Audition freezing up on Windows PC and switching to another program

[Quantum88]

I may have raised this issue before.

Every so often and without any trigger, Audition freezes up completely and is non-responsive in a bizarre way - any click on it anywhere shifts the window to another program - the browser, Excel or anything else I have opened.  If I close all other programs and have nothing but Audition open, when I click in it, it will open a random program that is closed at that time.

The only way to fix it is to end Adobe in the Task Manager.

I did it just now - and it reopened with some errors !!!  the top toolbar was greyed out, and as I clicking on it I AGAIN closed that top toolbar!!

ok got my Toolbar back.

This is definitely an Adobe issue.

can anyone help? Steve?......:-)

[SteveG_AudioMasters_]

It may be an Adobe issue, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it's Adobe's fault - if you see what I mean - but maybe you don't! What I actually mean is that Audition could be reacting strangely to something that's happening in your OS.  And quite frankly, that sounds eminently plausible. it is also worth noting that nobody else has reported this issue, so I'm keeping an open mind until there's some evidence. Fortunately Audition is quite helpful from that POV...

And so your first course of action is to provide us with the latest log files - especially if one of them's a crash log. The other thing is to try running the Beta version and seeing if that does the same thing. It's all evidence...

[Quantum88]

When I say it's an Audition issue this includes any potential conflicts with OS or other programs on my computer. It's a no-brainer. So yes, I do see and understand what you mean. It could be even my OS with its specific configuration on my computer that has some glitch or intermittent conflict with Audition that no one else in the whole world has.

I've got only four Audition log files, all in .txt - dated June 28 (yesterday) not sure why there aren't more. Two contain log info including crashes, two are blank. When you say - provide us with the log files - do you mean attach them here? They don't have much information, just the time and description of each event. I also had a couple of minor crashes - when opened Audition it said it encountered an error and needs to close. Then reopened ok.

This issue is difficult to troubleshoot as it can't be replicated on request. The trigger or triggers are unknown. It just happens, often without me doing anything. But surely there are many Audition users on Windows 10, so if this was an inherent bug in Windows, others would have experienced it as well.

[SteveG_AudioMasters_]

The only sensible way to append log files that we've found is to copy all the text and paste it into a reply - that works fine. The situation with log files is that Audition creates one each time it opens, but only keeps the last two - unless there's a crash. The additional logs containing the letters OMF don't provide any useful information unless you export an OMF, I believe. An actual crash log has the extension .crash and those are the ideal ones to look at. If you don't get a crash log, then I am very suspicious about your OS, I have to say...

[Quantum88]

ok. I don't have any .crash logs, but both .txt logs have events with the word "crash" :

Initialized dvacrashreporter::Locale

Ticks = 1157      <16392> <AuLog.Initializer> <5> Initialized dvacrashreporter::CrashReporterAdobe::LogFilePath

Ticks = 1157      <16392> <AuLog.Initializer> <5> Initialized dvacrashreporter::AppState

Ticks = 1157      <16392> <AuLog.Initializer> <5> Initialized dvacrashreporter::LogFilePath

also 23 consecutive events like this one - just with different numbers:

Invalid DeviceContext: 000001C5FB8E24B0, recreating...

Ticks = 45031610      <16392> <Drawbot Direct2D> <1> Drawing error in FinalizeDrawing()

This looks like the number of clicks inside Audition I clicked when each time it was switching to another program. While there is no "crash" word, but the number and grouping is suspicious. I can't relate a "drawing error" that happened 23 times in a row to anything else I was doing in Audition.

also:

Startup> <5> Initializing Crash Recovery

Ticks = 671      <18648> <AuLog.Startup> <5> Previous Crash Detected!!!

(the exclamation marks are in the log, not mine)

and

Initialized dvacrashreporter::Locale

Ticks = 5984      <18648> <AuLog.Initializer> <5> Initialized dvacrashreporter::CrashReporterAdobe::LogFilePath

Ticks = 5984      <18648> <AuLog.Initializer> <5> Initialized dvacrashreporter::AppState

Ticks = 5984      <18648> <AuLog.Initializer> <5> Initialized dvacrashreporter::LogFilePath

Ticks = 5984      <18648> <AuLog.Initializer> <5> Initialized dvacrashreporter::CrashReporterDVA::LogFilePath

I mean - I don't know. I am not an IT tech or programmer or audio engineer. I just go with logic, looking for patterns and relationships, and with my gut feelings.

Thanks for  telling me about the logs in the first place (I had no idea they exist) and for the warning that Adobe keeps only two most recent longs.  I have copied them and pasted in a Word document in case Adobe tech support would want to see them.

What do you mean by saying that you are suspicious about my OS? In what sense?

[SteveG_AudioMasters_]

If you've got Drawbot errors, then that is the OS - it's a Windows API (Application Programming Interface). Its purpose is to display items on screen, and get inputs from the mouse and keyboard. All non-Microsoft software has to use it.

Because this isn't happening all the time, then it's possible that you may have a hardware acceleration issue. Fortunately this is an easy thing to alter - it's in Edit>preferences>General, 6th item. If it has a check against it, take it out. And if it doesn't have a check, put one in. You have to reboot Audition at this point for the change to take effect. Another thing you should check is your graphics driver - generally they need to be up to date, espcially if they are Nvidia ones - they almost update weekly!

If none of that makes any difference, then uninstall Audition using the CCcleaner app that you will find here . Then reinstall it - this should reinstate everything it gets from the library files automatically.

Only of all of that fails, do you need to pay a lot more attention to your OS - all of the above is a lot easier and has solved sereral peoples' similar issues.

[Quantum88]

ok, thank you - I did have a tick for hardware acceleration which I have removed and rebooted.

So now it's wait and see what happens, as this error can't be replicated on command.

I've got two graphics drivers:

Intel(R) UHD Graphics 630

NVIDIA Quadro P620

Both show as up to date, but I certainly don't get weekly NVIDIA updates. The last NVIDIA update was on March 30 and the previous one on January 22. 

I can't see the Intel(R) update as Windows packs all updates in the monthly Cumulative Update, to hide some components, like the Monthly Malicious Software Tool Removal which is just a Microsoft spyware taking stock of the software content on the machine, as people were excluding it from the updates when it was visible. Now they can't, so it is a forced spyware.

If this error happens again, I will do a clean install - it looks like this is a big deal with lots of preparation, so I will leave it as the last resort.  Will it remove my Audition preferences, saved shortcuts, favourites, layout etc?

[SteveG_AudioMasters_]

You should be able to save your Preferences folder and use that to replace the vanilla one you get on a fresh install. It's not going to be anything in there that will have caused this!

[Quantum88]

ok, I found this folder - which is simply 24.0 under Audition. 

how do I go about saving it safely and where - if I need to do a clean instal?

Do I simply save a copy on my external drive?

[SteveG_AudioMasters_]

Basically, yes. It's data in files - just like any other data. Make a new folder and give it a different name so that you can distinguish it, and make a copy of the entire contents of the existing preferences folder to it. I've emphasised copy to distinguish it from a move - which isn't what you want at this point. In the new installation you have to locate the vanilla preferences folder, and delete everything in it. Then you copy and paste the contents of your saved folder to it - don't just move it, because it's the only copy you've got. It doesn't matter about the contents of the vanilla folder, because that could easily be recreated anyway. But if you follow the steps carefully and logically, you'll end up with your old Preferences, and still have a safe backup copy of them too.

[Quantum88]

ok, thanks 🙂

[Quantum88]

well, it did it again. Removing hardware acceleration didn't help. I'm really tired of this.

It happens most often after I left Audition open on my PC for longer period of time, when I hibernate my PC (for the night or just not using it for the day). But not always - sometimes when I'm working in it.

I now really think that this is a Windows issue on my PC.

* UPDATE*

This time, when I clicked few times on the Audition icon in the task bar to bring it back - suddenly it "reconnected" itself (??) and was working OK again.

I now think that I have a gremlin in my computer.