Melodyne Greyed Out Sometimes: Revelation

I've been trying to figure out why Melodyne won't work in one project but works fine in another as well as works fine stand-alone.  Celemony was not very helpful ("must be something in your project"... really?... ya think?) and initial contact from Cake Tech is boilerplate checks so far (but we have much to talk about in our next exchange :) ).
 
So tonight I made an experiment - let's say project A is called BadMelo and it is the one where Melodyne comes up greyed-out (functionally inoperative), and project B, called GoodMelo, is the one where everything works fine, nice orange wav blobs, active editing controls. etc. - and as a point of emphasis, we know the Melodyne license is good because it works on GoodMelo and stand-alone just fine.
 
So my experiment - try to fool Melodyne somehow.
 
Step One: With BadMelo already open, in the same host instance of Sonar open GoodMelo, and - uh-oh - now in GoodMelo  Melodyne comes up greyed out - GoodMelo gone Bad, I'm a sad man.
 
Step Two: after closing both projects, open GoodMelo first then in same instance open BadMelo - sadly, both still get greyed-out Melodyne.  I'm still a sad man.
 
Step Three: open GoodMelo AND immediately grab a region FX with Melodyne - BINGO, nice golden blobs.  Now, in same instance open BadMelo, try to grab a region FX and BINGO, Melodyne comes up with nice golden, fully-editable blobs.  Now BadMelo gone Good.  No longer has a sad.
 
What this means is: There is something in Sonar, at the host level, that is preventing Melodyne from coming up normally, like some kind of semaphore or test, however, if you can get Melodyne to open up at all (as I did with opening up GoodMelo and successfully invoking Melodyne), then any other project will no longer be blocked for Melodyne.
 
Edit here: I'm thinking too, this may be some wrinkle in Celemony's registration check, but it is apparent that even if this is the case, it's interacting with Sonar differently based on something different in their "contract". End Edit.
 
I should have said, I am on Ipswich, and while I would not bet my life on it, I am pretty sure I do not recall ever seeing this problem before that update - rolling back to Hopkinton temporarily did not help, so it's like, whatever the issue is, once it arrived it decided to stay.
 
So now I can work freely with Melodyne in the several projects I have that were in the BadMelo club as long as I have that little GoodMelo project up first (it's super dinky, a 2 second wav with a melodyne region fx on it).  Once/if the cake bakers figure out why it does this I can return to a simpler time.
 
I'm putting this out for anybody perhaps silently struggling with Melo in a similar way, and for comment and conversation.
 
Cheers, Steve

Thanks Noel,
 
The melodyne UI comes up with the blobs all greyed-out (indicating it successfully made the ARA transfer, i.e. the transfer location was not blocked) and the edit controls are not visible (and the transfer button is disabled, although visible, so I can't even transfer the old pre-ARA way).  This is quickly followed by the Melodyne licensing popup, however it merely shows I have an active, valid iLok license on board; this registration thing does NOT popup when the plug comes up normally (expected behavior).
 
I have a ticket in on this, and I can share the project to that drop location if tech support lets me know about that again, but it's gonna come in at least 3.5 gig as a bundle - the last time I sent one in (different issue) the tech couldn't do much because of all the kontakt instruments he didn't have - this is about half baked right now, not as bounced as I would normally have nearer to finished - frankly I leave many instruments on-line rather than bounce anyway.
 
SO, yeah, I can work this through with tech support or whatever is best.  I sure would like to not have the work-around.
 
Cheers,
Steve

A few years back I had an issue with Melodyne thinking it was not registered  - whilst not the same problem exactly as yours, it was a case of Melodyne getting confused! I own Melodyne separately and have done for many years - just on a slightly different tack, they are a VERY confusing company with not very good customer support - I have no idea what the product I own is called by them now for instance as they keep changing the description - studio, editor single track DNA who knows!!
 
Anyway back to the problem - it was a while ago, but IIRC I cured it by deleting EVERYTHING I could find with regard to ALL and any versions of Melodyne - especially in the registry.
Then I re-installed JUST my version, and since then it has been OK.
No idea if this will be of any help, but might be worth a go
 
Cheers
Nigel
 
 
 
 

Is there any chance that in the 'BadMelo' project you were ever using Melodyne in a demo of Editor mode and it has since timed out and reverted to Essentials?

Could it have to do with your internet adapter?  Enabled or disabled ... that has turned out to be my problem.  Whichever way it was when you registered and activated it, it must be to use it.    Same with Sony's Spectralayers software.    Big puzzle for several months.

Not wholly unrelated, but I have endless trouble running my full version of Melodyne as a 'Region FX'. The Region FX menu is often totally greyed out when in fact Melodyne is present, and I often find I can't 'deload' it, during which time I can't split, copy sections of the track.
 
I've resorted to loading as a track FX where it works sweet as a nut, like it always has. 

Had this problem within the last couple months. The Cakewalk version of Melodyne got installed with
one of the monthly updates, and after that would only open in playback mode. I spent about an hour
on the phone with Cakewalk sorting this out, and he issued a trouble report for a fix to allow removal
of the SONAR licensed Melodyne version. I didn't get the number, but I expect it would be addressed
quickly. Contact Jörg or Ulf and tell them you want to deactivate your iLok license and go back to
computer based activation. You will then be able to open your Melodyne version reliably in editor mode.