8.1, VSTi loading, Win7

[midiguru]

Having installed 8.1 on my new Windows 7 machine a few days ago, I finally got around to launching it. When I try to point it to my VST folder (C:/Program Files (x86)/Steinberg/VSTPlugins and then Rescan the VST's, Live gives me error messages about three plug-ins (Alchemy, u-he Zebra, and Native Instruments ... not sure which NI), all of which work just fine under FL Studio from the same folder.

Live then crashes. I've tried it three times. The same thing happens each time.

I'm open to suggestions, but I think there's probably something bad going on here.

--Jim Aikin

[Henrik Hahn]

Hello Jim Aikin,

I tried all the plugins you mentioned and they work on our Win 7 machines as they should. Therefore i have some questions, that may help tracking down the problem:

Have you tried Live 8.1.1 also?
Did you tried to scan while beeing logged in as administrator?
Did FLStudio ask for the admin password, while scanning?

Feel free to write here or contact me via email.

thanks and best regards

Henrik

[midiguru]

Hello Jim Aikin,

I tried all the plugins you mentioned and they work on our Win 7 machines as they should. Therefore i have some questions, that may help tracking down the problem:

Have you tried Live 8.1.1 also?
Did you tried to scan while beeing logged in as administrator?
Did FLStudio ask for the admin password, while scanning?

Hi, Henrik --

We've progressed to phase 2 of the problem. By moving the plug-ins out of the Steinberg/VSTPlugins folder and into C:/Program Files(x86)/VstPlugins, I was able to convince Live to scan the folder without crashing. (This is with 8.1.1, yes.) The bad news is, all of my fully authorized plug-ins show up (in Live only, not in Cubase or Sonar or FL Studio) as demo versions. And yes, I'm logged on as administrator.

So at present, I'm totally unable to use 3rd-party plug-ins with Live. I've been in contact with Michael Duehr in tech support about this, but so far he has been unable to suggest a solution.

--JA

[Mr-Bit]

You said you MOVED the vst folder I have 2 vst folders one for live and the other for steinberg.

[midiguru]

You said you MOVED the vst folder I have 2 vst folders one for live and the other for steinberg.

Aside from taking up quite a lot of unnecessary disk space, this would require extra install authorizations, since an install is typically tied to the precise location of the .dll.

But in the end, it doesn't matter, because Live now loads my third-party plug-ins. It loads them in unauthorized demo mode, is the problem. It finds them, it just doesn't know they're authorized. All other DAWS (Cubase, FL Studio, Sonar) know they're authorized, but Live is being obstinately stupid.

What's more, tech support is proving completely unhelpful. They plainly don't have a clue what's causing the problem.

If I had paid for this expensive software, rather than having an NFR copy, I'd be extremely pissed off. As it is, I just shrug my shoulders and go back to making music in FL Studio, which is a lot more fun to use than Live, so actually Ableton is doing me a favor by steering me away from their program.

--Jim Aikin

[midiguru]

You said you MOVED the vst folder I have 2 vst folders one for live and the other for steinberg.

I have a question for you. Did you authorize your plug-ins while running Live, or while running Cubase? I think this may be the invisible factor. I suspect (though I haven't attempted to verify this) that Live is doing some kind of surreptitious harvesting of data during 3rd-party authorizations, in order to help 3rd-party developers prevent piracy.

If Ableton tech support ever returns my emails, I'll ask them about this. It's an off-the-wall possibility, but certainly consistent with the symptoms.

The idea being, Live keeps track of which 3rd-party plug-ins you authorize (hey, it's a feature!). If it doesn't have the plug-in in its own internal list, it doesn't let the plug-in check in the registry for an authorization, it just assumes the plug-in is a pirated version, and should run in demo mode.

As I said, I have no evidence that this is what's going on. Maybe it's something else entirely. And maybe I'll get an email this morning from tech support with a solution. But I'm not holding my breath.

--Jim Aikin

[Mr-Bit]

yeah your right wasn't thinking. can you copy zebra dll and do a shortcut to the Zebra2.data?

[midiguru]

yeah your right wasn't thinking. can you copy zebra dll and do a shortcut to the Zebra2.data?

I tried that with Alchemy. It didn't work, but I may have been doing something wrong. I probably was. Zebra's data files are small. Alchemy's are huge.

--JA

[SteveP72]

Hi,

Try to disable the UAC (User Account Control) in Windows 7 and put everything (the VST's that is) like they were
before. This may help.

Cheers
Steve

[twisted-space]

Run the live .exe as administrator (right click, run as administrator or right click, properties, compatibility, run this program as an administrator)
I keep my vst installations out of the program files folder, it helps prevent problems with saving presets and the like.