MASCHINE 2 freezes after upgrade to Windows 11

argyre planitia

After upgrading to Win 11, MASCHINE freezes occasionally and I get audio drop outs (which I had not under Win 10). Sometimes, it takes just a minute until it freezes, sometimes 20 or even more. Not really reproducible. That makes testing very tediuos.

No crash dump availabe.

All NI Programs are up to date (according to Native Access). Win 11 has all current patches installed. NI hardware is also fine (according to DeviceUpdater)

My current Project uses Arturia Pigments, Surge XT, KONTAKT, audio input from a hardware synth as instruments and TDR Nova, Youlean Loudness Meter, Melda MNotepad, Valhalla Room/Supermassive as FX.

I had also RAZOR in the project, I removed it to find out, which plugin may cause the problems. First I thought, that this cured the problem, but it turned out, that RAZOR is not responsible. The problem still occurs. Of course, I could remove one plugin after the other, then test again, wait 20 minutes, remove the next one, test again...

Followed the instructions at https://support.native-instruments.com/hc/de/articles/210296425 - had no success.

NI Hardware:

  MASCHINE Mk II

  KOMPLETE Audio 6

PC:

  Graphics: Intel UHD Graphics 630

  CPU:     Intel Core i7-10700 @ 3.80 GHz (16 cores)

  Memory:  32 GB

WHAT NOW???

argyre planitia

Hi,

intensive an time consuming testing with latency monitor showed that ndis.sys (MS network driver) requires up to 60 ms from time to time. The best way, to get rid of this is not only to close open browsers, but also to disable the network interface while running MASCHINE! If I do this, I get occasionally buffer underruns (6 to 10 in 30 minutes), which are mostly not audible, and when they are, they seem not to be part of the music (one should see them clearly as spikes in a sonogramm). These underruns are also not considered to be a problem by the Komplete Audio control panel.

Disabling the network interface while running Maschine is not really a solution, but at least, the maschine software does not freeze now.

The question remains, what MS has changed in Win 11, under Win 10 I never had these problems... Though it is not considered a good idea to have an open browser whil emaking music, it worked!

Anyway, I seem to have a work around now...

Thanks,

Stefan

Jeremy_NI

@argyre planitia Does this happen with every project? Does it happen if you are using your onboard soundcard?

argyre planitia

Will try thhis. May take a while. I come back to you later.

argyre planitia

@Jeremy_NI

Interesting news: I set up a completely empty project, only one empty scene, no plugins. Freeze after 15 to 30 minutes. As (more or less) expected.

But: although the playhead stops, I still can access the "File menu". If I go to the audio settings and change only the driver from ASIO to "WASAPI (shard mode)" - did not try the exlusive mode so far - the playhead immediatly continues to move! Still using the KOMPLETE interface:

This seems to point somehow to the KOMPLETE audio driver.

If it helps you: my interface is an older MK1, not the newer MK2.

argyre planitia

As expected: with the WASAPI driver, Maschine plays for hours without freezing.

What now?

Jeremy_NI

@argyre planitia Ok, so it looks like the issue is with the ASIO driver of the KA6 mk1. Have you experimented with the buffer size on the ASIO driver?

Do you experience any other issue with any other audio software? Are you also using the soundcard for the sound output of your Windows system? Is the sample frequency set to the same one as in Maschine ?

argyre planitia

Yes, sampling rates are equal, 48 kHz in both cases.

Yes, i tried different buffer sizes to get rid of the audio drop outs. Which I had not under Win 10. Did not help. Can try again with even bigger buffers or very small ones. Ooops - its 4 * 9 = 36 possible combinations... ;)

Will also try Samplitude for more testing.

Audio is configured like this:

argyre planitia

I started with very low buffers sizes. That resulted in drop outs. I increased them slowly, this is the result after 30 minutes looping:

Latency mostly below 1000 microseconds, 16 buffer underruns. In 30 minutes. No critical audio problems detected, no freeze so far. Not bad.

The current settings are: Process Buffer = 128 samples, USB Buffer = 2 ms. Much lower than under Win 10.

Stupid me - I thought, that increasing the buffers will help, but it seems, that decreasing might also be a good suggestion.

Now I stopped maschine after one our of looping. Without freeze!!!

But: the green status message suggests, that the buffer underruns are not critical. But they procuce audible cracks. Which buffer should I increase preferrably? Or is it just try and error?

argyre planitia

Increasing the buffer to 512 samples does not cure the drop uts - but causes a freeze after a while. Trying now with 256 samples...

Update: not good. Freeze. Back to 128...

Jeremy_NI

Ok, so you still hear cracks. Buffer sizes between 128 and 256 are usually a good compromise for latency and performance. I'll add this article, there are a couple of tips there that could help you improve the performance of the soundcard and Maschine software: Windows Tuning Tips for Audio Processing

argyre planitia

OK, this will take some time...

Thanks so far.

argyre planitia

Hi,

intensive an time consuming testing with latency monitor showed that ndis.sys (MS network driver) requires up to 60 ms from time to time. The best way, to get rid of this is not only to close open browsers, but also to disable the network interface while running MASCHINE! If I do this, I get occasionally buffer underruns (6 to 10 in 30 minutes), which are mostly not audible, and when they are, they seem not to be part of the music (one should see them clearly as spikes in a sonogramm). These underruns are also not considered to be a problem by the Komplete Audio control panel.

Disabling the network interface while running Maschine is not really a solution, but at least, the maschine software does not freeze now.

The question remains, what MS has changed in Win 11, under Win 10 I never had these problems... Though it is not considered a good idea to have an open browser whil emaking music, it worked!

Anyway, I seem to have a work around now...

Thanks,

Stefan

argyre planitia

I missed one point: a few days ago, I got hundreds (!) of buffer undderuns when I started playing a hardware synth (i.e. input via interface 3/4 on the rear side of the komplete audio 6). Solution: reboot the PC. In this case, I had a browser window open BEFORE testing, but while testing it was shut down. Seems as if soemone does not really tidies up after a program is finished. Be it Firefox, be it Windows, don't know...

To me it seems, that I have some work arounds, but something with Win 10 still demands for improvement...