I have a full orchestra set up in my project, with about 20 EastWest PLAY instruments in it, and it's been going along fine. Now all of a sudden, nothing from EastWest plays. If I create a new project, those instruments seem to play fine (though I didn't save or try much more than briefly testing out to see if they play). If I copy the events in a track from the broken project into the same instrument in the new project, it also plays fine.
 
In the broken project, disconnecting and re-connecting an instrument provides no change. When I re-connect any instrument, though, I always get the blue box that says "The audio engine has been stopped unexpectedly", and the DROP OUT indicator appears in the Now Time screen.
 
If I create a new EastWest instrument track in the broken project, it does not play, but I can record to it, and the volume meter moves when I record. But still no sound, either at recording or playback.
 
If I try to record to one of the existing EastWest tracks, not only does it not sound, the meter does not move, and while it indicates it is receiving Midi info at recording by creating a clip, once I finish recording, that clip disappears.
 
Any ideas?

Hi Jim,
Sounds like you might some sort of error.  Could be in an added plug in or an overload in one of the VSTs.
Try this:
 
Save the file and make a copy of it.
Take the copy file and reset the audio/midi up top in the control bar. 
Also go to the effects bin (easily found in the console view) and bypass all effects.  Remember to bypass the effects bin in the bus pane as well.
Try to play the file.  If it doesn't play still, try removing each VST (one by one of course) trying to play after each. 
 
If none of that works, create a new file with exactly the same instruments and copy the midi files over.
I know this is tedious (I've done it MANY times) but it'll at least keep you working until you can figure out what went wrong in that file. 

Hope this helps.
 

Hey! That did it! Thank you!!! I followed your instructions and narrowed it down to a specific VST plug-in (called Magic AB, it is used to compare your audio against reference tracks). I removed the plug-in and all is well. Epilogue: Added it back in, things still seem to be working. But now I hope to remember that's the culprit if things go south again.
 
Thanks again!

Glad to help! Don't be surprised if it happens again (from time to time). 
I found one of my plugins does that very thing (AVOX WARM)... I usually just have to remember to take it out (or turn it off) before I save. 

jkoseattle
Hey! That did it! Thank you!!! I followed your instructions and narrowed it down to a specific VST plug-in (called Magic AB, it is used to compare your audio against reference tracks). I removed the plug-in and all is well. Epilogue: Added it back in, things still seem to be working. But now I hope to remember that's the culprit if things go south again.
 
Thanks again!

Glad you got it sorted.
 
Just a cautionary word here - running that many instances of Play with only 6Gb of RAM might really put a strain on your system.
 
My orchestral template uses about 7 fully loaded Play instances (135 tracks in total) and this monster eats up about 9Gb of my RAM.