Crash when playing lots of different plugin instruments on a single track at once

Help, Support & Bugs
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My post about this was closed as a duplicate.

See if you can reproduce, please:

TLDR: It’s not bad plugins or using 2 much cpu; it happens with “stop” but not “panic”

I’ve always had my method of stopping playback to use the “Panic” command bound to F8, though I think the default is “Stop”, applied to the spacebar.

Some rework of my Lua API Tools after installing 3.5.2 led to my stop command changing back to “Stop” in the keybindings.

I rarely use VST instruments, only VST effect plugins, but for a new project I started using some of my Plogue, Fors, Arturia and some other freebie VST instrument plugins.

Renoise would randomly crash with what I assumed was a CPU overload issue:

Application: Caught an unhandled fatal exception (Thread: AUDIO)!

Then I realized the crash seemed to be tied to when I stopped playback in Renoise, not while starting or playing.

Some further inspection and testing led to this:

  • It seems to only occur when the total number of tracks+master+sends is less than the total number of VST instruments. (My default template starts with four tracks and one send.)

  • The crash is reproducible on multiple systems (Windows 11)

  • It occurs with ASIO, WASAPI and DirectSound

  • The VST instrument plugins can be all the same or a mix

  • It occurs without even any notes playing; new song, blank pattern

  • Sandboxing settings have no effect

  • Plugin options > Audio compatibility options have no effect

  • The crash occurs when the “Stop” command is used, but not the “Panic” command

To test yourself:

  • Start a blank Renoise song

  • Lower the number of tracks+master+send to fewer than seven; ex: set the number of normal tracks to four.

  • Load seven low-cpu VST instrument plugins into slots 0-6 (or just more than the total number of tracks you are testing)

  • Map the “Panic” command to your favorite key

  • Start and stop Renoise playback

  • Map the “Stop” command to your favorite key

  • Start and stop Renoise playback

  • Watch what happens

  • Repeat these steps with the tracks+master+sends totaling more than the number of VST inst.

One of the examples from the CrashLog. The first line is always the same.

CrashLog: Handling Exception! Code : E06D7363
CrashLog: 00007FF8E1FC66CA: RaiseException +0008A
CrashLog: 4061C00000000000: ??? +00000
CrashLog: 000000000DD5F628: ??? +00000
CrashLog: 0000000000000001: ??? +00000
CrashLog: 4062200000000000: ??? +00000
CrashLog: 00000081E06D7363: ??? +00000
Application: Caught an unhandled fatal exception (Thread: AUDIO)!
Application: Saving a backup…