BandLab Cakewalk (incl. latest 09/2018 ver) gets stuck upon opening a large project file

I've been working on this gargantuan-sized project and now, as I try to open it w/ BandLab Cakewalk, the project opening seems to always become stuck at a certain point. Actually, AFTER the entire "Opening Project"-progress bar has gone to 100% and disappeared altogether (!).
 
I started working on this project using SONAR Platinum, that is still installed on to my workstation next to BandLab's Cakewalk.
 
BandLab Cakewalk (BLCW) seems to show CPU usage that's variating a bit when it gets stuck, but the status window ("Opening Project") is always stuck on the same info text; "Loading FX Sonitus:fx Equalizer". Everything else before that part loads just fine, all the way to the project automation, etc, so I'm quite unsure where to look for the problem.
 
I’m running Win7 64bit, i7 Core setup w/ 16GB of RAM. BLCW’s Memory usage seems to be somewhere around ~2GB of RAM. Judging from the changes in the CPU utilization from Windows Sysinternals Process Explorer, it’s clearly doing something. I just have no idea what it is.
 
The project had opened just fine for quite the while now; what has it been, half a year -- of course building up in size as the project processed.
 
Yesterday, it took me tens of minutes to open up the project – at first, I thought the whole program had simply frozen altogether, but as I let be for tens of minutes (!), I finally managed to open up the project.
 
Everything else from the project seems to load up upon opening without any problem, but it always gets it stuck in the mud at that point.
 
This is still occurring with today's latest BLCW (BandLab Cakewalk) update (Oct. 3rd, 2018).
 
I'm still scratching my head over the whole sudden issue. One plug-in too many? The project worked quite OK with the previous versions of BLCW. I'm running I'm using jBridged plug-ins, could they be interfering? An over-bloated project? Is it even the Sonitus:fx Equalizer that causes the freeze during opening? I’m thinking if it’s more related to the entire engine of the software, since it seems that all of the other components in the project, incl. automation etc etc, seem to load without any problems, and it seems more like the program is stuck in doing "something". The disk I/O utilization is almost non-existent when it "freezes up" (like I said, sometimes when you just let it stumble for tens of minutes, the project will magically open. Phew!), but there's a certain amount of CPU utilization.
 
Very strange indeed, and I'm quite at loss here. All help and tips are appreciated! Thanks in advance.

Noel Borthwick [Cakewalk]
If the last message was "Loading FX Sonitus:fx Equalizer" then its likely that the next plugin or operation is where its stalling for some reason. Have you tried using safe mode to open the project? Try skipping plugins just to rule out a plugin issue.

 
Yes, of course I had tried it in safe mode (sorry for not mentioning that). No dice.

The irony here is that the project would freeze the same way when I tried to open it with SONAR Platinum, but then when I dug up the old school tool that I still have around here; SONAR 8.5.3 Producer Edition! Yep, I kid you not, from almost 10 years ago, of course after it complained a bit about i.e. the version number of the project having been saved with a newer version and whatnot, well, other than that, I got the project opened up! A small victory!
 
So, what gives? Seriously, the project is gigantic in size and has so many plugins that it'd take me few days to sort out which plug-in instance was the culprit.
 
But, to narrow the search what has gone wrong with the project in BandLab Cakewalk (sure, tried the latest version that was out yesterday-today [Oct 3, 2018]) : I can say for sure that in BLCW it opens up the project to a certain point where all main plugins, tracks, automation etc are reported as having been loaded when I try to open the project file (the progress bar goes to 100% and then disappears altogether); after which, according to the notification screen in the lower right corner, BLCW starts loading up individual clip effects that are in the project (i.e. Melodyne etc), and at that point there's a SonitusFx Equalizer somewhere in some of the clips that hangs up the entire process.
 
So, yet again, SONAR 8.5.3 Producer is victorious. I sure am glad I have mine bought boxed way back in the day when it came out and still got it installed on the rig. Seriously, everything went to sh*t with X1. I bought all the upgrades back then; X1 Producer, X2 Producer, X3 Producer ... MEH! Haha! I am so happy right now that the good 'ole "BULLDOZER" got me at least to the point where I can altogether open up the project. I'm trying to save it to a different file right now (as well as getting that CWB backup as the first thing I'll do) ; then perhaps try to reopen the version saved in SONAR 8.5.3 Producer with BLCW and see how that works out. ... There's a workaround for everything ...
 
If there's someone from Cakewalk who would be interested in taking a look at the .cwp project file, please give me the instructions on where and how to deliver the file to. The .cwp project file is some tens of MB's, so I'd probably need to either upload it somewhere or i.e. send a Google Drive link to it. Thanks.
 
I've been using SONAR and Cakewalk now for ... Hmm, 15 years or maybe more in professional production, and I can say that something happened after SONAR 8.5.3 - from the overall software stability to the "renewed" interface that came with X1, nothing was improved with X2, X3 ... BandLab's Cakewalk has given me a glimpse of hope this far. But still, I shouldn't have to revert to a software version that's around 10 years old to get my damn project opened up! .. Just sayin'.
 
Thanks.
 
 
 

Noel Borthwick [Cakewalk]
Thats expected. If you are using melodyne etc a large part of the project size comes from plugin data. If you resaved from 8.5 you have lost all the data from there since there was no ARA support back then.
I think the project not opening in the latest version is coincidental. Nothing has changed of any significance with project load. Just as a hunch try and rename your melodyne dll so it comes up missing and then load the project. There really is no easy way to troubleshoot these issues other than a process of elimination.
If you want to send us your project file for analysis put it on google drive or something and PM me a link.

Ah, sorry, did not see your reply until I was being the usual "What, Me Bitter?" engineer of the day. I will send a PM link to you, to both files, the SONAR 8.5.3.:ized one as well as the one from BLCW. Would be real nice if you could take a look at it. Not like I have a deadline on the project or anything -- wait -- let me take that statement back.
 
Yep, I know I lost all the ARA data and that was the point, to "unclog the WC -- Uh, I mean, CW!"
 
There's clearly something with the ARA data that's causing those project files to go haywire. This has been a known problem ever since they were introduced way; was it way back in the X-series? I guess so.
 
The reason why I don't want to go thru the troubleshooting in safe mode by hand is that -- well, just wait until you see the size of the project and the plug-ins it contains, although a lot of them are on frozen tracks. The term "gargantuan" was not an understatement.

Also: one tip for the devs: you should really look into improving the safe mode load procedure. It would be really nice if there'd be just a list type printout of the plug-ins as well as ARA etc data that's contained in the project, and a possibility to check and uncheck what will be loaded when the project is opened up. It'd be awesome. Instead of hellish clicking when you're dealing with a big master project.
 
PM'ing you ASAP! Thanks a lot. Cheers!
 

chris.r
hard to read through tears

Happy or sad tears?

chris.r
49% sad, 51% happy ;)

Great answer, albeit a bit optimistic for some. Well, that's life.

Create a new very large file in BLBC and resave it, then see if you get the exact same problem. Could be that your old very large file from previous version could be be corrupted.

AudioAnnihilator

kday
Create a new very large file in BLBC and resave it, then see if you get the exact same problem. Could be that your old very large file from previous version could be be corrupted.

Nope, see the original reply from Noel Borthwick who's a part of the Cakewalk team; http://forum.cakewalk.com/FindPost/3787799
 
How I got the project opened up again at all, was to ditch all the AMA data in it. This was done by opening the version that had already been created and in use within BandLab's Cakewalk, and opening that .cwp file using SONAR 8.5.3 Producer Edition.
 
I hope that clarified the issue. I'm not exactly sure what you mean by "BLBC" ("BandLab Before Cakewalk!?!?") in this context; if you could clarify things a bit on that, I'd appreciate it. Thanks.
 

I was saying to create a new very large project file in the latest CW update, and see if you get the same error as you did with the old file ? To see if very large file crash is limited to only that file and not files created in the new CW program.

Thanks to the OP for sending the project file...
I looked at the file and the primary reason for the very slow load is that it appears to have millions of audio snap markers in some clips. Most likely this was due to some kind of corruption due to some bugs in earlier versions. Well and also the fact that it has 490 audio tracks and 6900 measures as well as ARA clips :) 
 
In any case we are doing some optimizations and I feel confident that in the next release we should get this project loading orders of magnitude faster than it ever did.