SampleTank 4 projects working on 1 compy, crash on others

[stephenbortz]

Good afternoon,

I recently got SampleTank 4 and have been heavily using it in recent projects in Reaper (64-bit on Windows 10 and Windows 11). While the machine that originated the project files works with them flawlessly, I have the exact same setup on multiple machines for ease-of-use and redundancy purposes. The setup, which is exactly the same even down to the computer's username and the folder structure of all plugins, has the project files crash while loading SampleTank 4.

I have test this specifically by loading the Reaper projects in offline FX mode and enabling them one by one. The instant I try to enable an instance of SampleTank 4, it crashes the project file.

Other configuration items of note:
Windows Defender is permanently disabled.
All the same sound content files are install across the machines.
The originating computer is the weakest one by far (i7 3740HQ, 8GB DDR3). The other machines are far more powerful so it's not a capacity issue.
I have opened SampleTank 4 in those machines prior to loading the VST3i version in the DAW in order to ensure the sound content folders are correctly set up and have rescanned the instruments.
Starting a *new* project with SampleTank 4 with no instruments seems to not be a problem. I haven't had a lot of time to mess with that since my goal really is just to get this to work.

Any assistance would be appreciated, I have a livegig using these projects in six days

[garfy]

Hello stephenbortz and welcome to the forums.

Sorry to hear you're having these issues. As this is a user-to-user forum and not direct to IKM support, in case no one else chimes in here with advice or a solution the best thing to do is check the FAQs, via https://www.ikmultimedia.com/contact-su ... ck=QUICKSW

If these do not resolve the issue, there is a link to the Technical Support form at the top of the Search FAQs page, for direct help from Official IK Support. They endeavour to reply within 2 working days, but obviously considering the current situation things may take longer than usual.

And, to help others who run into a similar problem, please let us know what you did to resolve the issues, but without directly quoting any correspondence from official support.

[stephenbortz]

Hello stephenbortz and welcome to the forums.

Sorry to hear you're having these issues. As this is a user-to-user forum and not direct to IKM support, in case no one else chimes in here with advice or a solution the best thing to do is check the FAQs, via https://www.ikmultimedia.com/contact-su ... ck=QUICKSW

If these do not resolve the issue, there is a link to the Technical Support form at the top of the Search FAQs page, for direct help from Official IK Support. They endeavour to reply within 2 working days, but obviously considering the current situation things may take longer than usual.

And, to help others who run into a similar problem, please let us know what you did to resolve the issues, but without directly quoting any correspondence from official support.

Thank you! I wanted to see if anyone else in the forums had encountered this issue before to try to help without needing to open a ticket. Since it's been almost a day I will definitely open a ticket this morning and hope to get a reply in time.

I have been tinkering with the various underlying files on multiple machines to see if I could get it to work somehow. I do believe I am getting closer to the issue, and it indeed software-related.

The working machine is a Dell Latitude E6530 with the following specs:
512GB SSD
Intel i7 3740QM
8GB DDR3
Windows 10 Pro

The machine I've been prepping as a redundant backup in case the main fails is a Dell Latitude E7440 with the following specs:
512GB SSD
Intel i7 4600U
16GB DDR3L
Windows 10 Pro

The independent pieces of equipment are as follows:
Steinberg UR22mkii
M-Audio Oxygen 61
Generic Midi keyboard going into UR22mkii

Since the clean install with identical installations did not work, I have tried to clone the E6530 SSD to the E7440 and, thus far, it seems as though that has allowed the project files to load that were previously crashing when loading SampleTank 4. Nothing else about the configuration has changed except its a cloned SSD of the known working one, which absolutely baffles me. If it were a hardware limitation, this would still be having issues.

The Reaper version is 5.99 on both machines. I had used Reaper's Configuration Export feature to move all relevant settings when I was using the clean install. I did not try to move any of the under-the-cover files in the hidden AppData folders or anything like that.

Maybe SampleTank has a different kind of installation configuration depending on the detected hardware? I wouldn't think that to be a possibility but it seems like one of the few reasons why what's working on one would be breaking on another. Maybe Reaper is doing something similar? I'm definitely perplexed.

Since I now have proof that the hardware can run it, my next steps are:
1) Open a ticket with IK to hopefully get more insight into the situation.
2) I'm going to go back to the broken clean installation now that I know a HDD clone can solve the issue in a pinch. Having the backup be usable was the big hurdle for me, but being able to figure out how to fix it manually without needing to clone will allow me to fix the issues on the other machines that I want to use it on. My main rig, which isn't a laptop, is having the crashing issue too so I'd love to have the fix or workaround known. I am going to try to move over some of the AppData folders to see if there's a specific file or directory that is causing the issue.

[stephenbortz]

Alright, ticket has been opened. In the meantime, I have made a pretty solid discovery.

Copying literally all of the potentially offending files over from the working SSD to the broken installation one has done nothing. Everything from AppData to My Documents to the vst and application executables themselves has not affected the crashing issue. However, on a whim, I removed all the offending instances of SampleTank 4 from one of the project files in Reaper using Offline FX mode. After that, I started adding them back but *only* after enabling SampleTank 4 VST3 to be loaded as a separate process. Reaper offers a few options on how to load VSTs: Automatic, Separate, Dedicated, or Native Only. By default Reaper goes with Automatic. After changing that to Separate, I was able to re-add all the SampleTank 4 instances with the proper instruments without the project crashing. I was even able to close the DAW and reopen it with the project file and it does seem to be stable for now.

I need to tinker more however this is a very good sign. If I can figure out a way to change how these VSTs are loaded from the other project files then I'll have a fully functional workaround (Reaper sets this on a per-VST instance basis. The configuration defaults in Reaper only apply to new instances of it, not ones from previous projects).

Edit: Nevermind, trying to do this with a fresh project still causes SampleTank 4 to crash sporadically. This is truly bizarre. One setting works for one project but crashes it on a fresh one? I'm confounded.

[DarkStar]

Can you try with the VST2 edition of ST4 in Reaper?

[stephenbortz]

Can you try with the VST2 edition of ST4 in Reaper?

Yup, tried it. Issue affects both VSTi (VST2) and VST3i versions of SampleTank 4.

Some further bizarreness as I've gone more down this rabbit hole.

If I open the project file in offline FX mode and remove all the SampleTank 4 instances, save and reopen, the project file will then open fine. Furthermore, if after that I add one SampleTank 4 instance and do *not* close the FX window, I can save it and play it and everything is stable. However, the moment I close the FX window, it will crash within 1-4 seconds. Even more weird, if I save during those 1-4 seconds after closing the window (sometimes it does not save cause it crashes too quickly, however saving the project with the window open right before will still allow it to resume where it was with the FX window and SampleTank 4 loaded without issue) then reopen, it will load fine with the window closed. I've been using this apparent behavior to slowly, frustratingly recreate the project files on the secondary machine. It took a few hours but I was able to get to the point where it all could load correctly, however opening an FX window and closing it still causes it to crash.

Definitely not ideal but having both methods to circumvent the problem for now (the SSD clone as well as the offline reload with constant saving) is something I'm able to work with.

Even more weirdly now is the third machine, which still crashes on loading projects with SampleTank 4 but by doing the project file offline then reloading everything is fine. This computer does not have the FX close crash problem so I don't need to do constant saving, though unfortunately that machine itself is a desktop so it's not really my concern at the moment.

I'm beginning to suspect that SampleTank 4 is not playing nicely with some aspect of display drivers as well as saving some display information when creating new instances of the plugin. This would explain why I get crashes on brand new project files when adding SampleTank 4 and closing the window, and also why I get crashes while loading the project files from another machine with potentially different display aspects.