RESOLVED: Slate VBC plug-ins crashing everywhere: missing ES

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mhschmieder
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RESOLVED: Slate VBC plug-ins crashing everywhere: missing ES

Post by mhschmieder »

Every plug-in in the Slate Digital VBC (Virtual Bus Compressors) suite is suddenly (as of tonight) failing to load and throws up a message "Error: Missing Resource File. No valid ESR file found in any of the known locations."

This affects every audio program on my computer rather than just DP (e.g. Finale 2014 won't start; Studio One 3 won't launch; RX 4 Advanced had to be launched a gazillion times to bootstrap it behind multiple crashes related to each plug-in in the VBC suite).

The symptoms in DP 8 are mild compared to not being able to use some of my other apps due to them not even launching anymore.

I reinstalled FG-X 1.4.0 just now, as well as Finale 2014 update d, and the latest Studio One 3 update, and deleted a whole bunch of caches and preference files, to no avail.

EDIT: I ORIGINALLY WROTE FG-X SUITE, BECAUSE THAT WAS HOW RX4 REPORTED THE ERROR! IT WAS VBC ALL ALONG, SO THE INSTALLER THAT I RAN COULDN'T HAVE HELPED.

Anyway, I have no idea what an ESR file is.

I did have to use disc recovery mode last night as my attempt to create a bootable installer on an 8 GB USB thumb drive kept crashing, so I used Time Machine to essentially clone my about-to-die 120 GB SSD to my brand-new 480 GB PCIe SSD (pre-installing Yosemite was a no-go).

I tried Migration Assistant tonight, but it appears to be no different in behavior than whatever Mac utility asserted itself last night after four failed attempts to boot the computer.

I used a Time Machine backup starting point that was far enough back to be confident that none of the problems I am seeing tonight were present. And in fact, last night, none of these problems were happening. But I did do some unrelated updates today (then repaired permissions).

Anyway, this ESR business is a first for me, and a quick Google search found nothing but false hits.
Last edited by mhschmieder on Thu Jul 09, 2015 12:24 pm, edited 2 times in total.
iMac 27" 2017 Quad-Core Intel i5 (3.8 GHz, 64 GB), OSX 13.6.1, MOTU DP 11.31, iZotope RX 10
RME Babyface Pro FS, Radial JDV Mk5, Hammond XK-4, Moog Voyager

Eugenio Upright, 60th Anniversary P-Bass, USA Geddy Lee J-Bass, Yamaha BBP35
Select Strat, 70th Anniversary Esquire, Johhny Marr Jaguar, 57 LP, Danelectro 12
Eastman T486RB, T64/V, Ibanez PM2, D'angelico Deluxe SS Bari, EXL1
Guild Bari, 1512 12-string, M20, Martin OM28VTS, Larivee 0040MH
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mhschmieder
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Re: Slate Digital FG-X plug-in crashing everywhere: missing

Post by mhschmieder »

It just occurred to me that this might be iLok related -- especially given the weird and convoluted update and interlocking license situation with those products in Virtual Mix Rack.

The iLok Licenser insisted on updating itself today when I launched it. I bet that explains why the behavior changed AFTER things had already been verified as OK from the disc recovery.

A wee bit too late to concentrate on researching this further tonight, but I seem to recall some issues being mentioned with the latest iLok Licenser update.
iMac 27" 2017 Quad-Core Intel i5 (3.8 GHz, 64 GB), OSX 13.6.1, MOTU DP 11.31, iZotope RX 10
RME Babyface Pro FS, Radial JDV Mk5, Hammond XK-4, Moog Voyager

Eugenio Upright, 60th Anniversary P-Bass, USA Geddy Lee J-Bass, Yamaha BBP35
Select Strat, 70th Anniversary Esquire, Johhny Marr Jaguar, 57 LP, Danelectro 12
Eastman T486RB, T64/V, Ibanez PM2, D'angelico Deluxe SS Bari, EXL1
Guild Bari, 1512 12-string, M20, Martin OM28VTS, Larivee 0040MH
David Polich
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Re: Slate Digital FG-X plug-in crashing everywhere: missing

Post by David Polich »

Two questions - what is the FG-X Effects Suite? I have FG-X but am not aware of an FG-X
Suite.

Second - did you try calling Slate tech support? Here is their number -
1-323-656-2050 x. 1.
2019 Mac Pro 8-core, 32GB RAM, Mac OS Ventura, MIDI Express 128, Apogee Duet 3, DP 11.2x, Waves, Slate , Izotope, UAD, Amplitube 5, Tonex, Spectrasonics, Native Instruments, Pianoteq, Soniccouture, Arturia, Amplesound, Acustica, Reason Objekt, Plasmonic, Vital, Cherry Audio, Toontrack, BFD, Yamaha Motif XF6, Yamaha Montage M6, Korg Kronos X61, Alesis Ion,Sequential Prophet 6, Sequential OB-6, Hammond XK5, Yamaha Disklavier MK 3 piano.
http://www.davepolich.com
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mhschmieder
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Re: Slate Digital FG-X plug-in crashing everywhere: missing

Post by mhschmieder »

Sorry; they've changed their packaging and branding so often, I can't keep track.

These are the ones called "FG-Red", "FG-Grey", etc. I think they're now supposed to be hosted by VMR (Virtual Mix Rack) but my head spins when I try to keep track of the constant incompatibilities introduced by each minor update to Slate Digital stuff, as well as the confusing but not-always-redundant overlaps in licensing and installation details.

I did reconfirm just now though, after fixing the Studio One and Finale issues (those were caused in the former's case by Cakewalk RapturePro's VST3 version needing to be quarantined for now as it crashes, and in the latter's case by having some demo versions of VST's and AU's that I later purchased and which DP is smart enough to get past :-)).

I'll tell you one thing, these nightmarish experiences of the past few days, constantly on the edge of Total Failure and Complete Loss of Data, have really made me appreciate how well Digital Performer is programmed compared to most other DAW's and plug-ins/apps, as I rarely have startup issues (anymore) with DP due to plug-ins.

RX4 is the worst, in a way, because it is so time-consuming to incrementally get past each failed plug-in, since it loses its entire cache each time it encounters a problem.

StudioOne is shocking in how brittle it is regarding plug-in validation. If you can't start the app, you can't update it to a version that might fix the problem! Ridiculous!

Finale can be respected for hanging on as an app whose customer base barely supports its continued development, and also its error logs are more useful for the most part.
iMac 27" 2017 Quad-Core Intel i5 (3.8 GHz, 64 GB), OSX 13.6.1, MOTU DP 11.31, iZotope RX 10
RME Babyface Pro FS, Radial JDV Mk5, Hammond XK-4, Moog Voyager

Eugenio Upright, 60th Anniversary P-Bass, USA Geddy Lee J-Bass, Yamaha BBP35
Select Strat, 70th Anniversary Esquire, Johhny Marr Jaguar, 57 LP, Danelectro 12
Eastman T486RB, T64/V, Ibanez PM2, D'angelico Deluxe SS Bari, EXL1
Guild Bari, 1512 12-string, M20, Martin OM28VTS, Larivee 0040MH
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mhschmieder
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Re: Slate Digital VBC plug-ins crashing everywhere: missing

Post by mhschmieder »

I just corrected the title, and my original post, as RX4 had sent a bogus error message about FG-X that threw me off completely.

The FG-Grey, FG-Red etc. plugs are part of VBC (Virtual Bus Compressors), which I think are now hosted by VMR (Virtual Mix Rack).

Although Slate keeps renaming their products and their installers, it appears my most recent installer for VBC is from 2 December 2014 and is version 1.2.5.9. I will re-run that now and see if things clear up (hopefully this isn't incompatible with VMR 1.0.8.18 from 19 February 2015).

After that, I'll visit the Slate site to see if there are any further updates since that time.

I still suspect yesterday's iLok Licenser update though. Mostly because Slate plug-ins have been so chaotic with their iLok licenses that I can easily see an incompatibility finally emerging due to all the redundancies and the outmoded licenses that for some reason are still needed.

No pun intended, but I wish they'd do a clean "slate" of their entire plug-in set, in a way that lets us wipe unneeded stuff and be confident it is unnecessary, to avoid future conflicts.
iMac 27" 2017 Quad-Core Intel i5 (3.8 GHz, 64 GB), OSX 13.6.1, MOTU DP 11.31, iZotope RX 10
RME Babyface Pro FS, Radial JDV Mk5, Hammond XK-4, Moog Voyager

Eugenio Upright, 60th Anniversary P-Bass, USA Geddy Lee J-Bass, Yamaha BBP35
Select Strat, 70th Anniversary Esquire, Johhny Marr Jaguar, 57 LP, Danelectro 12
Eastman T486RB, T64/V, Ibanez PM2, D'angelico Deluxe SS Bari, EXL1
Guild Bari, 1512 12-string, M20, Martin OM28VTS, Larivee 0040MH
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mhschmieder
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Re: RESOLVED: Slate VBC plug-ins crashing everywhere: missin

Post by mhschmieder »

Everything works now. I don't don't why it failed before and why it works again, but it does.

VBC is not part of VMR (yet, at least). I can insert both in DP now, and all pass through RX4.

I'm just going to have to guess that some system drive resident validation, separate from iLok, that Slate uses for VBC got corrupted during my many hard disc travails of the past week.

Too bad the error messages I was getting were so obtuse and that there were so many red herrings along the way. My first course of action is ALWAYS to reinstall, if I know what to install to fix it!
iMac 27" 2017 Quad-Core Intel i5 (3.8 GHz, 64 GB), OSX 13.6.1, MOTU DP 11.31, iZotope RX 10
RME Babyface Pro FS, Radial JDV Mk5, Hammond XK-4, Moog Voyager

Eugenio Upright, 60th Anniversary P-Bass, USA Geddy Lee J-Bass, Yamaha BBP35
Select Strat, 70th Anniversary Esquire, Johhny Marr Jaguar, 57 LP, Danelectro 12
Eastman T486RB, T64/V, Ibanez PM2, D'angelico Deluxe SS Bari, EXL1
Guild Bari, 1512 12-string, M20, Martin OM28VTS, Larivee 0040MH
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