Subject:HELP! boot crash, new 3rd party VSTs not available

Posted by: darrena

Date:9/5/2008 2:27:12 PM

HELP!

Running Acid Pro 6.0d, Vista32 SP1

Just went through the "VST of the day" thread on the acidplanet forums (http://www.acidplanet.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?New=n&TID=60564&PN=1) and downloaded and installed a bunch of free VSTs (sadly all at once). Booted Sound Forge just fine and saw all of these VSTs installed. Then tried Acid.

Oh no.

First Acid crashed on boot while loading VST Soft Synths (I think the only one I added was Orca).

Then on reboot, Acid loaded but during the load as it was loading up the VSTs, I get the error that the Windows host process (Rundll32) has stopped working. Six times. Meaning that the DLLs appear to be crashingon boot.

I was able to notice a few of them (both from the betabugs list hat were recommended), but I didn't catch them all.

I moved many of them out of the program files/vstplugins folder and Acid boots, but most of the VSTs that show up in Sound Forge don't appear in Acid in the effects plugin list, not under any folder (I'd expect them in 3rd party plugins and VST folders).

I went to Options/Preferences/VST Effects and saw that no effects plugins show there. Not even the ones that I installed before the crash appear there (strangely, even though the list is blank, all of the VSTs that were there before the boot crash still appear in the plugins list for each track and function fine).

So I tried to rescan and they didn't appear.

I even tried deleting the [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Sony Media Software\ACID Pro\6.0\Metrics\VstCache\Mappings] key (which was completely empty!) and saw Acid rescan the VST effects on boot. But they still don't appear in Acid.

I'd expect this reg key to be populated. I'd expect the list in Preferences/VST Effects to show all 3rd party VST effect plugins. And I'd expect all of the VST effects in the VSTPlugins folder to show up in Acid too. It would seem to me that something bad happened during those few boots where the VST Effects were crashing Acid or rundll32 but I'm not sure how to recover.

Would LOVE help from anybody.

Subject:RE: HELP! boot crash, new 3rd party VSTs not available

Reply by: Patrick@Denman

Date:9/5/2008 7:57:24 PM

A couple of quick ideas:

Forgive me if you've tried this, but the first thing I'd do is to do a system restore (Start > Accessories > System Tools > System Restore). Choose a checkpoint from a time before the problems arose, and do the restore. It will reset your configuration to that time.

If you're still having the problem, you might be looking at an uninstall/reinstall.

Regarding your VST list, I see the same blank list unless I'm running AP 6 as Adminstrator. In order to populate the list I need to run as admin and do the scan. Then afterwards all the VSTs are there. If you're not running as admin, try it.

Good luck...

Subject:RE: HELP! boot crash, new 3rd party VSTs not available

Reply by: darrena

Date:9/5/2008 9:49:30 PM

Patrick you are a LIFESAVER!!! Run as administrator did it. They are all there after that one step.

Who would have thought??

(well, not me anyway)

I am eternally grateful.

Subject:RE: HELP! boot crash, new 3rd party VSTs not available

Reply by: Patrick@Denman

Date:9/7/2008 9:50:04 AM

Glad I could help!

FYI, I am now generally able to run AP 6 in regular user mode. I needed to make some changes to the security settings of the registry keys for Sony software (a someshat arcane technical process), but I still see this particular problem with VST plugins.

Now, if Sony Creative Software would finally pull their finger out and release a new version of ACID Pro for Vista we wouldn't need to do fix the software ourselves, and Sony could actually begin to catch up with all of the other DAW vendors. Personally, I'm fed up with the wait and have actually begun using other software. :(