E4L B-Format Convolution Reverb crashes Ableton 11 (Win 10 and 11)

[Hunterwolf88]

Hello guys!

Since the last E4L update I can't no longer use B-Format Convolution Reverb in medium complexity projects.

It works in one-track environment, but crashes if I put it after source panner in more complex projects (7-8 tracks).

I don't know how to replicate the issue because sometimes it randomly works, and sometimes I can't open the crashed project anymore even if it was not saved. Sometimes I can open the project but Ableton crashes if I play it.

I found an old (2019) topic about this same issue, but I never had it before the last E4L update.

[mcslee]

Hi there - sorry to hear that you are having this issue. Unfortunately, this is one of the reasons that we are not officially supported on Windows. We get reports like these of unpredictable crashes sporadically from Windows users. We have had a hard time nailing down why they occur, have collected crash reports and sent to Ableton, etc.

It has unfortunately been difficult for us to diagnose as these crashes only seem to happen on some Windows machines. For some users the crash happens all the time, and on others it happens unpredictably. Some Windows users encounter no problems and all works fine for them. We're not sure what causes the difference.

I wish I could give a clear answer on this, but unfortunately for the time being our official position is that Windows is not a fully supported platform. We highly recommend saving your work often and making backup copies when working on Windows. We know it's very frustrating, again I wish I had a better answer to give - but this is the state of things at the moment.

[k5123]

I can reproduce the issue quite reliably. Place the conv. reverb on a track -> crash. No recovering the project either (via crash recovery). Is there a way to debug-log anything to figure out where these crashes come from?

[Sinedrone-Sentinel]

I have the same issue. As soon as I add Conv Reverb, my project crashes and is unrecoverable.

[logarythmus]

Hey there just wondering if there are any clues, if only the conv reverb crashes the project or if it works fine without the reverb - just asking before i commit to a big project thx

[Sinedrone-Sentinel]

Personally, I think it defeats the point of having these tools if you have to use stereo reverb on Atmos audio.

And 2: these are Max For Live plugins, I dont understand how windows vs linux matters but I havent tried making my own M4L controls, so what do I know. I will say this, tho, I have another song that I was trying to convert to "Atmos" and adding the usual panner to a track inside a group (not ON the group itself..havent tried that yet) also caused catastrophic crashing with no recover. My advice, dont use this tool set on windows.

I dont know why this was developed for Linux first, I dont know ANY producers who use Linux and Ableton.

[mcslee]

I wish I had more to share here, but it remains a mystery to us why these devices crash on some Windows systems but work fine on Mac. We have sent crash reports to Ableton but they haven't turned up a root cause. There are a few 3rd-party libraries that E4L depends upon with prebuilt binaries, it's possible that there's a platform-specific issue in one of them.

It's not obvious what the issue is, and as @AT4-Backblast notes, in theory Windows vs. macOS shouldn't matter in the Max 4 Live environment. But in practice, these issues present themselves on some Windows systems. It's possible that it has something to do with the underlying scheduling algorithms. Ableton and Max are multi-threaded, and the threading and audio driver implementations are definitely different on each OS.

I dont know why this was developed for Linux first, I dont know ANY producers who use Linux and Ableton.

Me neither, considering Ableton is in fact not even available for Linux! These tools were first developed on Mac. I wish we could officially support Windows as well, but we just haven't been able to get to the bottom of this. I know this is hugely unsatisfying. Believe me, it's very frustrating for us from the E4L development side as well.