Vienna Ensemble Pro 7: failure in plug-in inspect and networkings

[revi]

Hello!

I just picked up Vienna Ensemble Pro 7 (VE Pro 7) which is on sale with the "Epic Orchestra" (just a note, not pertinent to my question).

In any case, VE Pro 7 appears to be a very sophisticated bit of software and I'm continuing to read the manual and I've contacted VSL support on this. I searched online and this forum and did not find this issue so I'm posting in case someone has experienced this issue.

I'm running DP 9.52 on an iMac with 64GB RAM and MacOS Mojave 10.14.6.

One of the VE Pro 7 versions (AU3) fails DP's plug-in test and then VE Pro 7 (stereo) can't connect to localhost. While I'm no network admin but I've been around networking for years and am pretty comfortable setting up servers and the like. As such, I think I can handle pretty gritty suggestions or trouble-shooting tips.

I've got screenshots but I can't figure out how to upload them (which I'd do instead of risking making a mistake in retyping).

In any case, the first error is that VE Pro 7's inspection is noted in DP's prefs. Other versions of VE Pro 7 pass the inspection (e.g., DP's prefs indicate that VE Pro 7 passes but VE Pro 7 AU3 fails). When mousing over the failed plug-in, the text in the prefs menu says (I hope I typed this correctly):

"Failed Examination Process (!create and initialize failed - 10863 Failure: Base::New 160 - 10863)"

Per the above note, VE Pro 7 does show up in the Instruments list under the Project menu. As such, I can open an instance of VE Pro 7 (stereo) but no servers show up and DP produces an error message when I try to connect to localhost 127.0.0.1.

Any and all suggestions appreciated - thanks in advance for your help!

[mhschmieder]

Yeah, it's running as a separate process outside of DP, and sometimes can throw up a window that gets hidden but is blocking.

Fortunately, I've never had DP block because of VE validation issues (it runs its own validation separate from DP's), but I do have this problem in other apps that can host VE.

As my current job involves plug-in development, I'm using VE as a validation of how good (or bad) of a job I've done, as it seems the hardest test to pass overall. Note though that its AU3 version still seems to be in an experimental state by some measures.

The other issue with VE is related to ongoing problems -- especially recent ones -- with eLicenser. I can't go into details on this matter (NDA), but it will be a non-issue at some (hopefully soon) future date, as the eLicenser is simply "going away" permanently. VSL is porting to iLok licensing (no idea how far along they are in the process). Fortunately for many, not requiring the dongle unless you want to go that route. Cloud or computer-based.

For quite some time now, I have to click twice to get my dongle to be found. I even spent money on the latest generation dongle a couple of months back, hoping it would help, but can't go into details publicly regarding the 100+ hours I have lost over eLicenser travails. At least clicking a few times on the error dialog, to find the dongle, usually works.

As for the "can't connect to localhost" issue, I think that is related to VE Pro 7 (and all VE versions) running as a separate process that communicates with a VE server daemon that launches in the background (sometimes in the foreground, but not so much in recent versions).

[mhschmieder]

Are you able to use VE Pro 7 in DP? As long as you can, I would blow off the error messages as red herrings or multiple-thread-and-process timing issues in terms of the order that they communicate with each other and what their status is at the time that they do their startup handshakes. Just as with the dialog box that claims there is no dongle attached, until you click for it to re-try once or twice.

Otherwise, if you actually can't use the AU (not AU3) or VST versions of VE Pro 7 inside DP, then maybe there is some issue in your network settings, such as a proxy that you're not aware of (the most common one is the SOCKS proxy, on macOS at least) that is possibly blocking the VE server daemon from communicating with its plug-in?

[revi]

@mhschmieder: Thank you for your reply!

I can totally dig the NDA stuff. I also admit that I'm not the world's greatest manual reader. To that I'll add that I'm going to make some suggestions to VSL on their documentation!



A very clever app, no doubt. I received some inscrutable error messages:

1.) When VE Pro 7 server first fired up it complained there was no license (wrong, per your notes). It also complained about the "Synsopos.app" not being available.

2.) VE Pro 7 would instantiate in DP but couldn't find any severs (unsurprising, as they wouldn't start).

Well, with some restarts and re-scanning plugins (their plugin scanner blew up mid scan but kept on scanning!), I've got it now where the server will fire up and I can load instruments though I can't yet figure out how to get sounds loaded into the Synchron player...but some Spectrasonics plugs did load.

The VE Pro 7 plug-in now recognizes a server...but no sound is yet forthcoming.

Progress though...and many thanks for your help!

[added later] Wow. The phrase that comes to mind is "too clever by half". At this point, I'm getting confident that, once connected, this will rock. The "quick start" instructions on the VSL site are, with all due respect, pretty risible. "Hey, just add the instance...done!"

Well, at the risk of giving a blow-by-blow rundown (i.e., tooooo many updates), I can see now that there is some MIDI info getting to the VE Pro 7 server...and I did hear it play a note...ONE note...so there's more progress.

[added just a bit later...sorry!!!] Unreal. I've got sound. Wow. I'd have to work pretty hard to make a less intuitive interface!

Apologies, I get pretty sarcastic when it comes to software. I'd actually claim that one might be better off NOT reading the manual for VE Pro 7. Hacking around got things to work.



I've worked on the web and AWS for years and am getting into "app development". I'm really big on documentation (a joke I read: "Documentation is a love letter you write to your future self"). I'm soooooo going to write to VSL to recommend some slight updates to their "quick start" [cough, cough].

As with so much of this stuff, once you know the answer, it's trivial.



@mhschmieder: again, thank you for the input!

Okay, and now I mean it: I'll not barrage the list with any more atomic, incremental updates, but any and all suggestions are of course gratefully appreciated!

[mhschmieder]

I think that particular document might not have been updated for v7, as I faintly recall some of your criticisms, and probably just dismissed the manual and dived right in. But I had the advantage of having used VE off and on since the beginning. Not often; I've thought about selling it as I'm not convinced I'll ever get around to working it into my workflow or templates.

But sometimes I find it the safest place to try a new plug-in, before risking it in a project. Of course, I am referring top using VE Pro 7 in standalone mode. Part of the reason I take this approach is that many plug-in vendors have bizarre handshakes that fail inside DAW's. That is, they have to be authorized before the first time they are encountered by a DAW, including plug-in validators! So I like to get that out of the way outside of the DAW.

[revi]

Two final observations:

1.) I contacted VSL and they said that the AU3 wouldn't work in DP. I followed up and recommended that they add a note to the installation instructions on this point as a DP user might otherwise think something is amiss. DP inspects everything installed by VE Pro 7, and that includes the AU3 plug-in...which fails inspection, unsurprisingly. It's completely harmless but a more neurotic user (e.g., me) might think something's amiss. Completely safe to ignore.

2.) I had everything up and running and all was cool...except the Synchron player did not show installed libraries when instantiated inside VE Pro 7.

That is, instantiated inside DP...as a "regular" VI...everything was fine but inside VE Pro 7, the libraries were missing. This is odd as loads of other VIs (e.g., NI, Spectrasonics, etc.) work fine in VE Pro 7 as do the VSL VI and VI Pro players. But not Synchron.

The solution is (I think) non-obvious but trivial. I had never used the standalone Synchron player as I only used it as a plug-in. Simply by firing up the standalone Synchron player...just once (i.e., not every session)...the libraries now show up when the Synchron player is instantiated in VE Pro 7.

I've written to VSL on that one too.

Hope this helps someone else as it had me flummoxed for a few days!

[mhschmieder]

It's possible that VE is loading the VST version and you're loading the AU version in DP when doing so as a direct plug-in.

I've never checked to see if the settings have to be updated separately for the plug-in types.

It's possible that you may be able to rectify this by going to the gear icon in Synchron Player, while hosted inside VE, and make sure the installation directories show. If not, add them and re-scan.

Normally, they should show up automatically (unless you manually moved them), at the time of library installation, but sometimes there can be some order-dependencies involved.