PG Music Home Forums PG Music Product Forums Band-in-a-Box for Windows Re: BIAB 2021 Build 845 (bb2021_win_update_build845.exe) [Resolved]

Ouch, that hurts. Sorry to hear the problems you are having. Wish we could help. Sometimes it is a language pack which is the culprit. Otherwise, let us know if there is anything us users can do.

Dan

Hi Art, please close Band-in-a-Box then right click on the Band-in-a-Box shortcut and choose "Run As Administrator" - see if that helps.


Hardware failure was my first thought as well. I'd also check the hard drive, and would suggest using CrystalDiskInfo to check the SMART status on it and running CHKDSK.

Hi Gordon. Yes, I've done that twice...

Every time I've installed an update, the program prompts me to do that and this time was no different in that I did it right away as usual--and I did it again yesterday for good measure.

Thanks.

Hi Dan,

Yeah the thought of it being something about my computer has crossed my mind too and it could very well be the case.

The PG Support team has a copy of the actual "FlashMessageLog.txt" file. which renders a fairly detailed report of 845's interactions with my and they said they'd get back to me in a couple of days.

So I'll reserve judgment on whether or not it's my machine that's causing this problem until they've had time to go through that log... I'm sure there's a lot of info and insights that will come forth after they've had time to examined that file.

In the meantime, however, I think they should also consider that 844 was working fine for weeks and this problem started to happen immediately after I installed 845.

There were only minutes between the installation of 844 and 845 and this problem appeared on the very tune on which I happened to be working at the time.

(I closed that tune and 844 to do the install and when I started 845 and reopened the same song, the "Problem" window appeared immediately after the first time I pressed the Generate button. (no other addons, plugins, or hardware were added and the health of the computer system overall is good! Plenty of free room on the C drive, fast boot-ups and shutdowns... The last thing I added to this machine, other than the previous PG Music updates, was ZOOM teleconference conference and that was over a year ago.

Now, having said all of that, I don't want the fact to get lost that this problem is NOT happening on every tune or song. I've stated here and in my email to PG Support that there are some periods of time that I'm able to work problem-free. I assume that was because I started working on different tunes and when I went back to the specific tune I had up during the switch from 844 to 845, the problem reappeared.

I don't know... maybe that "FlashMessageLog.txt" will show us the specific data chunk the requester can't find before it releases the program to go on and generated render after render.

Thanks again for your time and input!

Art

Hi Simon,

I appreciate you checking in and commenting on my situation.

I'll definitely follow through on your suggestions and report the status of my situation after having done so.

Thanks!

Art

That's why I suggested checking your RAM. BIAB may call on a general section of RAM that your other programs do not, so you would never notice a problem otherwise.

Hi Matt,

Since I'm going to need the help of my wife with respect to the computer tech matters that are being mentioned here, I'm going to follow through on the suggestions I received from you and Simon tomorrow.

However, I already did one of Simon's suggestions which was to run the program as an Administrator. After I activated it as an Admin., I went right to a known song where the problem first occurred and it still appeared--no matter which Sty. file I loaded into the song.

Then, still logged in as an Admin, I loaded some other tunes at random and I loaded them all with the same Sty files that the "poblem"song uses and there was no "Problem" pop-up window in sight.

The thing that puzzles me is this:

I've experienced situations where a program displayed a "Problem" window stating that it "couldn't find" a particular .dll and the operation that called for that .dll was not executed or even initiated, and in some cases the program would shut itself down.

Now in this situation, if the program truly can't find this missing "data chunk" why does pressing OK not abort the generation operation. Instead, pressing "OK", seems to initiate the generation process and the new render is completed in seconds as usual...100% of the time!

Did the program "REALLY not find a "data chunk"??? A chunk is bigger than a bit! Like I said, I've seen operations not execute or even initiate because a dot (.) was not in the correct place. I don't know... I'm probably talking apples and oranges here but since the operation still runs after pressing "OK", I guess I'm ok in calling it a "nuisance window".

In any case, I'm really interested to see what the PG Support team says about 845's interactions with my computer after they've had time to go through the "FlashMessageLog.txt" file I sent them yesterday. They said they'd get back to me in a couple of days or so. Therefore, I'm not expecting to hear anything until sometime next week perhaps... No problem! I'm still able to do my work which is what I'm about to do right now.

More later.

Thanks

Art

Simon might be able to give the support team a nudge. We're all interested to know the cause and outcome.

Art, that sounds good. I do admire your patience and your ability to present the problem clearly, along with everything you've tried.

Art,

If the issues occur on a song file you are actively working on, the song file may be slightly corrupt. If so, I may know of a solution that was originally proposed by forum member Noel96.

• Save your existing song file under a new name.
• Open RealBand
• Import and open the new name song file in RealBand
• Save the imported new name song file.
• Open Band-in-a-Box
• Open the new name song file formerly saved in RealBand
• Does the saved RealBand file work in Band-in-a-Box?

Over the years Noel96 and others noticed RealBand does not use all the features available in Band-in-a-Box. RealBand disregards and rearranges the data inside a Band-in-a-Box file and will remove data it identifies as corrupt.

Pretty nifty trick there, Jim (and Noel). If Noel didn’t put that in the Tips and Tricks Forum, he should.

As an aside, in all the decades I’ve used BIAB I only had one song I judged to be corrupt, and I’ve never seen anything specific to either cause or identify a corrupt file as such. I wonder if PG Music could write a utility that employs this technique and at minimum, strips out anything it deems corrupt.

A good one for the Wish List perhaps? I would certainly support it.

I may do that. First I wanted to see if we are dealing with a corrupt file here. I think it would also be helpful (maybe not in this thread) to hear more about ‘corrupt files’.

Not so long ago, I recall a forum member having issues and the problem turned out to be related to incorrect midi guitar performance data. The user had not entered any value but somehow an incorrect value was present.

My theory is that unknown things like this happen from time-to-time. Maybe these events are due to power surges, a combination of key strokes, or just some electronic or programming glitch. If these happen, and the unknown and unwanted event is saved with a songfile, it might create problems. Because the event is unknown, it's almost impossible to find it and solve the problem, if one arises. This is what I call a "corrupt" songfile.

Jim Fogle's advice about using Realband to strip away unwanted information, and create a modified songfile, has worked for me a number of times over the years. I haven't tried it with BIAB/RB 2021. It will be interesting to see if it helps solve the problem.

Thanks, Noel, for your thoughts.

Personal Note:
I had step away for a couple of days and my wife is going to remain out of town and won't be available to help me with my computer tech stuff until the middle of next week--regarding my following through on the suggestions that Matt and Simon made a couple of days ago--but they will get done!

In the mean time, I see I've missed several posts, but now, I'm "back on the ranch" alone.

Thanks VT

From time to time, I've come to these forums only to lurk and learn and in that process, I've watched you and others in this community browse these boards with a fine-tooth comb to try and help many of the people who've started posts stating they need assistance!

Some of the request are for what some may think of as being basic while others are for things that are more complex. My experience has been that the help extended is always courteous, kind, and professional. I just love it!

Although I joined this Forum in 2002, I've been a happy user and supporter of PG Music since the days they were in Buffalo, NY. I still have my original 3-1/2 inch floppy disks of some of the company's very first iterations of the programs they offered, like BIAB of course, and The Ragtime Pianist, which featured 5 of my dad's Ragtime compositions.

I'm sure that there are people in the Forum Family today who's PG Music relationship goes back just as far as mine and maybe even further as in the case of beta testers etc..

I only mention this to say that, over the years, many of us here have watched the company grow itself from a mustard seed into the world-class music software giant it has become today. The flagship programs that we, and many people around the world, have come to love, are very important parts of our lives.

It should be obvious and understood without saying that the difference in the level of programming complexity between yesteryear's BIAB and today's BIAB is vast! However, I wanted to say that quiet part out loud to emphasize the point that when I come here or go directly to the Support Team, to seek help with an issue that has come up, I am not in any way meaning to "knock", "bash", insult, or "abuse" any of the tech or staff people who work PG Music.

On one hand, I know that depending on the issue involved, sometimes an answer/solution may come back quickly or even instantaneously while other time it's going to take longer because of the vast programming complexity these programs now have.

On the other hand, I know that due to the wide variety of people on the planet, there are days when tech and staff feel like they have a thankless job.

So that's why I want to be sure that the PG tech and staff know that I, and most all of the people in the PG Music world's "silent majority", do appreciate them and offer them tons of thanks and loads of love for everything they do to keep this amazing software program on the "cutting edge" and moving forward.

Now, as I said, I've recognized for years that the levels of complexity in the programming of BIAB have been exponentially increasing year after year. Therefore, I was not surprised that when BIAB 2021 was first released, my experience with it was "bumpy"! It was so "bumpy" that I uninstalled it and happily went back to 2020 for at least 6 months.

However, with what I learned from monitoring this forum during those 6 months, I eventually determined it was time for me to try 2021 again...and now, I've come to love working with 2021! I've been using it for several months and I was happily using Build 844 for weeks without any problems and then I installed 845! (smile!! LOL)

In the days that I've been trying to work my way through the issue of eliminating, suppressing, disabling or fixing the problem of this nuisance pop-up window, I eventually discovered that it doesn't happen on every song. I don't have a clue as to why it happens on certain songs and not others, and on the affected songs, the pop-up still happens every single time I press the Generate button.

Again, this "Problem finding data chunk" window doesn't actually prevent any new generations of the affected song but the fact that it comes up at all, coupled with the fact that it completely freezes and stops the program while its takes anywhere from 15 to 60 seconds to appear before I'm even allowed hit its "OK" button, makes me categorize it as a big "nuisance/pita" window. (Smile!)

Uh-oh! I think I'm going in circles again so I'll move on to answer the posts I missed while I had to step away for a couple of days so I'm looking forward to getting into those posts as I move down my catch-up list.

Thanks again Video Track for your concern and comments. You, Matt, Music Student, Pipeline, Jim Fogle, and many others in the PG Music family/community, like Simon and Peter Gannon, have chipped-in on several of my previous threads with tips, workarounds, and/or solutions that changed the status those threads from "Active" to "Resolved".

If there is a solution that'll fix whatever has happened to make this "nuisance window" keep appearing on certain songs, right after I installed 845, the answer's going to come from someone right here in the Form Family or the PG Music Tech/Support Team.

I'll keep the updating my situation to keep all concerned fam members apprised.

Much love to all!

Thanks

Art

Matt,

Thanks for those words and sharing your thoughts.

My wife has made occasional comments about how patient she's found me to be during our 44 years together. Each time she does it I thank her for those words too and I also remind her that I have absolutely no patience with liars, cheaters, rude people, and b.s. (Smile!)

The other thing is that, sometime, my patience works against me. Case in point being this very BIAB pop-up window issue I'm dealing with right now!

When it first happened, I stayed focused on that first song only for at least two days patiently trying to resolve the issue in a number of ways like:

closing and restarting the program a couple of times
warm rebooting the computer
cold rebooting the computer
running CC cleaner
giving up on it that night and getting up the next morning (wee hours)
continuing to work with the same song
deleting the song altogether and making a new one from scratch with the same title
deleting that one and making same song again from scratch with a different title
none of it worked so I'd run out of options

So I put it away and did something else in the house for while. I got on the treadmill, ate, vacuumed... then I took a nap.

I got up again, and for some reason I started working on a different song and I noticed there was no pop-up. I worked on another different song and again, there was no pop-up.
After working on several more songs with no interference from the pop-up window, I noticed that an hour or so had passed and I thought the problem had just resolved itself somehow and simply disappeared. I was good with that!

So I went back to the song where the pop-up first appeared and BOOM... the pop-up was back and it was my patience that kept me there on that one particular song again for another half-hour or so before I decided to contacted PG Music directly. I first reached them through Live Chat and then I emailed the Support Department directly.

I knew, from monitoring the Forum boards, that sending a detailed description of the problem along with the "FlashMessageLog.txt" file would give them some evidence-based insights on how 845 was interacting with my machine and help them in determining a place to start looking and planning a course of action to chase down the solution.

So in the email I sent them I was sure to mention the hour or so of problem-free time I had experienced before the problem "came back". In their initial auto-form response, they acknowledged receiving my email and said that it generally would take 0 to 2 business days for them to get back to me.

No problem, I know they're always very busy and this is the time of year that the release of "next year's" version is creeping up on them--I'm surprised that the help request turn-around is only 0 to 2 business days--I imagine that help requests come in from all around the world.

Anyway, that's when I decided to turn to the Forum Family for help. I've gotten some great feedback, tips, and general info that confirms that this problem is much smaller and narrow that I originally thought! It's definitely NOT happening on EVERY song. It happens on a very few songs only and that's a very encouraging piece of information to me!

Right now I'm working my down my catch-up list of responding to the posts I missed while I had to step away for a couple of days so that's all for right now.

More later,

Thanks.

Art

Art.
this 'problem' biab file.
could you please post it somewhere so the rest of us can try the song on our biab rigs.

its a process of elimination of where the problem lies.

cos if the rest of us dont get the chunky prob. ..
then next step would be to look at your pc hardware.
on that point, your pc itself...bear with me mate..
if the pc is on the net...tell me if the chunky problem disappears when the pc is off the net. its just a shot in the dark....process of elimination again.

fyi i always keep my studio pc's off the net.

please also tell me if the chunky problem persists in the following scenario.
1. copy the offending biab file to another storage device
eg external usb or usb pen flash drive.
2. work on the song useing the external drive.
question...do you still get the chunky problem in this scenario. ie not useing the original drive in your pc.
but useing the external drive.



best
om

Art, your explanation shows you are fluent with this process despite the low apparent number of posts. I’m following to see what Support comes up with.

Hi Jim,

OK! We're getting somewhere here!!!

I was preparing to do each of the items you suggested on your 7-step list and something very interesting happened before I even got to the 2nd step.

Please allow me to outline the list the steps I've taken so far...

STEP ONE A
The original folder name of the original problem song is:
20 Beethoven Allegro (G major)

The original name of the problem song(s) is:
20 Beethoven Allegro (G major) [3-4].MGU
20 Beethoven Allegro (G major) [3-4].MGX

Please notice the "other10 files" below the top two BIAB files.
See Snapshot 1
(I've itemized them here just incase their names aren't clearly visible in the snapshot)
20 Beethoven Allegro (G major) [3-4].mid
20 Beethoven Allegro (G major) [3-4].mp3
20 Beethoven Allegro (G major) [3-4].mxl
20 Beethoven Allegro (G major) [3-4].pdf
20 Beethoven Allegro (G major) [3-4].sib
20 Beethoven Allegro (G major) [3-4].wav
20 Beethoven Allegro (G major) [6-8].pdf
20 Beethoven Allegro (G major) [6-8].sib
20 Beethoven Allegro (G major).sib
z20 Beethoven Allegro (G major).pdf

For the sake of being as through as possible,
I clicked both of the BIAB files and both of them
produced the nuisance pop-up window.


STEP ONE B
I created a new subdirectory with a slightly different name
20 Beethoven Allegro (Jim Fogle Test-1) [3-4]
I saved the original file(s) with a slightly different names into this new subdirectory.
20 Beethoven Allegro (Jim Fogle Test-1) [3-4].MGU
20 Beethoven Allegro (Jim Fogle Test) [3-4].MGX

Please notice that non of the "other10 files" from the parent folder are present!
See snapshot 2
For the sake of being as through as possible,
I clicked both of the BIAB files and NEITHER of them
produced the nuisance pop-up window. WOW! I think that's a huge reveal!

So before I even got to step two of the 7-step test you were so kind to give me, it looks like the problem is being caused by one or more of those "other10 files" that are present in the original parent folder.

It looks to me like you and Noel96 landed a Mike Tyson-like 1-punch knockout with the first step on that list. Should we "call the fight" right here or let it move on to round/step 2 with RealBand?

Personally I think I have my answer! I'm smiling right now from ear to ear about what the first step of your list has revealed!

I'm going to post this right now so that all concerned Forum and Support Team family members can see this latest development!

I'm gonna try to find a virtual bottle of champagne to have ready to pop when I'm finally able to place the "RESOLVED" stamp on this thread, and it won't be long now!!!

I think this case is just about over!!!!

Art