Hey guys
Im so frustrated. I build a new AMD system and until last night, VCV worked fine. Tested it and all. I rebooted this Am and now VCV will not launch, i will instead get a blue screen of death. In my decades of building machines i have never had a software causing this. The error message is too general. I have no clue what to do. Its for a project and ive been beating myself up all day. “Critical process died”.
Help i have no idea what to do. ;(
A home-grown machine unfortunately has no frame of reference on which to base an hypothetical diagnosis. It sounds like you’re running Windows. There should be plenty of logs that usually have a bit more information. On Windows you have the Event Viewer, that you can examine after rebooting the machine.
ATM, I do not recall if on Windows there’s something equivalent to Linux’s “strace” that you could analyze as a post-mortem.
Software-wise, “bad” calls to graphics sub-systems (which VCV makes plenty of use) might cause a system hang, if any of the busses is not managing correctly its memory address bounds. Bad device drivers can cause the same.
Have you rebooted your system, just after finishing its build, but before even putting VCV in the mix?
Is the BSOD consistent with starting VCV ?
Does it work if you delete the rack autosave files to start with a fresh patch ?
to get some ideas what could be the problem
it would be really helpfull if you could post some more details,
which components do you use to build the PC?
(brand, model etc. ) which windows version do you use?
which software else have you installed, which drivers etc. …
Not a lot of information; but I’ve fixed similar problems in the past:
Is the CPU overheating?
Is the RAM clocked too fast? (Depending on the CPU model, some don’t like speeds above certain thresholds): check your RAM with any of the plethora of memory testers out there (Windows includes one). Trying to boot Linux also runs into RAM problems rather quickly (faster than Windows, in my experience).
Ok an update.
First off, this system was build and tested over a week ago. No, i did not install windows and install VCV without restarting. 
This is a win 11 machine with an AMD cpu. 64gigs of ram. CPU is not overheating. Its idling around 42c which is normal for AMD. ca 48c when using VCV rack. Ram isn’t overclocked and the cpu isn’t either. In fact, VCV was working fine for a week. Only suddenly today it was causing these BSOD. And yes, it happened every time. It only acted up today after a normal reboot. Nothing new was installed.
I updated all the latest drivers for the mobo. Updated the AMD chipset drivers. reinstalled audio drivers. And while windows wouldn’t let me uninstall vcv i reinstalled it onto my sample drive (ie not drive c). After all that it seems to work for now. Of course not a good sign getting a BS on a new system but i also did various tests, RAM is ok. Not sure if it was a permission problem or what. I will have to see what happens next time i reboot. Hopefully it will keep working…
Thanks Sascha
Here’s a list: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/2HPk6Q
Windows 11 pro. Only the usual software. Cubase, some vst plugins but not a whole lot yet. All the latest drivers, incl for my SSL 2 Audio interface.
CPU is fine. Idle temp 42c.
Ram is running at default speeds. The AMD ram boost is not on.
Nice rig! Temps seem fine.
It’s odd it works from a different drive. I will point out the rated memory speed for your processor is 5200 MT/s.
That may or may not affect things, as stated: I’ve encountered stability problems with AMD processors when going above certain RAM speeds.
It would be interesting to see if, over the course of your daily routines, other programs misbehave.
Other possible culprits:
Something not seated properly in its socket.
UEFI updates.
Saturated PCI lanes.
Ah i think its running under 5000 MT/s. Need to look at the Bios again. I mean all the parts are compatible but to be honest, ive done 4 intel builds since 2020 and none of them ever had any issues. Esp a bluescreen which i only recall from 20 yrs ago. So its very weird and i dont like that.
Id rather know the issue and fix it. You know what i mean?
I still think its a permission issue otherwise anything else and installing it on another drive wouldn’t work either. The BS error is so broad. Theres no specific pointers really. Boo on MS for being vague. Thanks for the suggestions!
S
AFAIK it’s impossible for non kernel software to cause a bsod. Is this incorrect?
I tried other software - they loaded fine. Only CVC rack did that. So yes, its possible due to whatever the combinations are. I have no clue as i have had a BS in 20 yrs. It was kinda shocking esp with a new system.
Did you look in Event Viewer … Windows Logs > Application ?
it may be your drivers in asio/wasapi/directsound protocol when loaded at vcv startup that may crash it
what is your soundcard ? can you try to disable/uninstall all drivers related and try to start vcv ?
Yeah hard to make out where the BS happens…
Tried that but all i did was to reinstall VCV on the other drive and it worked. I have no clue. Need to do more testing…Its got the latest SSL 2 audio drivers loaded. They are usually rock solid.
Yeah, I read your post before I responded 
Sound like a difficult one to track down.
Check and monitor the SMART data on the drive you used when the blue screen happened. If you only got a blue screen when running VCV from there, and then when you installed it on another drive and it runs fine, there is a realistic probability there’s something wrond with the SSD you had VCV on, at first.
Its m2 drives i use. True but then why does every other software load fine? It was only VCV. Even more strange, it was working fine since the build was finished. Im ok with problems but when they are hard to trace it makes me feel ‘unstable’ to resume work on that machine.
Im suprised that MS has not figure out a better way to tell us WHAT causes the issue right then when it happens.
Update2: Still runs fine.
Its really weird that Windows did not create a dump file after a few BS. I dont even see a folder in my windows dir that either says “minidumps” or anything like it. Even fewer does not show any Bug check marks either. Really weird.
only thing left to do is to update the Bios itself.