Re-arranging plug-ins (possible BR)

[DaveL60]

I'm not sure if this is a BR or not, but I did some re-arranging of plug-ins in folders, then restarted LUNA and told it to scan the plug-ins. It appeared to add the plug-ins in their new locations but still had them in the old as well. I finally deleted all plug-ins and had it rescan. All my LUNA windows went blank and I had to kill it. Afteward it seemed to work OK, and the handful of plug-ins for the session I'd been playing with were apparently all found, but then LUNA crashed on exit.

Did I overlook something I should have done?

DaveL

(LUNA Free PR84 on Win XP)

[muzycian]

I'm not sure if this is a BR or not, but I did some re-arranging of plug-ins in folders, then restarted LUNA and told it to scan the plug-ins. It appeared to add the plug-ins in their new locations but still had them in the old as well.

Sure, adding new plugins doesn't delete plugins.

LUNA doesn't know that the ones you're adding are replacements for other ones.

So just add, then remove. Or the other way around.

I finally deleted all plug-ins and had it rescan. All my LUNA windows went blank and I had to kill it. Afteward it seemed to work OK, and the handful of plug-ins for the session I'd been playing with were apparently all found, but then LUNA crashed on exit.

When a plugin is used in the open session, you cannot delete it from the plugin manager.

So the fact that you deleted them all means that you had no plugins in use at that moment, for example, you had a blank session. Right?

If you write "All my LUNA windows went blank", you mean the Composer and MixDesk window, right?

[DaveL60]

LUNA doesn't know that the ones you're adding are replacements for other ones.

So just add, then remove. Or the other way around.

Yeah, I guess that would have made more sense. And, of course, re-arranging them helps me at the OS level and in Tracktion but doesn't make any diff in LUNA, anyway.

So the fact that you deleted them all means that you had no plugins in use at that moment, for example, you had a blank session. Right?

Yes, I used New Session when it wouldn't delete something in use, then went back to deleting.

If you write "All my LUNA windows went blank", you mean the Composer and MixDesk window, right?

Yes. I had a non-responsive program with each window's content blanked out. I haven't spent enough time since then to know if there's any lingering instability.

DaveL

[muzycian]

Yeah, I guess that would have made more sense. And, of course, re-arranging them helps me at the OS level and in Tracktion but doesn't make any diff in LUNA, anyway.

In LUNA, you can organize = group several plugins together by setting a Group name in the Plugin Manager.

This way you can for example group all your reverbs together

I'm not a big fan of the way how most other hosts do it, i.e. just using the folder structure as the base for grouping because often a plugin is inside a subfolder itself, so to group it with its own files, and so every plugin ends up in a separate group

I much more like the LUNA way

If you write "All my LUNA windows went blank", you mean the Composer and MixDesk window, right?

Yes. I had a non-responsive program with each window's content blanked out. I haven't spent enough time since then to know if there's any lingering instability.

Is that a repeatable problem? (hope you find some time to check this)

[DaveL60]

In LUNA, you can organize = group several plugins together by setting a Group name in the Plugin Manager.

I'm not a big fan of the way how most other hosts do it, i.e. just using the folder structure as the base for grouping because often a plugin is inside a subfolder itself, so to group it with its own files, and so every plugin ends up in a separate group

I much more like the LUNA way

Well, yes I can see the problem with the "every plugin in a separate group". OTOH, if the programs reflect the folder structure from the OS, then you can have the same plugin grouping in every app, which seems convenient.

Is that a repeatable problem? (hope you find some time to check this)

Well, when I re-did the scan (because some things were missing), LUNA reported that ProteusX had been a problem before and skipped it. Don't know why what would be, since it's scanned OK in the past. For the moment, it'll have to be in the "I'll let you know" category, but it may take a bit because I get very little studio time.

DaveL

[DaveL60]

I continued to see some instability in LUNA. Examples include Windows reporting program errors when I exited, and the invisibility of all files when I tried to open an SR-202 kit (the file open dialog was empty, even when set to all files, even though there were files in the folder).

At this point, I've deleted all of the settings files and restarted LUNA. The plugin scan seemed to go fine, and ProteusX was included this time, whereas it was ignored last time. Not quite sure what to think here, but I definitely caused myself some problems when I re-arranged the plugins across folders.

DaveL

[muzycian]

I continued to see some instability in LUNA. Examples include Windows reporting program errors when I exited

Could be a plugin.

and the invisibility of all files when I tried to open an SR-202 kit (the file open dialog was empty, even when set to all files, even though there were files in the folder).

Note that when you try to load a vst program from LUNA into a vst plugin, LUNA only shows the .fxb and .fxp files as that are the only files that can be loaded via a host.

Maybe the SR202 kits are in a propriatary file format? (don't know at this moment)

At this point, I've deleted all of the settings files and restarted LUNA. The plugin scan seemed to go fine, and ProteusX was included this time, whereas it was ignored last time. Not quite sure what to think here, but I definitely caused myself some problems when I re-arranged the plugins across folders.

The world of VST plugin is not the most stable one, and that's said in a soft way.

Of course i won't say that LUNA cannot have bugs, of course it can. But reading this story i would more suspect one or more vst plugins.

Regarding the Proteus thing: It's strange, that is true for sure.

Maybe it depends on a certain system file, and maybe there are different versions of that system file in the system (that's possible!!), and depending on the order in which the plugins are scanned defines which version of that file is active, and might influence the behaviour of another plug depending on it.

Anyway, if you ever can find a repeatable pattern in the crashing / errors, let me know and i'll hunt it down.

This goes for every possible LUNA bug!

[DaveL60]

Jo: I'll let you know if I learn anything more. For now, I think I'm back to stable.

The SR-202 thing may have been me using the program load from the context menu, but I think I clicked the SR-202 load button. Files for that plug are in .202 format, something common in the Muon SW plugs for CM.

For now, I'm sure you've got bigger fish to fry.

DaveL

[DaveL60]

I've been continuing to have difficulty. I noticed that save times had gotten very long, so took a look and Windows reports the .musession files is 27,941K! I tried a Save As, but the file from that is the same size. This is just a toy project, with a few audio files <2 minutes each, a handful of sequence parts and a few racks. I'm guessing that something in the .musession is corrupted as a result of my playing around with the plugin folders, but: WOW!

Any thoughts on how to recover this back down to a rational size? Can I somehow copy/paste all of the parts to a new, clean session and recreate the VSTi setups? Or should I just start over (not a big deal at this point)?

In any case, at this point I'm guessing the instability I'm seeing has more to do with the .musession file than with LUNA directly.

DaveL

[muzycian]

For now, I'm sure you've got bigger fish to fry.

It's a whale

[muzycian]

I've been continuing to have difficulty. I noticed that save times had gotten very long, so took a look and Windows reports the .musession files is 27,941K! I tried a Save As, but the file from that is the same size. This is just a toy project, with a few audio files <2 minutes each, a handful of sequence parts and a few racks. I'm guessing that something in the .musession is corrupted as a result of my playing around with the plugin folders, but: WOW!

Any thoughts on how to recover this back down to a rational size? Can I somehow copy/paste all of the parts to a new, clean session and recreate the VSTi setups? Or should I just start over (not a big deal at this point)?

In any case, at this point I'm guessing the instability I'm seeing has more to do with the .musession file than with LUNA directly.

DaveL

The first thing to suspect causing such big file is... (sorry) a vst plugin.

When you save a musession file, luna stores the vst data of every plugin in the musession file too. that's normal. some vsts store all their sample data when saving, and this could lead to such big file.

Try unplugging each plugin, one by one, and do a save each time.
Once the file size gets 'normal', you know which plug (the last one you unplugged) was causing the big size.

I'm curious!

[DaveL60]

Apparently DS-404 and SR-202 store their sample data as you've described. I had a big (10M) DS-404 drum kit patch and two semi-big (3.4M and 8.2M) SR-202 patches loaded into this session. As I pulled those out, the file size shrank until it's only 25K without any of them.

In this case, the SR-202 kits are there to replace the DS-404, so I can drop that one out and proceed from there with a somewhat more modest .musession file.

I've not worked a lot with samples before, so wasn't particularly conscious of how all that audio data might pile up.

DaveL

[DaveL60]

Still lacking stability since I re-arranged those plugs. Started w/a clean .musession. Imported a short audio file. Added a copy of SR-202 to two racks, double-clicked on the first of those to load a kit and got the polite little message from MS saying that Windows had to close my program.

At this point, I'm inclined to do a clean install of LUNA, but if you've got some reason, Jo, why I shouldn't or anything you'd like me to check, I'll plow ahead w/the current unstable install for testing purposes.

DaveL

[muzycian]

What do you mean with "re-arranged those plugs"?

I mean: are you sure that SR-202 and DS-404 are properly installed now?
Maybe they're missing some setup files?

When Windows comes with the "Close Program" messages, can you copy-paste the technical details here.

When working with other plugs, do you then also encounter the same instabilities?

[DaveL60]

SR-202 and DS-404 are single .DLLs, no other setup files involved. By re-arranged, I'm referring back to the original post: I decided to create a DRUMS folder under my PLUGINS folder and moved SR-202 and some others there. A simple re-scan after created some confusion, with duplication of the plugs that have moved, so I deleted all of LUNA's settings files and re-scanned and that seemed to go better, but the bottom line is that LUNA has been unstable ever since I moved plugin files around.

I'll happily post the technical details here the next time LUNA crashes. EDIT: I'd love to do that, but I can't copy/paste out of the window that reports it, and I never see the temporary file that Windows says will be sent to MS (which never happens either).

DaveL