Wavelab hangs when pressing play

Just done a new install of WL8.5.2 on a Win7/64bit machine with an RME HDSPe AIO.

50% of the time, when I load WL and load any file, WL just hangs when I press Play. Sometimes I can quickly press Stop and regain control. If I go and change the outputs, then it will work. Doesn’t matter what I change it to - just the act of changing saves it. But then the same issue will happen after some restart in the future, so it’s not the actual outputs that are causing the problem.

At other times, everything works fine when I load it without me doing anything.

Don’t have any issues with Sound Forge, Cubase or anything else. Just Wavelab.

Right after loading WaveLab? The first time you try playing? or any time later?

Only immediately after loading and pressing play for the first time in a session

I kinda had the same problem untill last week when I changed from an RME HDSP9652 card to a Lynx hilo.
Also when changing samplerates I had the problem, but strangly enough not in other DAW’s.
So I guess it’s a combination of WL and RME.

This is the same problem I brought up in this earlier post…

Both RME AES32 and AIO cards behave the same with WL8. I also posted this problem over at the RME forum. No resolution has come to light from either party. Bummer.

My particular machine has an RME AIO card. It is running Windoze 7 professional and the current version of WL8.5.

This happens maybe 2 times per month … in context I am literally working 7 days a week at present. All I need to do is hit the space bar or 0 to stop playback. The card resets and am able to work on uninterrupted.

The only commonality that I have been able to discern is that the last three times this behaviour occurred, I had been playing a track I was working on and switched to another track as a reference that lived on another drive. Only on one occasion were the tracks at different sample rates.

Only immediately after loading and pressing play for the first time in a session

Be aware of this setting:
2015-03-05_07-38-00.png
By default this should be off. It can be On because then it allows faster launching of WaveLab, if you don’t need playback.
But when it is Off, the audio card is initialized late. Maybe, if you press Play during that time, some problem occurs.
IOW, wait a few seconds after WaveLab is open, to start playback.

It’s always at least 5 seconds after loading before I hit play, as I’m first choosing a file to load. So there is time for the audio card to initialize anyway.

Also, I have tried with that setting On and Off already.

This seems to be quite a common problem, with 3 other people saying “me too” in the 24hrs since I posted this thread - so I’m surprised there hasn’t been a fix for it.

I have had this with Wavelab for a long while. And I too use RME.

Never have any issues with any other apps like Studio One.

But if I pull a 24/96 file into Wavelab - sometimes it works and other times it simply locks up. Almost a guarantee too lock if I play a 16/44 track and then try a 24/96 after that.

Wavelab is simply not capable of switching the sample rates correctly.

VP

PG - do you have an RME card to test with ?

Yes. But I don’t get this issue for a while. But I met this issue a long time ago. This might depend on the driver, the OS, etc.
Anyway, this part of WaveLab will be reviewed.

This is happening with my MOTU Track 16 as well.

Thank you PG. FWIW, I have some reason to suspect that this issue is more to do with the RME card/driver. The reason is that in my system, the RME send AES to Mytek converters. I notice that the lights on the Mytek are lit, as though it was receiving AES from the RME but WL appeared to be ‘hanging’. This might not be immediately obvious unless you are sending AES to an external converter.

No improvement in 8.5.3 - any timeline on a fix ?

New driver our for RME cards http://www.rme-audio.de/en/downloads/driver/hdspe.php

Thanks - but I’m already on that version and anyway I think it’s a Wavelab issue rather than RME’s problem.

+1.

I am 100% convinced this has nothing to do with the driver as none of my other apps have any issues whatsoever with start/stop etc. Studio One for example is instantaneous.

No matter what file type, sample rate etc etc I jam into it - the software starts as fast as I can press the space bar and the driver instantly switches to the correct sample rate. It has never ever paused, glitched or froze with respect to communicating correctly with the driver.

To be honest I still cannot believe this is something we need to discuss - as audio driver communication in an app from the company that developed the ASIO standard should work like a person breathes. It should be instant, automatic and never be the topic of any discussion.

VP

Does anyone know if Steinberg or RME found the problem?

I have had this problem only one time. 99% of the time, I work at 44khz, but a few days ago, I opened a file I thought was 44khz, and it wouldn’t play. Wavelab just locked up. I was trying everything, and finally I realized that the file was an 88khz file. I loaded the Crystal resampler plugin into the master section, and Wavelab began to play perfectly fine again. My audio card (RME AIO) was running at 44.1khz at the time (AIO slaving to incoming clock from an external 44.1khz converter). If I have time tonight, I will experiment again with this to see if I can re-create the problem.

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Latest RME drivers work great here - in everything but Wavelab. So I am seriously doubting it’s an RME issue.

I have not installed 8.5.30 yet - but I am not expecting a fix.

VP