SOLVED. Crash working with Waves VU Meter wiped out most Waves Plugs?

[Billy86]

Grrr.. .I was working on a project, gain staging drums. Got kick track all set, then moved the Waves VU meter I was using to the snare track (EZ Drummer using multi-outs). CW crashed immediately. It didn't hang and go into "not responding mode." It. Just. Crashed.  And snapped off/shut down.  

I relaunched and notice almost all my Waves plugins were missing, including the one that crashed. I have about 45 Waves plugs, all told. Only a handful appear normal. The rest give me the "MIssing Plugins" pop up window when I open the project. Tried restarting. Tried shutting completely down to the "off" state, and then starting up.  No effect. 

So...  I'm guessing VST scan is apparently not seeing a ton of my Waves plugins. I've tried the repair function via Waves Central. I've tried to reinstall and reactivate everything through Waves Central.  Nothing works. They are almost all V10 plugins. Have tried all the various re-scans of VSTs. The folders Wave recommends to scan are all there. I put everything in the default folders.  Nothing has worked so far.

Reached out to Waves and haven't heard back in a couple days. I'm  no computer tech, but it looks like all the need Waves shells are in the VST3 folder, which is getting scanned? See attached. Any suggested next steps?  Unistall/reinstall CW? Will I then have to reinstall EVERYTHING? Plugs, virtual instruments, the works?

Thanks for any help

Billy

EDIT: I now see Waves Central is showing my DAW computer as a "Disconnected Device.' This seems to be the problem, but  when I tick the radio button on the computer to try and reconnect it to my Waves Central, the "Recover" button is grayed out and unselectable.  Probably have to wait for Waves to reset me, or something....  

So, called WAVES. Apparently me turning off the wireless adapter (I use CAT5 wire connection to the Net, not wireless) messed up the computer's MAC address. Who knew that would create such havoc?  Interestingly, the tech said I couldn't turn off the wireless without having the same problem unless I stored my licenses on an external USB thumb.  Sounds weird, but that's what he said.

 

 

Edited May 9, 2020 by Billy86

[Tom B]

I did a simple search for "waves disconnected device",  and saw plenty of results.   

Does this link on the Waves Tech Support site help?   If not, there were plenty of other sites listed in the search.  

[Matthew Sorrels]

I recommend you always store Waves licenses on a USB thumb drive, it's too easy otherwise for the CPU identity to change and this to happen.

[oneofmany]

I went through this before, and waves had to reconfigure the mac address on their end to match mine. I simply moved my license to an 8gb stick, and it resolved my problems. Worked flawlessly when I built a new system and reinstalled my waves stuff to it. 

[Billy86]

13 hours ago, Matthew Sorrels said:

I recommend you always store Waves licenses on a USB thumb drive, it's too easy otherwise for the CPU identity to change and this to happen.

Yep. Lesson learned. They’re all on a thumb now. 

[Billy86]

1 minute ago, oneofmany said:

I went through this before, and waves had to reconfigure the mac address on their end to match mine. I simply moved my license to an 8gb stick, and it resolved my problems. Worked flawlessly when I built a new system and reinstalled my waves stuff to it. 

Same here. They actually remote-accessed my computer and I watched the tech his around in system settings, jigger the mac address and have me back to normal in about 10 seconds.