I installed the 435 patch a few day ago and BIAB will now only launch the splash screen then it locks up. I re-downloaded the patch and reinstalled it thinking it might have been a bad download, no difference. the second time I tried to launch BIAB I selected the "Wait for Program to Respond" option and after 15 minutes or so BIAB opened and seemed to work fine. Last night it just stayed locked up.

Anyone else seen this? Any suggestions? Is there a way to roll back to the previous build?

Thanks.

Yes goto:

http://www.pgmusic.com/support_windowsupdates.htm

and grab build 434.

DE

Thank you. Wasn't sure if the older patch would overwrite the newer one.

No problems here Paul, 435 seems to be running fine.

Jeff

Paul: yes an older will overwrite a newer. Had to do that a few times in the past.

DE

If this happens again, you don't need to download. You have the earlier version of BBW.EXE in your /BB/Backup folder. In fact, most people will have many older versions there that can be deleted periodically.

Thanks guys. I reinstalled the 434 patch and still have the same problem, BIAB won't launch. I may have to do a fresh install. Any thoughts?

Thanks.

Paul, can you give details of your OS and hardware? I had a similar problem when I first bought BIAB three months ago. I was running Windows 7 Pro on a Quad core Pentium 4, 2.66 GHz, 4GB RAM. I kept getting error messages, and the chord sheet wouldn't open. Best we could determine was a corrupted or missing registry entry.

Try running all the malware tools you can find. Do you use CCleaner? I do, but I never use the Registry cleaning tool. I've used them in the past and ended up with a disaster on my hands. Apparently, Windows performance doesn't change even when the Registry is cleaned up. That's likely a VERY hot topic, but if it's true, it's one of the VERY few things Microsoft has ever got right. Perhaps you can try defragging the disk drive.

To solve my problem, I upgraded to Windows 10 Pro. Other than some features and apps that aren't ready, I find it to be their best OS since XP. I use BIAB UltraPak Plus, Build 435. No issues.

Keep us informed. We'll get you up and running!

I suggest you go to the BB folder and delete (move to Recycle Bin) the file: intrface.bbw (note the spelling) and MySetup.DK

Sort the BB folder by Date column, they should have a date stamp of the last time BB was used.

Then launch BiaB, you will have to set your preferences again. See if this assists.

Yes, do what Videotrack describes. This is the method Dr. Gannon uses.

BIAB will rebuild these files automatically.

You might also try right-clicking on BBW.EXE and Run as Administrator.

And set BIAB to always run as Administrator. This will eliminate a lot of potential problems you might otherwise encounter in the future.

Thanks Lee, VideoTrack, Matt and GHinCH. I'll try those suggestions. Interesting, in all the years I've been using BIAB, I've never had any kind of problem like this.

Perhaps MS is at fault, with an update that ruined something. They are like the Canadian government - they keep giving us crap we don't want!!!!!!

Dr. Peter's software has the odd glitch here and there, but he's on it when something is wrong. It doesn't sit there and fester like a Microsoft boil that they refuse to lance because there is no profit in it.

End of most recent rant .

Heh, M$ cost us a bit of money today when Outlook.com started having infrastructure problems and actually had to roll back one of their own windows updates contributing to the issue.
Chicago, Detroit and East Coast felt it hard today.

Our mail server couldn't connect to their systems so every couple hours our outbound queue needed attention.. DNS failures from their nameservers wasn't helping. Our server would start acting like the mx record was bad (after receiving 'no host found' multiple times) and starting to mark some mail as bad ...
companies were mad at us because Microsoft couldn't accept the email being sent to them.

The interwebs is fun!

sorry, let's get back on topic. It'll be nice to hear if the rollback worked, or just replacing the BBW file.

Thanks for that Matt. I typically run all programs as Admin. I checked. Yep, set to run as Admin.

OK. Here's what happened last night:

I deleted the two files as recommended by VideoTrack and BIAB did open, (I was still on the 434 patch). I got a message to reset the RealDrums and RealTracks folders, (I've always put samples on another drive). Go to prefs and recall my Scheme. Good. Try to reset RD and RT folders and the DB's are very sluggish. Every time I try to reset the destination folders, it locks up, (but at different times in the process). After several tries BIAB wouldn't even open, not even the splash screen.

I start over by deleting the two files. Same results. I tried this several times to no avail. I then reinstalled the 435 patch, thinking there might be something glitchy with the roll back. No difference but I did notice something.

A few weeks ago I installed some new HDD's in my computer to replace some older ones, (not OS drives). When I set things back up, I thought I had renamed all the drives the same and given them the same drive letters. "G" has always been my samples drive. When the patch installs it shows you where it's putting the RD and RT files. Out of curiosity, I decided to check the samples drive letter. You guessed it! My "Samples" drive letter had changed to "H"!

I went back and reinstalled the 435 patch and directed the samples to be installed on the correct drive. Making the Prefs changes was still very sluggish. Locked up multiple times. Finally, by waiting for 15 to 30 minutes between selections and exiting the program after each successful change, I managed to get everything working.

I brought in some old projects and everything seemed to work OK. I closed BIAB down and went to work in my DAW. Before I shut down for the evening, I checked BIAB again. It would not open, not even the splash screen.

I'll try again tonight. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for all your help guys!

Sorry for all your difficulty. I'm thinking it may not be BIAB at all. From your description, my first hunch is that a drive is not working correctly. Can you check that using other programs?

Oh, and you might try the new Build 436 first. Several technical fixes http://www.pgmusic.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=355753#Post355753

What you could have done rather than reconfiguring your software again would be to go into "Manage Drives" and set the drive letter back to what you expected it to be. Sometimes that means pushing another drive "out of the way (by temporarily assigning X: or something), to make the drive letter available, and then moving that drive to what it should be. But once done, your internal drives should all retain their assignment. Even external USB drives do most of the time (but it's not consistent, I've found). For example, I have set my "inStall" drive (that contains a copy of all my software) to S: and it usually connects as S:. Occasionally, however, it shows us as J:. Go figure.

Thanks Matt. I'll look into that. I'll try the new patch first but I'll likely end up just doing a complete reinstall.

Thanks for you help.

John, drive letter assignments can 'move around' depending on whether or not an external or flash drive is plugged in at boot up. But it's not consistent.

Exactly, Matt, however, I've found that internal drives connected to the motherboard retain their settings (unless of course you re-install the O/S, in which case the re-installed O/S wouldn't know what your previous settings are.

BTW, I standardize my drive letters as follows:

C: - Boot drive with O/S and standard installed applications (C:\Program Files or C:\Program Files(x86)), and where I can specify alternate locations for support files, I do so to minimize the size of C: (makes re-installing from an image take less time).

D: - Apps that don't go under C:\Program Files or C:\Program Files (x86); I have a folder called D:\Apps. This is where all my PGMusic apps and other non-standard installed apps go. I also have a folder called D:\AppsData, which includes all my sound libraries, VST files, my RealTracks/RealDrums, other application support files, etc.

E: - All my created content goes here. I have a folder structure set up for various categories of files, to include my music files.

F: - my ripped MP3 files. When I rip CD's or digitize my record albums, I create two versions of MP3 files. The F:\MP3-LoFi folder contains the songs ripped at 128 kbps; the F:\MP3-HiFi folder contains the songs ripped at 320 kpbs. The 128 files go on my iPod Classic (160GB; although I really need a 250GB ultimately, which won't happen since they don't make it anymore). The 320 files are for listening while at home through the better speakers. I currently have about 35,000 songs under each folder (on my way to about 55,000 once I finish with all my record albums).

G: - my CD/DVD/Bluray drive

H: - my first virtual CD drive \__ Nero lets you create audio CD
I: - my second virtual CD drive / images, that I mount and play

J: - the drive letter usually picked up by any new external USB drive I connect to my computer.

K: - external USB drive, that when mounted, is my BacKup drive, containing data backups and drive image backups. Only connected when needed.

S: - external USB drive, that when mounted, is my Software InStall drive. I have all my software, license files, login information, software tracking spreadsheet, loaded on this drive. I keep it up to date, and so I never have to do the CD shuffle or worry about where the latest patch is.

I use this configuration on both my laptop and my desktop and have for probably the last 10 years. I also have a private network setup with a router between the two computers (using 10.10.10.x IP range). This lets me work easily between the two computers, but lets each one keep its own wireless connectivity without bridging the networks together. For this, I map network drives between the two computers:

P: - the C: drive on the other computer
Q: - the D: drive on the other computer
R: - the E: drive on the other computer
S: - if mounted, the USB S: drive (see above) on the other computer. One will have the physical drive, the other will have the mapped drive, but both computers can see and use the same content.
T: - the F: drive on the other computer.

Each computer does the same drive mappings (in fact, I do it with a batch file that lets me turn them on or off).

Okay, now that I've completely hijacked this thread on a different tangent, back to the Build 435 problem...

I have tried to set the same scheme on the backup PC as my production machine, but since it has fewer drives (and is 120 miles away, so it's not networked), I can't quite swing it. This keeps me on my toes, though, remembering where I put things. Come to think of it, that's becoming more of a problem outside of music!

/ Back to your regularly scheduled thread.

Hi Matt.

I ran the 436 patch and got some interesting errors about files not being loaded because they already exist. I clicked through and BIAB opened normally and the patch did take. However, when I rebooted, windows went into 'Disk Check' mode, (on the drive in question), and it took most of the afternoon and all last night to finally get through the tests! I'm guessing you were right about the HDD being bad, (3 yr old WD drive).

When I checked this morning windows had booted so I didn't get any error messages. I did however, see several lines during the 'Disk Check' that refereed to BIAB samples. Could it be there is a bad sector where BIAB installed files? I'll do more checking.

I did try to run Superior Drummer last night and it took forever to load the kits, (samples are on the drive in question), so that also confirms something is going bad with this drive.

Thanks for everyone's help. I'll keep working with it.

Thanks John.

On my screwy system I have three 'swap-able' OS drives and five other drives. Audio, Audio Backup 1, Audio Backup 2, Samples, System Backup / Temp, (partitioned drive). I try to maintain drive letter consistency across all the OS's so it's easier to keep track of things.

When I added the two new 2TB drives back in March I ended up with an additional physical drive so I had to shift the drive letters. Apparently I forgot to change them in my Music OS drive so that confused BIAB when I installed the patch.

It's looking like the problem IS the actual HDD, (as Matt suggested), so I working on that.

I forget the name, but there is a utility I used to use that would run a brute force test on a hard drive, the sort of test you run overnight like MEMTEST for checking RAM. It may be a Western Digital Utility. I'll see if I can find it. The reason I've forgotten is that my WD drives have been very reliable in the last decade, but problems can happen.

Check your drive temperature. Get a utility like Speccy. If a drive's performance is intermittent like you describe, that might be it on a summer day. If the temp is running high, check the cooling fans for dust.

Another basic test: did you rule out malware? That can make you tear out hair trying to isolate problems that aren't even hardware. Run Malwarebytes to start.

Thanks to Matt and John and everyone! Turns out it was the HDD going bad. I never could get Windows 'Check Disk' to complete it's scan. It would lock up about ¾ of the way through. WD's Data LifeGuard showed both good and bad so I just replaced the drive. I was unable to copy many of my sample libraries from the failing drive but these can be reinstalled so all is good.

Thanks again!

Glad you figured it out!

Hey, we get one right every few years!

You guys did great! I was really concerned that it might be the Mother Board and began researching a new build. While I do plan on doing that this year, now there is not such a rush.

Thanks again!