Let's talk Cakewalk's VST scanner- I think it's broken

Ok, I know that somebody is going to chime in and say "works fine here, must be your system". Please, if that is ALL you have to say, I'm not interested because I'm trying to figure out a solution. But here goes.

I think the Cakewalk VST scanner is broken. I don't know what it is, but I can't seem to get a consistent scan. I have plugins that scan perfectly over and over. Then, on occasion, they don't appear when doing a scan. Just poof, gone.

Then, other times, I'll have a plugin that has scanned many times perfectly, and I've used the plugin dozens of times, but then out of nowhere that plugin will crash the scanner and I'll get my debugger popping up(Microsoft Debugging Tools). I can tell what crashed it based on the text output of the debugger.

Then, sometimes a plugin will scan, no errors, but will not appear in the plugin list. But when I go to manage VST plugins, it's there sure enough in the "available" plugins list. But lo and behold, I can't just add a plugin to the default list without saving it as a DIFFERENT list. Why? I don't want to have two plugin lists. Why in the world can you not just add plugins to the default list?

Of course, sometimes a plugin is scanned(I can see it's name when the scanner hits it) that has worked fine till that point, but it won't appear and won't be in the available plugins list.

Next, when doing a scan from scratch, I have to scan twice; once from the Global options page, and once during startup. Why? Because the first scan only seems to reveal half the plugins and the rest won't scan unless it's on startup. Why is this?

For more fun, when a plugin crashes the VST Scanner application, why is it not always added to the failed plugins? Instead, it usually tries to rescan that plugin next time and it crashes the scanner. I have to go manually remove the plugin temporarily EACH TIME I do a scan, and add it back after the scan. This doesn't happen often, but often ENOUGH.

Then, I'll have a plugin with multiple versions(say, mono and stereo). One will scan, the other won't. Next time I do a scan, neither of them will. Next time, both will.

There is more I could say, but you get the idea. Something isn't right. Now, I'm going to allow for the fact that my system may be partially at fault. But considering this happens on two current systems and one previous system, I doubt it. Sometimes I'll just experiment and try two scans in a row, resetting plugins both times, and I'll get different results. Now unless the scanner itself is corrupting files, there is no other way that they could have been broken.

You may be asking why I reset the plugins and rescan so much. Well, I only rescan when I have new plugins. But when I do that, I frequently get these problems. The ONLY way to undo one of these problems is to clear everything and start over.

So, is it just me? And if so, how? What can I check? I've been using Sonar for a while now and it's the only host I own that gives me these kinds of problems. I love Sonar and will battle through it. But why isn't this working? I'm desperately seeking SOME kind of information to tell me if there is something I can do about this. A couple of plugins, I just load up in a chainer plugins and give up on getting it to work consistently with Sonar.

Any help is appreciated. Thanks.

Brent

Sorry, I didn't share that stuff just because it's been three systems, and it's impossible to nail down a specific plugin. It's happened with 50 plugins and with 200 plugins. Still, just for help, here is the system I'm currently on and do most of my work on:

Vista 32 Home Premium
Sonar 7PE 7.0.2
1.83gHz Core2Duo HP Pavilion Laptop
3GB RAM
250GB SATA HD
500GB USB2 external drive for samples(not really relevant here though)
Mackie Onyx Satellite, ToneportGX, Onboard with ASIO4ALL(doesn't matter which one I use)

I can't say what plugins it happens on because it's random. Today I had Omnisphere crash it for the first time since I got it. Scanned again a minute later and Omnisphere passes with flying colors. It's just too hard to nail down.

I will say that I got it to where everything scanned today, but now the scanner itself seems to trigger the debugger. This is all after a fresh restart even. So even if it DOES get through the scan, the scanner crashes when it's done(which doesn't matter to me as long as the plugs scan, but it shouldn't happen).

Brent

Using C Drive for everything ?

Seems like a drive issue to me

Hi Brent,


I'd try to narrow down the pool a bit.

Try scanning the plugins in groups.
ie: If you're using Waves plugins, move all other plugins temporarily into another folder... and rescan the Waves plugins.
If the scan always completes as expected, you can rule out the Waves plugins.
I'd repeat this proceedure... and see if you can nail down the behavior to a particular group of plugins.

This should shed some light on the problem... be it a buggy group of plugins or a bug in the VST scanning.

Sometimes, the plugin gets scanned and is recognized, but for some odd reason the scanner doesn't determine correctly whether it's a synth or effect. If you have a missing synth, see if it's read as an effect instead. If it is, configure it as a synth in the plugin manager.

The rescan failed plugins routine also works sometimes, but that can be iffy. Usually the best solution's a reset all and a reboot afterwards.

ew

I just ran into this. I have been running Sonar producer on the same machine since version 5, a dell 8200 xp pro 2 gig ram, 5200 rpm slowmo drive - just a standard old dell laptop. The VST scanner missed loading Session Drummer twice in the last 6 evenings. Not certain why it would exhibit this. When it happened the first time, I got a bit excited - closed out sonar and simply re-started the program. No big deal really. That was the first night. It happened last night again. hmmmmmm.

Best Regards,

L

ORIGINAL: kwgm

A few times I've found that missing plugins appear in the wrong category -- a VSTi will show up in the FX list, or vice-versa. You can change this by altering the Plugin Properties. All VSTi should have Configure as Synth enabled.

Kwgm,

You sure have a good understanding of the way they a handled now. What a challenge I had figuring that out. Man did I have problems with plugs showing up in the wrong categories. It took me 2 days to sort it out. I finally concluded it had to do with Sonar going native VST and the new fancy smancey manager. I had Audio FX as instruments, disabled plugs and other screwy things such as plugins not being found that I had been using since Sonar 3 and were always listed correctly prior to the change. To further complicate matters, UAD stop supporting dxi. It was quite confusing the way my plugs were found and listed.

I was able to straighten them out by using the plugin manager that is available in the effects bin as opposed to the options menu. I can't remember what the difference between the 2 was/is. I also had to uninstall/ delete and reinstall all UAD plugs that were dxi.

ORIGINAL: pianodano

ORIGINAL: kwgm

A few times I've found that missing plugins appear in the wrong category -- a VSTi will show up in the FX list, or vice-versa. You can change this by altering the Plugin Properties. All VSTi should have Configure as Synth enabled.

Kwgm,

You sure have a good understanding of the way they a handled now. What a challenge I had figuring that out. Man did I have problems with plugs showing up in the wrong categories. It took me 2 days to sort it out. I finally concluded it had to do with Sonar going native VST and the new fancy smancey manager. I had Audio FX as instruments, disabled plugs and other screwy things such as plugins not being found that I had been using since Sonar 3 and were always listed correctly prior to the change. To further complicate matters, UAD stop supporting dxi. It was quite confusing the way my plugs were found and listed.

I was able to straighten them out by using the plugin manager that is available in the effects bin as opposed to the options menu. I can't remember what the difference between the 2 was/is. I also had to uninstall/ delete and reinstall all UAD plugs that were dxi.

Hi Dano,

I'm sorry my post wasn't soon enough to help you out. I too remember puzzling over the mysteries of Sonar Studio 6, which was after upgrading from Home Studio 4. It couldn't have been much longer than two years ago, if my memory serves me (less and less with the years). Sonar 6 shipped in Fall 2006, right?

Anyway, if you need this again, make a note: Scanned plugins appear under VST Audio Effects or VST Instruments depending on the value of their Plugin Properties / Configure as Synth checkbox.

and why wont this forum accept formatting? i press enter and i get nothing. if i intentionally add HTML right here in quick reply, the server barfs. if i edit my post, i can add HTML. WTH?

The support website also is broken. i'm unable to continue on at the page asking for my serial. Lovely. EDIT: scratch that. just a bad UI design.

What I have found works when the plugin manager & scanning is messing things up (opens wrong VSTi, can't open etc) is a clean scan from reset. You've probably tried it but if not it's "options" / "reset all" in the plug-in manager. Then you just scan with "Scan VST-plugins". Nowadays I never scan any other way actually. This is what I do when I add a plug.

Yes Dave, that's a question I've been asking since Sonar 6.

Exactly. The system stinks. [blank line here] And, yeah, i'm replying to an old thread because the problems are still present and because i've just recently discovered that Sonar is losing me work by refusing to link project files with the plug-ins present, all because of Cakewalk's foolish choices. i guess it's a combined legacy of FXpansion's VST-DX Adapter, which Cakewalk bought and folded in, and Cakewalk's general adherence to the many disjointed Windows APIs and development recommendations. [blank line here] As for Firefox... i'm using 8.0. What's so wrong with that that Cakewalk can't bother to use a forum tool that works with it? i've noted repeat incompatibility with several browsers over the years on this forum. Like with lots of legacy components in Sonar they refuse to put any effort into, the fact is that they have no care at all to clean this stuff up.