Rhino freezes on secondary monitor (Problem with the Nihimic audio driver on the motherboard)

I have also tried with a Radeon RTX 590 Gpu in order to cancel out the possibility of it being the rtx2060 - still no luck.

Also tried with two DP screens I was able to borrow, and no luck with that either.

  • Bartolomeus

Thanks for the dump file…

Early investigations show that there is something called NahimicOSD.dll that is the source of the hang. A quick search on it shows that others are experiencing similar situations in other applications, all caused by this DLL…which is apparently part of some Audio Driver for on-board sound devices on your motherboard… The term OSD usually refers to “On Screen Display”, which tells me that your audio driver probably has some kind of fancy graphic HUD or text output that it displays on the screen. At the moment, as far as I can tell, is that when Rhino goes to draw one of its viewports for the first time, this DLL is getting in the way… Why this happens when there are two monitors active and not one is a bit of a mystery… I’m also not sure why an audio driver is getting loaded into Rhino’s process space, but it’s also trying to use DirectX calls at the same time Rhino is trying to sync its OpenGL graphics context…which probably isn’t a very good idea…but I have no control over that…

That being said, is there any kind of TaskTray icon you can see that is associated with your Audio System (configuration)? If so, is there a way you can disable or uninstall it for the time being to see if the hangs in Rhino go away?

You also might try searching on NahimicOSD.dll and see if anyone has found a solution for this type of problem…In the mean time, I will continue analyzing the dump file you sent.

Thanks,
-Jeff

Not sure if this will make any sense to you…but here are the last few lines in the call stack in the dump… The top line is where your system is spinning (i.e. hanging)… The lines below it are how it got there…

 	user32.dll!GetMonitorInfoA()	Unknown
 	d3d9.dll!MonitorEnumProc(struct HMONITOR__ *,struct HDC__ *,struct tagRECT *,__int64)	Unknown
 	user32.dll!__ClientMonitorEnumProc()	Unknown
 	ntdll.dll!KiUserCallbackDispatcherContinue()	Unknown
 	win32u.dll!NtUserEnumDisplayMonitors()	Unknown
 	d3d9.dll!CEnum::GetAdapterMonitor()	Unknown
 	NahimicOSD.dll!00007ffbce1c79fb()	Unknown
 	NahimicOSD.dll!00007ffbce1c62c2()	Unknown
 	NahimicOSD.dll!00007ffbce1c295d()	Unknown

The references to d3d9.dll, are calls to DirectX 9 … which is an extremely old version of DirectX (I want to say somewhere around 2004). It’s possible that there might be an updated version of your audio driver system…so you might check for that as well.

-J

It looks like the NahimicOSD.dll is trying to enumerate all of your monitors through what is called a “user callback”… and the code in that callback is most likely doing something wrong, or checking for the wrong pieces of information…causing some kind of infinite loop to occur…which results in what appears as a “hang”.

This would explain why this happens when there is more than one monitor…it’s throwing the NahimicOSD.dll for a loop (pun intended :))

-J

Hi Jeff,

Currently I don’t have an audio system installed on my computer (no speakers or anything like that).

I can absolutely chech to see if I can find something like a task tray, not sure where to look though.

And also, I’m not sure how or where to find a driver update for the audio system.

I will give it a shot and let you know.

(appreciate the pun :))

  • Bartolomeus

I was curious about Nahimic so I just googled it. It seems from their website like it’s some kind of “sound experience enhancement” 3rd party add-on for gamers. You might take a look at their site to see if there’s enough info to help you figure out how it got on your system.

If you have no audio on your computer, it certainly seems like you could delete it either with install/remove programs if it shows up on that list, or using device manager directly.

The “TaskTray” is just what they call the region in the lower right corner of the Task Bar (assuming you have your task bar docked at the bottom of your screen)… This pic shows the contents of my TaskTray…

image

The arrow shows where you click to reveal all running task tray applications. Usually, you can then right-click on an app icon to bring up an Options Menu… Proper TaskTray etiquette is to provide an “Exit” or “Quit” option… So I would start there to see if one exists.

And as mentioned above, if you’re not sure what it is or why it’s on your system… I would go to ControlPanel->Programs and features, and see if you see anything that looks like some kind of audio enhancment system and uninstall it… Or go to the DeviceManager (right-click on the Windows icon in the task bar …far left corner and select Device Manager) and look through the list of devices, most likely under the “Sound, video, and game controllers” section… Righ-clicking on a device will bring up a menu where you can select “Uninstall device”.

Let me know how it goes.
-Jeff

Hi,

Thanks for the info.

So, I don’t have anything audiorelated on my task-tray.

What I have done is I disconnected all the audio units that were connected to my computer. Apparently NVIDIA does something called digital audio, and configures my screens as audio units.

The Nahimic is something that seems to be connected to the realtek driver on my motherboard. I found the device called NH3 on my computer device manager and uninstalled it. Tried to open rhino again after restarting my system.

No change, it is the same as before.

I also had to disable the device because it apparently reinstalled it self after restart.

Note, the nahimic seems to be a problem for more people when it comes to screenrecording or in this case 3D applications.

  • Bartolomeus

I have not come across any way to uninstall it from my system, I have googled and searched, but the help page on nahimics web is 404 not found…

Don’t really know how to proceed with this.

Appreciate all the help

  • Bartolomeus

Hey, did you ever get around to swapping that cable out?

Take a look at:
https://www.displayport.org/cables/how-to-choose-a-displayport-cable-and-not-get-a-bad-one/

“Recently VESA has experienced quite a few complaints regarding troublesome DisplayPort operation that ended up being caused by improperly made DisplayPort cables. These “bad” DisplayPort cables are generally limited to non-DisplayPort certified cables, or off-brand cables. To further investigate this trend in the DisplayPort cable market, VESA purchased a number of non-certified, off-brand cables and found that an alarmingly high number of these were configured improperly and would likely not support all system configurations. None of these cables would have passed the DisplayPort certification test, moreover some of these cables could potentially damage a PC, laptop, or monitor. We have not seen problems with the cables supplied by major computer brands, or major computer accessory brands, nor have we seen any problems with any of the cables that have been DisplayPort certified.”

So since it is a converter cable it might be worth testing out another one.

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Hi Holo,

Update on this topic, it is not the cable that is the problem apparently.
It seems to be a problem with the nihimic driver on the motherboard.

Thank you for the tip though.

  • Bartolomeus

Yeah, but just in case… DP and HDMI both support sound over the cable so maybe it is still related.

I have done all kinds of cable tests, see earlier in this thread.
Changed both cables and monitors and graphics card.

But thanks anyway

1 Like

OK, one thing you can try is to make a new user and see if things handles differently there. I had some issues with my windows10 a few years ago and before I did a full reinstall I checked and got confirmed that a new user did not have the issues I had. (So it might be worth as a shot in the dark, to check at least, while you wait for a fix :slight_smile: )
Good luck!

When you uninstalled it using the Device Manager, did you also check the box “Delete the driver software for this device.” ? If not, please do so. Otherwise, Windows will be able to recognize it again, and simply reinstall the drivers that are already on your system see pic.

image

I would also check to see if Nahimic is running as a “Service” … my bet is that it is… Start the TaskManager (right-click on TaskBar, select Task Manager)… Click on the Services tab…if you don’t see one, then make sure you click the “More details” option…that will display all of the tabs. By default, all services will be sorted by Name… if not, then click the “Name” column header to make sure it is…just makes searching easier… Now look for something called “Nahimic” or possibly “A-Volute Nh3 Audio Effects” …or any derivative thereof. If you find anything that looks like it’s related, then chances are it is running as a Service…which makes removing it a little more difficult/complicated…

You can try right-clicking on the service and select “Stop” if it’s running…but chances are it’s just going to start back up again…they’re like viruses IMO. The better way is to click the “Open Services” link at the bottom of the Task Manager window…that will open up a new window that looks similar to the Task Manager’s, only you’ll now have more control over all of the Services… Find the service you were looking at in the Task Manager and double-click it. That will bring up the options for that service… There is a dropdown option called “Startup type”… Set that to “Disabled”. Also take note right above the dropdown…there is a field named “Path to executable”… that will show you exactly where the application is located that is running that service.

Once disabled… Try locating that “Path to executable” I mentioned above… Rename the entire folder that contains that executable… Reboot you computer.

After rebooting, check the Services again, and make sure the service you tried disabling is no longer running… If it’s not… Try Rhino at this point… assuming you got the right service, the problem should be solved… If the problem is solved, then go back to the folder you renamed…and DELETE IT! If the problem is still there, then try repeating the process, looking for another service that fits the criteria.

The quick searches I did the other day kept mentioning “A-Volute” … so my guess is that’s what will be the identifying factor… Try looking in C:\ProgramData for A-Volute* (note: that’s “ProgramData” not “Program Files”). If you see anything with that name, try renaming the folder…after which, reboot and re-test.

A last ditch effort would be to search your entire disk for NahimicOSD.DLL … once located, do whatever it takes to delete or rename that file…and then reboot.

Let me know if any of this helps or doesn’t make sense.

Thanks,
-Jeff

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Hi Jeff!

So I followed your tutorial on how to deactivate the Nahimic, you were right it was running as a service, and then i followed the path to where it was located.
This is directly in my system32 folder though, so I couldn’t rename the entire folder, what I did was move the nahimic files to a new one on the desktop with an other name.

I rebooted my system, checked for it in services, it is still there however, now it says stopped under status.

Then I tried to start rhino and what do you know!? IT WORKS!!!
Amazing!

Now I have not tried my system fully after this, I want to see if my audio still works and all the units that are connected with the nvidia card. I also have not tried the application fully, but so far there are no issues. ( I have tried with different views and modes, rendered, shaded, raytraced and wireframe all work.

Thank you so much for helping me with this!

Just a final thing, so I’m not supposed to have the Nahimic at all on my computer? And also, are you going to fix this for your program, or should this be the permanent fix for this?

Warmest regards
Bartolomeus

There’s really nothing I can do about this… The DLL is getting injected into Rhino’s process space, and then performing an operation that eventually hangs (spins forever)… Since I don’t have access to that code, I can’t fix it. Unfortunately, unless there’s some kind of update for that driver/service, the only solution is to not have it running when starting/running Rhino… So yes, what you’ve done I would consider the “permanent fix”.

Thanks, glad Rhino is working for you at least :smile:

-Jeff

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Great Jeff!

Thank you so much for all the help!
Hopefully this can be helpful for other people as well, it appears it is baked in to the motherboards that are “designed” for gaming.

Now I can finally start working with this :smiley:

Have a great one!

  • Bartolomeus

I found my way here because i was troubleshooting a similar issue where Katana (all versions after the hydra viewport was introduced) would lock up when moving the Hydra viewer over to a second monitor.

The solution provided by Jeff fixed my issue as well.

Thanks Jeff!!