I've had BIAB 2018 for one week now. My setup is Windows 10 PC, 32 GB RAM, fast processor, running BIAB on the PGMusic usb hard drive.
The program has frozen twice so far. Just now I had a song playing. I tried to stop it but no methods worked: the stop icon, right clicking on the icon on the task bar & selecting close window, opening a new song, nothing worked. All menus and toolbars were locked. The tune just kept playing and playing.
Finally I had to run Windows Task Manager to force BIAB to close. All other programs worked fine.
The song is "Joy to the World", which I had downloaded from an Internet a few years ago when I ran the 2010 version.
After forcing BIAB closed with Win. Task Manager, I rebooted the PC. I opened BIAB after Windows finished loading.
I ran the same song. It played through to the end. I started play again and was able to use the STOP icon.
Maybe the first time BIAB was having an issue in the background. I had played other tunes and tried different styles, before the program locked in play.
I still wonder if anyone encountered this problem?
Do you run BIAB in "Run as administrator" mode? This is recommended by PG Music.
To do this, right-click on the start-up short-cut and select "Properties". Under the "Compatibility" tab, activate the option "Run as administrator". This will set the option permanently.
Note: this is different from logging in to Windows as Administrator.
It's also possible to select "Run as administrator" by right-click on the start-up short-cut and selecting "Run as administrator". This does not set the option permanently.
Thank you Noel. I set the BIAB shortcut icon as you suggested.
I also did the same thing for my iTunes icon, since it always needs to run in admin mode. I had been selecting Admin mode each time I ran iTunes. Now with this setup the program opens automatically. Genius!
Sadly it happened again tonight. My PC froze while one song kept playing, and wouldn't stop.
I'd been playing a few song files and trying different styles & instruments. Several songs worked perfectly, and then BIAB locked up. The song kept playing, non-stop, while no other features of the program seemed to work. All menus and icons were frozen. Finally I had to use Windows Task Manager to stop BIAB.
BIAB was running in administrator mode, on my Windows 10 PC. There were no error messages or other problems on the computer. Previous tunes played and stopped perfectly in BIAB until that last one.
I suggest you consider a few non-BIAB causes. For example, check your RAM. BIAB uses perhaps more RAM than most programs. Download MEMTEST and run it overnight.
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BIAB 2025 Win Audiophile. Software: Studio One 7 Pro, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Presonus 192 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Slate VSX, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
Thanks again for your help; I appreciate it so much.
The songs I'm playing are almost all from Internet downloads. The downloads are older files, and are all MIDI. I previously played (or downloaded and not played previously) the songs through BIAB version 2010.
When I open these files in my 2018 version, BIAB suggests substituting RealTracks for MIDI, for better sound quality. I've been clicking on those messages to accept the upgrade from MIDI to RealTracks, and saving the changed files when I'n done with them.
I have a handful of songs that I created with 2018, and a couple with BIAB 2010. Most are downloads though.
There is one error message that appears every time I begin a BIAB 2018 session. It is error 9997, and appears to alert me about an error with my ability to record. Since I'm not trying to record yet, I haven't addressed these messages. Here is the full startup message from my FlahMessageLog file. It's long but maybe it will mean more to you than to my inexperienced eyes:
"Running Windows Notepad.exe to display file J:\bb\Data\Logs\FlashMessageLog.txt [2018.520.0, 11/4/2018 2:35:38 AM] Windows Audio Session error: Input and output sample rates must match. Audio input (recording) will be disabled. The error number is -9997 [2018.520.0, 11/4/2018 2:35:04 AM] Windows Audio Session error: Could not open stream. The error number is -9997 [2018.520.0, 11/4/2018 2:35:04 AM] Bootup was optimal, set to fast [2018.520.0, 11/4/2018 2:35:04 AM] Bootup time in millseconds =7,331 [2018.520.0, 11/4/2018 2:35:04 AM] Time to Count Plugins in ms =141. Plugins counted=20 [2018.520.0, 11/4/2018 2:34:59 AM]."
The error 9997 is not a serious one and it's due to using the WAS driver for audio (this is the "Windows Audio Session" driver you see listed in your log).
Have a look at the link below and setup your audio and MIDI drivers exactly as I show. These settings are the most sturdy for BIAB (they're the settings I use).
Thanks for your ongoing tech help. I began implementing your audio and midi settings, but ran into a small snag. In your diagram 2, covering midi driver setup, my choices are different than yours on the left hand side, under "MIDI Input Driver". My computer does not have the SB Adigy 2 2S MIDI IO option.
Is that your soundcard?
Two screen shots are enclosed. One shows my audio interface, an iConnectAUDIO4. The second screen capture shows my MIDI DSriver option dialog.
Thank you for posting the images, they help a great deal
In the above link I provided, I was meaning for you to follow the numbers and set everything according to the numbers. The Audigy is my indeed my soundcard and, as you can see, it's not numbered.
When I look at your MIDI set-up, using the numbers that I have in the above link, you have everything correct except for #3 and #7. If you go back to the link and compare my settings with yours, you'll see what I mean.
The most important thing is to set the audio driver to MME. Even though your audio driver settings show this, the link to the audio driver via your MIDI driver (#7 on my MIDI driver image) shows that WAS is still the audio driver. This should say MME.
In the MIDI driver setup, try clicking on #7 and then change the WAS to MME.
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