VST Scan is freezing

[carlo]

Hi Cakewalk friends,

After today last update Cakewalk is freezing on a VST Scan window. The VSTi instrument that is showing is Z3ta+.dll.

How can I fix it?

Thank you

[scook]

Have not seen a report like this in some time.

If you are manually running the scanner make sure to run it from preferences

Also  regardless of how the scanner is setup to run make sure "Scan in Sandbox" is enabled.

And keep the two rescan options just above the "Scan in Box" unchecked.

If it continues to hang, temporarily move the offending dll(s) out of the scan path until a scan runs to completion, then restore them and run one more scan.

 

[RBH]

I've run into scenarios in the past where a plug-in loads a window to ask for authentication or some other user info and it is hidden behind the Sonar program. Looks like it frozen but it's a window waiting for a response.

[Johnbee58]

5 hours ago, carlo said:

Hi Cakewalk friends,

After today last update Cakewalk is freezing on a VST Scan window. The VSTi instrument that is showing is Z3ta+.dll.

How can I fix it?

Thank you

Something similar has been happening for me since about 3 updates ago.  If I launch a project by clicking on the .cwp  or .cwb file the project loads but both scan windows remain on the screen until I "X" them off.  However, if I launch Cakewalk first and then launch the .cwp or .cwb file via the Start Screen the scan windows go away by themselves.  Their remaining on the screen doesn't interfere with my working but they still take up the space.

? John B

[Bill Phillips]

15 hours ago, carlo said:

After today last update Cakewalk is freezing on a VST Scan window. The VSTi instrument that is showing is Z3ta+.dll.

I had a similar experience. I solved it by canceling the scan, closing the project with the failed plugin messages, closing and restarting Cakewalk, and waiting for the vst scan to complete before launching the project.

In my case I have close to a 1000 vsts because I have two or three versions (x32 & x64 vst, and vst3 x64) of so many plugins. Also I'd renamed a folder of a plugin used over 10 times in the project I opened. It seems that usually the project being opened waits for the scan to complete and find moved or updated plugins, but that didn't happen this time.

[bitflipper]

51 minutes ago, Bill Phillips said:

It seems that usually the project being opened waits for the scan to complete and find moved or updated plugins, but that didn't happen this time.

That's exactly why Noel added the "sandbox" option. When the scanner opens a plugin, it's running code within the plugin that Cakewalk didn't write and that the scanner has no control over. If something goes wrong and the plugin hangs, the scanner hangs too, as well as the main Cakewalk application. The sandbox option spawns a new process for each plugin test, assuring that the whole process won't blow up if a single plugin hangs.

Make sure Cakewalk is up to date. In an effort to make the software more robust, they made it pickier about what errors to report. Too picky, in fact, resulting in plugins failing that didn't used to fail. To combat that, they've dialed back the sensitivity to make it a little less nit-picky. Lots of problems went away for users with the recent update because of that.

If you're up to date and still having issues, follow scook's advice above. Rename the offending plugin (Z3ta+.dll), give it a temporary new suffix, e.g. Z3ta+.xxx. That'll prevent the scanner from opening it. Let the scan run to completion, then change the name back and try again. Sometimes that works. If it fails, enable the scan log. This will create a text file that reports what the scanner saw happening. Sometimes, a clue can be found there. The log file will be %appdata%\cakewalk\logs\vstscan.log and you can just open it with Notepad. Note that each time you do this, the information is appended to the log, so you may need to scroll down to see the relevant entries. Or delete any existing vstscan.log before starting.

There can be a lot of reasons for a VST scan to fail. As rbh noted above, sometimes it's not hung at all but just waiting on a dialog box you can't see. Whenever I see a scan hang, I press Alt-Tab to see if that's the case. Other times it's due to a missing dependency, iow some file that Z3ta+.dll needs to reference but isn't there. Sometimes it's a registry key that's missing or inaccessible due to Windows permissions. These, however, are usually associated with new installs only.

[Bill Phillips]

On 5/22/2021 at 9:23 AM, bitflipper said:

That's exactly why Noel added the "sandbox" option. When the scanner opens a plugin, it's running code within the plugin that Cakewalk didn't write and that the scanner has no control over. If something goes wrong and the plugin hangs, the scanner hangs too, as well as the main Cakewalk application. The sandbox option spawns a new process for each plugin test, assuring that the whole process won't blow up if a single plugin hangs.

Make sure Cakewalk is up to date. In an effort to make the software more robust, they made it pickier about what errors to report. Too picky, in fact, resulting in plugins failing that didn't used to fail. To combat that, they've dialed back the sensitivity to make it a little less nit-picky. Lots of problems went away for users with the recent update because of that.

Thanks. I verified that the sandbox option had been checked and I was up to date. I download and use each release as soon as I notice it's available. I'm very appreciative of the effort being expended to maintain and improve Cakewalk and want to do my part, which isn't much. I have very few problems with early releases. So I'm minimally impacted.

I've not had many vst scan related problems. So this one was a surprise. But I think my own actions contributed heavily to this one.

I suspect that my problem was caused by a collision of launching a just installed release and instantly loading a project after renaming a VST subfolder (i.e. not a new scan path but a new and removed folder in an existing scan path). Anyway it hasn't happened again and all I needed to do to resolve the problem was close and re-open the project with the 10 copies of a VST that was in the re-named folder.

[bitflipper]

I haven't had a scan problem in a very long time, but they are almost inevitable if you are a plugin collector. That's why I no longer see those problems: I am no longer a collector. 

[Bill Phillips]

8 hours ago, bitflipper said:

I haven't had a scan problem in a very long time, but they are almost inevitable if you are a plugin collector. That's why I no longer see those problems: I am no longer a collector. 

OMG! How did you do that? Is there a 12-step program? Just kidding. I see myself with just a few plugins that I know really well some day. I just have a ways to go.

[bitflipper]

And that's the strategy in a nutshell: buy high-quality, full-featured plugins and take the time to learn them inside and out. There have been very few truly new features added over the past ten years, with most new product development focused on making them easier and/or faster to use, and often cheaper. But not necessarily better. Same goes for hardware (e.g. the most desirable microphones were either built more than 50 years ago or are based on designs from more than 50 years ago).

[Bill Phillips]

16 minutes ago, bitflipper said:

And that's the strategy in a nutshell: buy high-quality, full-featured plugins and take the time to learn them inside and out. There have been very few truly new features added over the past ten years, with most new product development focused on making them easier and/or faster to use, and often cheaper. But not necessarily better. Same goes for hardware (e.g. the most desirable microphones were either built more than 50 years ago or are based on designs from more than 50 years ago).

Yep.

[InstrEd]

Still amazes how much was done with old fashioned tape recording

[Bill Phillips]

6 minutes ago, InstrEd said:

Still amazes how much was done with old fashioned tape recording

It does. I wouldn't know where to start.

[InstrEd]

9 minutes ago, Bill Phillips said:

It does. I wouldn't know where to start.

I only used a small reel to reel machine a few times. My dad got it from a photo shoot in the 1970's.  The rep  from the company didn't want it back and my dad did the photo-work for one of the electronic catalogs.  Boss said take it if you want it.   Cleaning up my dad's house after he passed away I found the machine and a couple rolls of tape. We tried it and it still worked but replacement tape was not cheap so we let it go cheap for someone else to play with.

[Bill Phillips]

29 minutes ago, InstrEd said:

I only used a small reel to reel machine a few times. My dad got it from a photo shoot in the 1970's.  The rep  from the company didn't want it back and my dad did the photo-work for one of the electronic catalogs.  Boss said take it if you want it.   Cleaning up my dad's house after he passed away I found the machine and a couple rolls of tape. We tried it and it still worked but replacement tape was not cheap so we let it go cheap for someone else to play with.

That reminds me of my dad who was an engineer for the local TV station from it's startup in the early 50's until he retired. He was the go to Ampex video tape machine expert. One of the station artist did a caricature of him working on an Ampex machine as a gift for his retirement. They stopped using video tape after he retired. He did most of the maintenance, all of the troubleshooting, and much of the local program and commercial tape reel editing. I would watch him doing that when I'd go to work with him on Friday nights. I don't recall how he did it but he was fast. I think he mostly synced and copied from one machine to another to edit/produce program and commercial string reels, not much tape splicing but he could do it. I was always amazed.

[InstrEd]

Off-topic (Sorry)

My dad in the early to mid 1970's pretty much did the cover shots of the JC Penny and Sears Christmas catalogs.  Too bad he didn't get to bring home all the toys he took pictures of!  As a worker/contract worker he never became rich doing it but he did love his work and photography. He basically retired when digital was taking over. I have to say it was cool to see the big studio where they were developing 8x10 film/transparencies. I still remember my dad showing me how to develop B&W film in his personal darkroom.  We use to go shoot nature photography  with old  TLR  type cameras.  

[Bill Phillips]

Yeah. We're both way off topic. But stories are similar. I'm an electrical engineer, retired, and grew up along side digital. I remember being on vacation with my family I think around 1980. We were having dinner and my dad ask me how different digital processing was from analog. I said way different, you're dealing with numbers not wave forms. He agreed that's what he was seeing as the TV station was transitioning from analog to digital. He announced right then that he was retiring.