Subject:A Pro loading massive .dll files on start up

Posted by: papanez

Date:9/7/2009 8:41:21 AM

I have the latest Acid Pro 7.0c and it has started loading massive .dll files on start up --at the splash screen. They appear to start loading when the VSTplugin files start their load in. By massive I mean about five minutes worth of load time --when it worked at all. The last few start attempts end with a hang at an obscure .dll file and now I can't run the program at all. I am not sure what the fix is for this and can't find any reference to a problem like this. Any clues out there?

Subject:RE: A Pro loading massive .dll files on start up

Reply by: pwppch

Date:9/7/2009 11:46:53 AM

Please fill our your system specs in your user profile and mark them to be visible in your formum settings.

We have seen this problem when the default seach location for VST plug-ins is a root directory or you windows install directory.

Do you know where your VSTPlugin folders is set to?

Open regedit. What does:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\VST

say is your VSTPluginsPath is?

Do you have a VSTPluginsPath set?

Peter

Subject:RE: A Pro loading massive .dll files on start up

Reply by: papanez

Date:9/8/2009 3:02:17 PM

There are two items: One is name=default; Type=REG_SZ; Data=(value not set).

The other is name=VSTPluginsPath;Type=REG_SZ; Data=C:\Program Files\Vstplugins

What do I do now since the program wont start?

Thanks for the help.

Subject:RE: A Pro loading massive .dll files on start up

Reply by: pwppch

Date:9/8/2009 8:13:58 PM

Please fill our your system specs in your user profile and mark them to be visible in your formum settings.

When you say massive, can you be more specific?

How do you know what is being loaded and that it is massive?

What is the name of the obscure dll?

The more details, the better.

The other is name=VSTPluginsPath;Type=REG_SZ; Data=C:\Program Files\Vstplugins

Is this where your VST plugins are located?

You can try moving everything in C:\Program Files\Vstplugins to a temporary location (or rename C:\Program Files\Vstplugins) and then start ACID. If it starts, then the problem lies in the contents of C:\Program Files\Vstplugins.

Peter

Subject:RE: A Pro loading massive .dll files on start up

Reply by: papanez

Date:9/9/2009 9:35:35 AM

1-By massive I mean the number of files and not the size of any single file. The load-in of the .dll's starts at the VSTplugins flash on the start up splash screen. It cycles very fast through many files. The ones I can read seem to have no relevance to APro or Plug ins. That load-in has typically taken 5-7 minutes. (I would get a cup of coffee) but after that load-in the program would start and run. Now, with 7.0C the start-up hangs at a file named xerces-c_2_6.dll. That is the name on the splash screen when it hangs. A local search shows two paths with that .dll. One is C:\Program Files\Digidesign\Pro Tools and the other is C:\Program Files\Sibelius Software\Sibelius 4. I can only exit AcidPro then by stopping the process with Task Manager.

2-Yes the plugins are in C:\Program Files\Vstplugins. There are 18 plugins and a sub folder for Garritan.

I understand the problem file would ordinarily be in this folder --but the problem occurs even if this folder is empty. I have moved all the files to another folder and left the plugins folder empty and tried to start. The start-up still appears to load hundreds of .dll files, with the file names scrolling on the splash screen before finally hanging at the file mentioned above.

Does this make it any clearer? Sorry for the confusion and thanks again for the help. I really need to get this running again asap.

Subject:RE: A Pro loading massive .dll files on start up

Reply by: pwppch

Date:9/9/2009 2:35:07 PM

Please fill our your system specs in your user profile and mark them to be visible in your formum settings. It is really helpful.


It sounds like the search path for plugins is too broad.

Two options:

- Look at where the plug-in database (acidpro.plugincache.xml) is set to search for VSTPlugins. If it is pointing to a broad search path, edit the file to point to only your VST plugin dir.
- Delete the plug-in database file which will force ACID to reset the search path for plug-ins to that stored in the registry.

On XP, the plugin database file is located:

X:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Local Settings\Application Data\Sony\ACID Pro\7.0

On Vista:
X:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\Sony\ACID Pro\7.0


You could also look at the VST grovel log file to see what is going on, which is located in the same directory.

Could you tell me what version of Windows you are using?


Peter

Subject:RE: A Pro loading massive .dll files on start up

Reply by: papanez

Date:9/10/2009 9:15:16 AM

I set the system info you can see it. I did not realize the allow button was on a different page than the system info, so I just now turned it on.

I am using Windows XP Pro 5.01. 2600 Service Pack 3.

It looks as if the plugincache may be the culprit. Here are the first few lines of the .xml.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
- <plugincache ver="3">
- <appinfo>
- <VSTSearchPaths>
<VSTSearchPath GrovelCRC="{49CC6B01-7E57-A900-E129-340E00000000}" Recursive="-1" AllowFX="-1" AllowSynths="-1">C:\Program Files\Sony\</VSTSearchPath>
<VSTSearchPath GrovelCRC="{71F4B87B-CDFB-C29F-60DF-045800000000}" Recursive="-1" AllowFX="-1" AllowSynths="-1">C:\Program Files\</VSTSearchPath>
</VSTSearchPaths>
- <categories>
- <FX>

The file is very long and a little over 5 megs and appears to search every.dll file on the computer.

I'm not confident I can edit this. I can give it my best if you could send more detailed instructions.

Is it a type of file I can trash and Acid Pro will rewrite? Is that what you mean by "Delete the plugin data base"?

I think we are close here.

Thanks very much.
papanez

I

Subject:RE: A Pro loading massive .dll files on start up

Reply by: april.exe

Date:9/24/2009 6:54:28 AM

I had this same situation last year when I upgraded to AP7. It was horrible. Following the same advice I double checked my vst search path, deleted the acidpro.plugincache.xml, dx_grovel.log and vst_.log and everything was fine.

I do this everytime I remove a plugin from my VST folder otherwise the deleted plugin still shows up as failed, ignored or unavailable.

Subject:RE: A Pro loading massive .dll files on start up

Reply by: pwppch

Date:10/21/2009 7:04:19 AM

I do this everytime I remove a plugin from my VST folder otherwise the deleted plugin still shows up as failed, ignored or unavailable.

This is intentional. If you remove a VST plug-in, it gets placed into the "unavailable' folder as this is exactly what it is, unavailable.

ACID does this so that if you have changed any settings or organized your plug-ins you wont loose those settings.

We have a request to permit the user to remove unavailable plug-ins completely. This will be considered for a future update of ACID.

Peter

Subject:RE: A Pro loading massive .dll files on start up

Reply by: Cuz

Date:1/12/2010 4:18:23 PM

Wow I'm glad someone posted this info..Spent the last 2 hrs trying to fix the splash screen hang...

Deleted those files and everything loaded fine..

Ty All

Subject:RE: A Pro loading massive .dll files on start up

Reply by: april.exe

Date:1/12/2010 6:05:36 PM

Seeing the unavailable list has been handy in this regard as well when trouble shooting.

Subject:RE: A Pro loading massive .dll files on start up

Reply by: raskiefilm

Date:1/12/2010 10:07:40 PM

What does the "Unavailable" folder imply or suggest? Now I have certain VSTs and VSTis not playing.

Thanks,
raskiefilm