.
Depends on your need of sampling libraries in Akai format, but if you don't use such stuff simply deactivate that dll - otherwise a temporary remove to verify the problem might apply.

cheers, Tom

[zounds]

it's impressive that with the help of the people of this forum even the strangest problems can be solved bit by bit!

thanks astroman, that solution should have been obvious but didn't cross my mind before

Yes, the "rightclick"-problem is solved now. I renamed the cdxp.dll to cdxp.old-dll and after a restart the problem was gone.

Now only one program is left which is at odds with the sfp-driver: it is called phonostar player (free version downloadable here: http://www.phonostar.com/) - I don't think this is promotion here, since it sucks to work with sfp

I'd be interested if others with sfp4.5 running in sfp-mode gets the same problems with that app. while installing, I tried to "automatically" detect the record-source as the installer offers, and thats the point where the install crashes with an error-message. If anyone likes to try out and post the result here it would be nice (That problem is in no way essential, I'm just curious whether there's simply some crappy programming in one or the other app).

Regarding the freezes: I did not work with cubase these days but I will today. Anyway I opened cubase some times just to listen into some projects of mine, and I had only one freeze after closing cubase, so I guess that may relate to cubase itself. The partial USB-deactivating seems to have been the key to avoid the often-freezing I had before.

I'll keep you informed about the results after working "heavily" with cubase

PS: I have the luck not to have to work with akai-cds or disks, else I'd still have a problem... In that case I'd mail the soniccore-suppord with low expectations in getting help...

[astroman]

... Now only one program is left which is at odds with the sfp-driver: it is called phonostar player (free version downloadable here: http://www.phonostar.com/) - I don't think this is promotion here, since it sucks to work with sfp

well, it doesn't just s*ck with Scope
stuff like that is almost inevitably some kind of adware, spyware, I-dunno-ware...
there is no such thing as a free meal, let alone on the internet...

and with Scope there's not even the need to use such crap - just route the Wave-module output to whatever recording destination, an Asio pair, or VDAT... and record the 'original' with one of your trusted apps.
You can split the virtual source as often as you like (unlike in the analogue world...)
Turn the record into any other format later with optimized tools if there's a need.
I also use VLC and for (recording) video stuff a Firefox addon called Download Helper.

cheers, Tom

[zounds]

hehe, scope-users can record any internet-audiostreams, i know that and did that since 2003.

for non-scope-users phonostar is in germany the by far biggest streamingradio-platform with included streamrecording (2mio. users in germany). not really malware...

i installed it cause a friend of mine used it for a long time and has a new computer now, where he says the program doesn't record correctly, the quality is like 20% of what he had before. so i don't need it for myself, but now that i tried to install it i was curious if the program itself is so crappy that it simply cannot handle a scope sound system or if there's still something wrong in my individual configuration of my computer.

as an all in one player for video i use media player classic with the satsuki decoder pack, vlc and divx are also just in case on my system. when watching dvds, i sometimes route some compressors and limiters from scope into the mixer to get a better leveled sound. for the ususal mp3/ogg-consuming i am still happy with winamp since years.

so please don't comment on the program (if you say it's shit i'll agree anyway , but tell me if you can install it and run a recording without problems. it's by the way easy uninstallable by clicking the unins000.exe and leaves no traces, no viruses, no ads, no adware, no trojans nor whatsoever

[astroman]

ok, my verdict further above took less than 20 seconds after clicking the phonostar site for the first time.
Before you mentioned it, I had no idea about it's existence and I'll happily forget about it again
but I trusted in your words, installed and crashed it a couple of times
LMAO at the fake extended loading 'period' to display it's ad shite
but for the technical part it acts almost identical to your description.
I can choose the driver (Scope Wave in my case), but it doesn't display a choice for the recording device or whatever that was called.
Just an empty popup menu, so I assume it starts working on 'nil' and the result is expectable - at least a well behaved crash, so no complaints from my side

cheers, Tom

[zounds]

thanks astroman, thats great. so its really a crappy shit of program

funny, I didn't realise the reason for the "loading til the end" despite of an error-message (to show the ad regardless what happens, haha).

ok astroman, you might have already forgotten the name, but to be on the shure side, please look closely and focus my eyes, I'll flashy-thing you in about 5 seconds

even this problem officially solved now (since it's crappy software anyway)!