Midi choir fails to scan under Windows 11

[Peter Widdicombe]

Hi - got a new Windows 11 to replace windows 8. I actually literally copied a directory with all of my "simpler" VST's and projects from old system to new, and projects open directly, if the VST is present.

I did hit one issue - MIDIChoir 3.1_64 fails to scan the plugin successfully. This wasn't really INSTALLED in the first place, just a file copied to the plugins directory where all of the smaller plugins go. (Things like MTDrummer just "worked" as before).

Does anyone else have/use MIDIChoir and it either worked or you have a workaround?

PS - I did see one other issue at the Windows system level - my audio-USB interface works, but incoming audio was REALLY low - even after going into deteiled windows settings and jacking up the USB audio driver to full volume there under windows, and need to set the gain in Waveform to almost full volume - didn't have to do that under Windows 8.1.

Waveform 13.5.21; most recent version.

[edrickblade]

Hi - got a new Windows 11 to replace windows 8. I actually literally copied a directory with all of my "simpler" VST's and projects from old system to new, and projects open directly, if the VST is present.

I did hit one issue - MIDIChoir 3.1_64 fails to scan the plugin successfully. This wasn't really INSTALLED in the first place, just a file copied to the plugins directory where all of the smaller plugins go. (Things like MTDrummer just "worked" as before).

Does anyone else have/use MIDIChoir and it either worked or you have a workaround?

PS - I did see one other issue at the Windows system level - my audio-USB interface works, but incoming audio was REALLY low - even after going into deteiled windows settings and jacking up the USB audio driver to full volume there under windows, and need to set the gain in Waveform to almost full volume - didn't have to do that under Windows 8.1.

Waveform 13.5.21; most recent version.

Hi, Try the version MIDI Choir 3.1_64 (64).dll, also make sure to have the MS Visual C++ 2010 SP1 package installed.

[Peter Widdicombe]

Installed the Visual C++ - didn't make any difference. Also tried downgrading to Waveform 13.2, with no luck. I must have installed something else at one time on the old Windows 8.1 machine that included a mysterious magic DLL

However, it's not likely a Waveform issue. VSTHOST also fails to load it on Windows 11.

Windows 10 running 13.3.11 also seems to load it just fine; again, it's fairly old and may have loaded something else that required some dependencies that I haven't done on the new Windows 11 - like MinimogueVa.64, Legree, TDR Nova, BBC Symphony Orchestra...

[Peter Widdicombe]

On 11 (new laptop) get this trying to validate...
Started validating: C:\zRecording\Vst64\MIDI Choir 3.1_64 (64).dll
Random seed: 0x330f28
Validation started
Strictness level: 5
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Starting tests in: pluginval / Scan for plugins located in: C:\zRecording\Vst64\MIDI Choir 3.1_64 (64).dll...
Num plugins found: 0
!!! Test 1 failed: No types found. This usually means the plugin binary is missing or damaged, an incompatible format or that it is an AU that isn't found by macOS so can't be created.
FAILED!! 1 test

[Peter Widdicombe]

I presume I need the x64 version of the SP1 Visual C++ redistributable?

I tried running pluginval on 3 different systems, and it fails on just the new one I got for music - Windows 11.
Pluginval works fine on the (64) version of the plugin on W10 and on my work W11.

Oddly, the work one only has Visual C++ 2015-2022 version 14.40(x64) and 14.34 (x86). The W10 has a long history of installs, and 9 versions of the runtime, from 2005 thru 2017; mix of 64 and 86.

[Peter Widdicombe]

Ugh.. Not sure why pluginval sometimes works, sometimes doesn't - and on machines that had MidiChoir installed on the past still work, but it appears the .dll is technically incomplete.

In a VST2 .dll file, the header lists how many sections are to follow. Maybe in the past the pluginval was a little simpler, and just ignored the missing sections; and the current version checks properly. Unless the header is a "special" format, as it should normally be named, like ".rsrc" and ".data", but instead is UPX0 with a subsection of .rsrc and .data

Packed VST2 plugins (.dll files) that fail to load with UPX-related errors (such as issues within the
UPX0 or UPX1 sections) generally occur because the UPX compression has made the plugin incompatible with Windows Data Execution Prevention (DEP), or the packer has corrupted the plugin's header information.
(However, unpacked with UPX doesn't work either...)