KVR Audio

CapnLockheed · Post by **CapnLockheed** » Sun Nov 29, 2020 11:43 pm

I'm having a very strange problem with Xlutop Chainer. I've used it many years on many machines and never experienced this issue. I have my VST's in my preferred location....like always. I have my VST's organized in subfolders by category......like always. Suddenly Chainer is refusing to load most of the plugins in JUST the first subfolder...."Amps & Disto" all guitar related stuff. I've re-scanned several times. Chainer sees this folder and pugins on scanning but will not load them. Now here is where it gets REALLY weird. I have Chainer presets that include this subfolder and plugins. When I load one of these presets THEN these plugins will load.

Very strange. Other hosts scan and load this subfolder and it's plugins just fine......ONLY Chainer is behaving this way. Nothing seems to help. Re-scanning, uninstalling and reinstalling Chainer....nothing. I know Chainer is VERY long in the tooth at this point. But I like it and still use it all the time. I'd hate to have to give it up. Haven't tried it on my other machines yet. This machine is a laptop running Win7 x64.

Any thoughts?

Shabdahbriah · Post by **Shabdahbriah** » Mon Nov 30, 2020 12:27 am

I still use Chainer also (because I have countless years worth of configurations/presets I've made with it), and have not had any issues on an old Win-7x64 laptop. Maybe it doesn't like the '&' symbol in the folder name? Perhaps try a - or _ or just leave a space, instead. If you can't get it sorted, I would recommend Cantabile as an inexpensive alternative, or Blue Cat's PatchWork, as a much more feature rich choice. Both still offer 32-bit versions, either a stand-alone 'host', or as a Vst within a host.

CapnLockheed · Post by **CapnLockheed** » Mon Nov 30, 2020 2:22 am

Thanks for the reply. The folder in question has been named "Amps & Disto"
for longer than I've been using Chainer itself. And as I said presets that use plugins from the "Amps & Disto" folder load those plugins just fine....when loaded as presets. This machine has been setup for years just as it is and it's never been a problem before.
And if I changed the folder's name the presets would no longer work....so kind of a catch -22 situation. I have several other 32 bit hosts including Patchwork, Bidule, Cantabile and Cubase Ai6 that load these plugins just fine. So it's not a Win problem, it's not the plugins,
it's just a strange Chainer thing. I can, of course, use other hosts but, like yourself, I have many years and lots of work invested in Chainer. I don't want to dump it. Thankfully, at least the problem plugins load when recalled in the many presets I've spent so much time creating.

I'm going to check it out on other machines and see if the 64bit J-Bridged version of Chainer I use in Studio One behaves in that environment......it's just VERY strange!

Shabdahbriah · Post by **Shabdahbriah** » Mon Nov 30, 2020 4:38 am

CapnLockheed wrote: Mon Nov 30, 2020 2:22 am Thanks for the reply. The folder in question has been named "Amps & Disto"
for longer than I've been using Chainer itself. And as I said presets that use plugins from the "Amps & Disto" folder load those plugins just fine....when loaded as presets. This machine has been setup for years just as it is and it's never been a problem before.
And if I changed the folder's name the presets would no longer work....so kind of a catch -22 situation. I have several other 32 bit hosts including Patchwork, Bidule, Cantabile and Cubase Ai6 that load these plugins just fine. So it's not a Win problem, it's not the plugins,
it's just a strange Chainer thing. I can, of course, use other hosts but, like yourself, I have many years and lots of work invested in Chainer. I don't want to dump it. Thankfully, at least the problem plugins load when recalled in the many presets I've spent so much time creating.

I'm going to check it out on other machines and see if the 64bit J-Bridged version of Chainer I use in Studio One behaves in that environment......it's just VERY strange!

Ah, sorry, hadn't thought of that 'catch-22'. My laptop has been set-up for almost a decade (iirc), without any major changes to my 32-bit Vst folder layout, so this is a most curious glitch.

kinwie · Post by **kinwie** » Mon Nov 30, 2020 1:35 pm

Yeah I also still love and use Xlutop Chainer until now. It's the easiet and fastest Vst host. Your problem maybe is a Vst ID crash between 2 of more plugins which have the same ID? It may happened if you add some new plugins recently. But not sure that's the cause

DaveClark · Post by **DaveClark** » Mon Nov 30, 2020 7:41 pm

Hi CapnLockheed,

I've used Chainer a long time ago, but a thought about scanning did occur to me. Is it perhaps failing on a recently added plugin in that folder (for reasons other than clashes already mentioned by kinwie), then bailing out? You mentioned "most" plugins rather than all, and it might explain why an individual and specific plugin can be loaded. If it was me, I would temorarily move suspicious plugins out to see of the scan succeeded.

Good Luck,
Dave Clark

CapnLockheed · Post by **CapnLockheed** » Tue Dec 01, 2020 1:25 am

Thanks to all for the excellent suggestions!

Problem solved. It was definitely an issue with Chainer itself as EVERY other host did not have the problem. Anyways, I went through my 32 bit VST folder with a fine tooth comb, deleted a ton of unused and duplicate plugs and everything that misbehaved in any way possible......'et voila!

Shabdahbriah · Post by **Shabdahbriah** » Tue Dec 01, 2020 1:34 am

^^^ excellent!

Weird Chainer Problem......