How to Shutup Live 11 Plugin Startup Scan?

Discuss music production with Ableton Live.
Lumix
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Joined: Sat Aug 29, 2009 4:17 pm

How to Shutup Live 11 Plugin Startup Scan?

Post by Lumix » Sun Oct 23, 2022 1:07 pm

On older systems the new plugin scanner is f##king annoying, any solutions to turn it off?
Togther with the index it taks up 80% of CPU, when i open Live 11 and this for 10 mins. 10 mins where i have to wait till it finishes.

Wonder who in the HQ thought it was a good idea?
Also why always scan? If i added new plugins i would like to scan on my own and not waste 10 mins of scanning of the same plugins, which are already scanned?
:roll: :twisted:
And yes the system is still a decent one to make music with 3rd party plugins.
The Davile Insaide Teh Mashihne.

Rivanni
Posts: 409
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Re: How to Shutup Live 11 Plugin Startup Scan?

Post by Rivanni » Sun Oct 23, 2022 2:35 pm

Trevbo wrote:
Sun Oct 23, 2022 2:12 pm

there is a way to turn VST scan off -

you need to add 'NoVstStartupScan' in the option.txt file -
That's not working anymore in the recent versions of Live (Live 11.1 and newer) and in older versions it only works for VST2 plugins.
Last edited by Rivanni on Sun Oct 23, 2022 2:44 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Lumix
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Re: How to Shutup Live 11 Plugin Startup Scan?

Post by Lumix » Wed Oct 26, 2022 11:26 am

Rivanni wrote:
Sun Oct 23, 2022 2:35 pm
Trevbo wrote:
Sun Oct 23, 2022 2:12 pm

there is a way to turn VST scan off -

you need to add 'NoVstStartupScan' in the option.txt file -
That's not working anymore in the recent versions of Live (Live 11.1 and newer) and in older versions it only works for VST2 plugins.
And thats the issue, why on earth remove this option and not put it back as normal setting? :twisted:

temp solution is now to get into the settings with shortcuts and cancel the scan. But this cant be an overall solution. :roll:
Last edited by Lumix on Sun Jan 29, 2023 3:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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pottering
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Re: How to Shutup Live 11 Plugin Startup Scan?

Post by pottering » Wed Oct 26, 2022 9:14 pm

Lumix wrote:
Sun Oct 23, 2022 1:07 pm
Wonder who in the HQ thought it was a good idea?
It was Steinberg that thought it was a good idea, they made it part of the VST3 standard, they killed VST2 and forced other companies like Ableton (and all other DAW and plugin devs) to shift to a VST3-only future.

Plugin scanner in Live now works like the VST3 scanner, as it is now the default (as dictated by Steinberg, who controls VST, much like Ableton has to implement whatever Apple forces them to with AU and MacOS).

VST3 scanner works all the time, so there is no "startup scan" anymore, it is on all the time, that's why the options.txt option was removed.

Going back to how VST2 worked is not possible anymore, Steinberg doesn't allow it.
♥♥♥

Rivanni
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Re: How to Shutup Live 11 Plugin Startup Scan?

Post by Rivanni » Wed Oct 26, 2022 11:14 pm

Steinberg doesn't require DAWs to scan all plugins at each startup.
Ableton is free to implement the scanning process the way they want to.
Hopefully they give the user the choice to scan at startup or not.

By the way. Steinberg stopped supporting VST2, Ableton didn't. And then there's AU2/AU3 as well. Nothing to do with Steinberg.

solar28
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Re: How to Shutup Live 11 Plugin Startup Scan?

Post by solar28 » Thu Oct 27, 2022 4:42 pm

This has nothing to so with Steinberg.

Ableton recently changed their scanning process. As a result, like the OP I have to wait about ten to 15 min before Ableton will pick up and finish scanning any plugin updates. Support said this is not a bug and is intended behavior. Love Live but because of this I have to choose carefully when updating any plugin because it's going to incur this gauranteed wait time.

Rivanni
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Re: How to Shutup Live 11 Plugin Startup Scan?

Post by Rivanni » Thu Oct 27, 2022 5:45 pm

How can 15 minutes waiting be intended? Live is unusable when the scan is running.

agamben
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Location: Paris

Re: How to Shutup Live 11 Plugin Startup Scan?

Post by agamben » Mon Nov 07, 2022 5:20 pm

+1
Feels like a big REGRESSION to me

Lumix
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Re: How to Shutup Live 11 Plugin Startup Scan?

Post by Lumix » Sun Jan 29, 2023 3:33 pm

pottering wrote:
Wed Oct 26, 2022 9:14 pm
Lumix wrote:
Sun Oct 23, 2022 1:07 pm
Wonder who in the HQ thought it was a good idea?
It was Steinberg that thought it was a good idea, they made it part of the VST3 standard, they killed VST2 and forced other companies like Ableton (and all other DAW and plugin devs) to shift to a VST3-only future.

Plugin scanner in Live now works like the VST3 scanner, as it is now the default (as dictated by Steinberg, who controls VST, much like Ableton has to implement whatever Apple forces them to with AU and MacOS).

VST3 scanner works all the time, so there is no "startup scan" anymore, it is on all the time, that's why the options.txt option was removed.

Going back to how VST2 worked is not possible anymore, Steinberg doesn't allow it.
Im pretty sure VST3 plugins do not validate if they were scanned before they are opened again. So this has nothing to do with the VST3 format. Its just assuming everybody has a super fast computer, which scans 1000 plugins in 2secs. Can tell you even a newer one took a lot longer and this everytime. Why not save that time or why is there an db file? How about that:
Do not use db file, store in memory, which plugins are found and scan at startup as we now have. Has the same effect.

I mean if do not move around shit or add new shit to your plugin folder, why should there be a plugin necessary? Thats beyond any meassurable stupitdy to me. Same for the indexer. It should be possible to decative both if you really need it, then just let it run ... :? :(

Another stupidity:
You have two Sylenth1.dll's in your plugin folder, but both are different versions, why choose the plugin scanner only to index one? Why not list both and scan till the version number, why is in the VST2 header. The same problem is present with VST3. if you have Hive 1 and Hive 2 (yes i use both.) :roll:

\End RANT!!!
The Davile Insaide Teh Mashihne.

Lumix
Posts: 204
Joined: Sat Aug 29, 2009 4:17 pm

Re: How to Shutup Live 11 Plugin Startup Scan?

Post by Lumix » Sun Jan 29, 2023 3:41 pm

solar28 wrote:
Thu Oct 27, 2022 4:42 pm
This has nothing to so with Steinberg.

Ableton recently changed their scanning process. As a result, like the OP I have to wait about ten to 15 min before Ableton will pick up and finish scanning any plugin updates. Support said this is not a bug and is intended behavior. Love Live but because of this I have to choose carefully when updating any plugin because it's going to incur this gauranteed wait time.
I simply make Plugin installing sessions. Where i mass install new plugins. Last time installed 20, delete a few. boom one hour gone, because i had to do a deep scan multiple times, beause of the duplicate issue with different versions.
Now it should run for a while till i install new plugins or upgrade plugins.
Now i cancel plugin scan when i open Live. This works okay, but as pointed out is super annoying and could be solved by a f?#king setting in Live.

Sorted as pointed out, i will do now with racks and sort them the way i like. I stopped using the plugin browser now, its just so inefficient for VST3 plugins. :roll:
The Davile Insaide Teh Mashihne.

Klangraum
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Re: How to Shutup Live 11 Plugin Startup Scan?

Post by Klangraum » Sun Apr 30, 2023 10:32 am

Same problem here with Windows version 11.2.11. I found out that 2 scanning processes (2 x 25% CPU 2/4 cores+100% HD usage) interfere with each other and get higher priority over the main program: "Ableton Index" and "Ableton Plugin Scanner". The Indexer can be killed using the Task Manager (Strg+Alt+Entf), but the Scanner will come back up after killing it. It is enough to kill the Indexer to gain access to the program. The Scanner scans in the background, which is unnecessary, but that's the way it is. You can now turn it off in the menu. I have no idea what Ableton was thinking as it scanned plugins over and over thousands of times. That's simply stupid. What role does the scan log play, which is created?
I also wrote a PowerShell script that kills the Indexer. However, the script must be run as an administrator. I use the PowerShell ISE for this. Maybe someone knows how to make the script executable with administrator privileges. The script name should be "Live.ps1". You find ISE with Windows search field. Start it as Administrator. Start Time of Live is now 20s instead of several minutes (including Max for Live)!
Before I forget, you have to set the correct executable path to your program. I use Lite.
Hopefully Ableton takes this issue serious, because it's absolutely frustrating. I would never buy this program with this strange behavior. Upgrading the hardware is not an option. This does not solve the issue. This is a serious bug!

Code: Select all

$executablePath = "C:\ProgramData\Ableton\Live 11 Lite\Program\Ableton Live 11 Lite.exe"

$process1Name = "Ableton Index"
$process2Name = "Ableton Plugin Scanner"

# Start Ableton Live
$process = Start-Process -FilePath $executablePath -PassThru
$processId = $process.Id

while ($true) {
  $process1 = Get-Process -Name $process1Name -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
  if ($process1) {
    # index seems to be the main problem 
    Write-Host "Killing '$process1Name' process with ID $($process1.Id)..."
    Write-Host "You're good to go! If you need, stop the Plugin Scanner from the menu..."
    Stop-Process -Id $process1.Id -Force
  }
  $process2 = Get-Process -Name $process2Name -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
  if ($process2) {
    # Can't kill plugin scanner/pops up again
    # Write-Host "Killing '$process2Name' process with ID $($process2.Id)..."
    # Stop-Process -Id $process2.Id -Force
  }
  Start-Sleep -Seconds 1
  if (!(Get-Process -Id $processId -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue)) {
    # The executable has exited, so break out of the loop
    Write-Host "Live was closed. Canceling script."
    break
  }
}
Last edited by Klangraum on Mon May 01, 2023 9:36 am, edited 1 time in total.

Klangraum
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Re: How to Shutup Live 11 Plugin Startup Scan?

Post by Klangraum » Mon May 01, 2023 9:15 am

Made a Short video demonstration with 20 sec. turbo start. The script can be started now simply with a double click, even if you are not an Administrator. Just change the path to your Live executable in the code. Download link to the updated script and some notes are in the Short video description.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/h-TiMjXdci4

chris harbin
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Re: How to Shutup Live 11 Plugin Startup Scan?

Post by chris harbin » Mon May 01, 2023 3:17 pm

Unless I'm missing something, this is strange to me. I have quite a few plugs and Live is super fast scanning here. Almost instant.
Live 11.x Suite, Push 2, AMD Ryzen 7900x @ 4.7 GHZ, Windows 11, 32 GB ram, Volt 2, Nektar T4 and Atom SQ.
Also a new lappy: i7 1269, 32 gigs of ram.

Klangraum
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Re: How to Shutup Live 11 Plugin Startup Scan?

Post by Klangraum » Mon May 01, 2023 5:41 pm

That's all very strange. Sometimes it scans fast (30s), sometimes it takes 10x the time (300s), without changing anything on plugins. In general, the 2 scan processes index+plugin scanner interfere to each other, which overloads my HD (SATA, mechanical) and the program becomes unresponsive. I can't imagine that Windows Defender causes random interference too, which causes this fatal result.
Last edited by Klangraum on Tue May 02, 2023 5:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Klangraum
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Re: How to Shutup Live 11 Plugin Startup Scan?

Post by Klangraum » Tue May 02, 2023 12:10 pm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXxbUmmiS9Q Latest Turbo Start script excludes VST directories from Defender virus scan. Should do the trick now, but you have to edit the paths. After the last test, Live was usable after 12 seconds. Read the description under the video for more information.

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