Syncrosoft Licence scanning times

[julian]

 Hi,

As my VSL library has increased in size over the years the scanning time on first launch has also increased.

Currently it is taking well over 2 minutes before the player or plug-in is able to open following boot-up. I have most of the Vienna Library so  understand there are a large number of licences to scan.

However I'm running the fastest most powerful system currently available for Mac users with the latest software versions (OS, Syncrosoft and VSL) and would have hoped that this elongated scaning time could have been addressed in the evolution of the licensing system. This doesn't appear to be the case and as my library increases again with the recently annouced additions then the boot times will get even longer.

I understand the process occurs only on first boot up but a critical issue can be the time taken to re-boot (if there is a need for whatever reason) in the middle of a recording session - for a recent studio session I had to strip out all the VSL stuff from a project just to avoid the chance of this happening during what was a large scale orchestral recording.

So VSL any chance (PLEASE) of looking at this issue again or is it out of your hands? (maybe with Steinberg now owning Syncrosoft it will get even slower for Logic users!

Thanks

Julian

[fritzflotow]

So far I thought, this was a mac thing. But it isn't: Om my newly acquired SampleWorkstation with windows XP64 it takes a long time as well. Not being very knowledgable about computers but understanding the basic principles I really don't understand, why this takes so long. After all there aren't huge amounts of data, that have to be loaded!? Play products licensed on an ilok dongel are there right away. There should be a way to improve this. Of course these don't sound as well as the VSL stuff ; ) So keep up the good work, vienna!

[Abel]

Same here, the initial license scanning has been killing me. Each time Nuendo 4 crashes I have to reboot my 8-core Mac Pro. Loading a project after rebooting takes 15 minutes. I've had 4 crashes today. Why copy protection gets in the way of legitimate users? Really frustrating. ... and buying more VSL libraries will cost even more valuable time? not really encouraging I must say.

[Chuck Green]

 Abel,

Something you said really caught my eye.  I need to be careful in how I say things so I don't come accross slamming anything or anyone.  That being said, I've had a real delema.  I own an 8-core Mac Pro loaded to the max.  I purchased it over 4 PCs thinking it was the wiser choice, more horsepower, etc not realizing that the operating system did not support 64 bit and therefore not fully utilizing all the hardware (memory) installed.

For the past year, I have been attempting various configurations in an attempt to find one that is stable.  I have been using both Cubase 4 and Logic 8 running dual comparison using the same sequence (comparing apples to apples).  Using the Vienna Instrument and Logic, appears to be the most stable.  If I try to use two instances of Ensemble 2 or 3, I will find myself rebooting several times in a day usually after I try to drag a patch into a matrix.  The system hangs with the spinning color wheel.  VSL Tech support advised me this that I have used too much memory.  I haven't come close to the 2.5GB that we are suppose to be able to load.  It just had it happen yesterday with only 1 instrument patch loaded.  Absolutely sure now, it's not a memory problem caused by loading too many patches.

And yes, for those of us who have to reboot throught the day, the long load times are very frustrating......  Limiting the number of instruments you have setup in the Directory Manager is suppose to help the load problem.  I just haven't brought myself to decide which libaries I don't want access to in a given sequence.

Cubase I find is the most unstable whether I use VI or VE and very low instrument count.  I've spoken to tech support at  Steinburg with no resolution.  I've spoken to apple tech with no resolution.  They had me even re-platform my machine (was that fun) with no positive result. I continue to work knowing that I will have to reboot a few times each day.....  NOT GOOD.

Today, I used just EWQL Instruments (Play) in Cubase.  Never rebooted once.  Very stable.  Can't use Logic due to the fact that the play instruments are so memory intensive, I need cubase in order to freeze and dump instrument memory.  One advantage that VI has.  Logic freezes but doesn't dump the memory. 

I'm curious,  when you said you have to reboot several times a day, I thought I was the only one doing that.  What action are you doing when your machine locks up.  Do you see a pattern?  Is it when you are dragging a patch to the matix window?  Do you continue to have crash problems when using other instruments in Cubase without having VSL loaded?  

Your answer may help me trouble-shoot further.  A pattern is starting to develop at least in my current configuration.

I not slamming anyone here -- just trying to get answers so that in the end, I can end up with a stable system that enjoyable to use.

[cm]

abel, you have many, but not so much licenses on your key ... so if it takes 15 minutes for scanning i'd consider something not beeing ok with your system ... at least repair permissions

i noticed some expired demo licenses are also on the key ... maybe you should remove them (and empty the LCC trash then) ... also it appears some other plugins reside there which might crash cubase/nuendo

hth, christian

[Abel]

scanning licenses after reboot takes approx. 7.5 minutes on top of what takes to load the whole project.
hm... I don't see any expired licenses on my dongle, can you specify what you see?
The crashes are random, the only thing related seems to be autosave...
don't use many plugins:
AirEQ, Altiverb, Kontakt, but mainly VSL.

[DG]

I don't think that it is possible for you to have many more licences than I do and my scanning takes about a minute. If yours is taking so long, then there is something wrong with your system.

Regarding Autosave; don't do it. Certain projects can take a looooong time to save in Nuendo 4, and if you try to work whilst a save is going on, you will get a crash. I've managed to alter my workflow now so that I don't get any crashes, although my assistant is still having some problems, mainly through not paying enough attention to the order of doing things, and not having enough patience to hang around whilst Nuendo burps and farts its way though calculations. [;)]

DG

[julian]

Hi Daryl,

My scanning time is about 2'10" for what I would guess to be a similar set of licences to yours. I would be interested on comparative scanning times for the complete VSL DVD libary as you are able to achieve scanning times in the region of 1 minute -  this is at least twice as fast as I have been able to achieve across 5 separate  Mac computers.

Perhaps VSL would help out here and lets us know the scanning time for their Mac loaded with a full set of licences.

Julian

[cm]

scanning time depends on a lot of factors:

- speed, quality and amount of sharing of your USB controller

- speed of your processor, memory and harddisk for the system volume

- number and speed of harddisks your content resides on

- number of references in the directory manager

- number of keys attached

- number of licenses on your key(s)

- which licenses are scanned

(those from the symphonic cube need a little bit longer)

as a rule of thumb: 20 licenses  ~ 2 minutes

hth, christian

 

[Chuck Green]

Hi DG, Could you provide some insight as to the work-flow you have established to eliminate crashes in Nuendo 4? This could be helpful for the rest of use Cubase 4 / Nuendo 4 users..... Thanks

[julian]

 

@cm said:

scanning time depends on a lot of factors:

snip

(those from the symphonic cube need a little bit longer)

as a rule of thumb: 20 licenses  ~ 2 minutes

hth, christian

Thanks Christian,

Any chance of this scanning time being reduced in the future - or at least some hints as to how a Mac user might approach Daryl's timings which appear to be twice as fast as yours! My main system is the fastest you can buy with very fast  VSL dedicated discs and 32 GB of RAM with the VSL dongle on a dedicated usb 2 bus (by the wat it's no quicker or slower on the shared bus). Other stff loads pretty quickly for example a complete OS boot up 20 seconds. Logic load 12 seconds.

Thanks

Julian

[DG]

@julian said:

Hi Daryl,

My scanning time is about 2'10" for what I would guess to be a similar set of licences to yours. I would be interested on comparative scanning times for the complete VSL DVD libary as you are able to achieve scanning times in the region of 1 minute -  this is at least twice as fast as I have been able to achieve across 5 separate  Mac computers.

Julian

Let me check this now so as to avoid spreading misinformation, in case I've got it wrong. [:$]

DG

[steff3]

@julian said:

  with the VSL dongle on a dedicated usb 2 bus (by the wat it's no quicker or slower on the shared bus).

 

 

well, I thought the usb-bus slows down to the speed of the slowest device on the bus. So, if you have an iLok dongle or the BlueTooth module on the bus with the Syncrosoft dongles this could slow things down.

 

best

[DG]

OK, some interesting things here [8-|]

All times are from cold boot.

Loading VE within Nuendo 1' 07"

Loading VE as standalone 3' 17"

Yikes. If I was loading a standalone, I would be moaning about the times as well. [:O]

DG

[julian]

@DG said:

OK, some interesting things here

All times are from cold boot.

Loading VE within Nuendo 1' 07"

Loading VE as standalone 3' 17"

Yikes. If I was loading a standalone, I would be moaning about the times as well.

DG

 

I took some time out to  run some tests of the licence scanning times. To get the most reliable results I removed all USB peripherals.

Times as follows - all from a cold boot:

Vienna Key plugged into Sonnet PCI-X USB 2 card

VI stand alone  1:50

VE stand alone  1:50 (shows "licence scanning" for first 40" then disc scanning for the remainder)

VI AU plug-in in Logic 1:45

VE AU plug-in in Logic 1:45

Vienna Key plugged in to USB connector at front of MacPro

VI stand alone  2:05

VE stand alone  2:05 (shows "licence scanning" for first 40" then disc scanning for the remainder)

VI AU plug-in in Logic 2:00

VE AU plug-in in Logic 2:00

I suspect that the internal USB bus might be slower than the Sonnet card because the Mac keyboard is on the internal bus as is the Bluetooth network.

The figures were extremely consistant with the scanning times varying by no more than a second on multiple re-boots.

The software was the latest software for Synscosoft and VI + VE Logic version 8.0.2 Prior to testing the operating system was updated to OSX 10.5.6 from 10.5.5 and the latest Syncrosoft was downloaded strangely this most recent combination added 4" to the scanning times compared with some tests run directly before. Following the OS software update a permissions repair was done and the computer re-booted a few times and VI + VE run a few times to settle the system down.

Question for Daryl,  do your VI + VE stand alone  applications launch in the same time and could your Nuendo application have an autoload template that does some of the scanning so that when you launch a VSL plug-in it is quicker? I ask this as my licence scanning times were extremely consistent and only varied by 5 seconds between the stand alones and the plug-ins.

System Specification:

MacPro 8 Core 32 GB RAM SATA Raid 0 (2 disc) boot drive 30% full. Vienna Samples on e-SATA 4 disc Raid 0.

Installed licences as shown on LCC 37 (level 1 and 2 are shown as separate licences)

If I get time I'll post the increases in scanning time once I've loaded Solo Strings 2 and the Chistmas downloads.

Regards

Julian

[DG]

@julian said:

Question for Daryl,  do your VI + VE stand alone  applications launch in the same time and could your Nuendo application have an autoload template that does some of the scanning so that when you launch a VSL plug-in it is quicker? I ask this as my licence scanning times were extremely consistent and only varied by 5 seconds between the stand alones and the plug-ins.

Regards

Julian

I don't have VI installed, because it is of no use to me.

I think that it loads quicker with the plug because Nuendo initialises the Syncrosoft driver as it loads. There is no autoload template though for Vienna Ensemble.

What I might do tomorrow is see how long the standalone takes to load when I've already loaded Nuendo.

DG

[julian]

 My Logic load from boot up including scanning the whole VSL EXS 24 library is between 12"-15" and Logic boot-up with VE as a plug-in is a total of 2':00. Be interested to know what your launch time for Nuendo is i.e. what's the quickest you can get a Vienna Sample Player into operation!

For me I'm good to go at 2 minutes via Logic and 1:50 with the standalone. This compares with less than 15" to get access to the complete VSL Pro and Performance editions (including launching Logic) via EXS 24.... such is progress!

Julian

[Nick Batzdorf]

@Another User said:

well, I thought the usb-bus slows down to the speed of the slowest device on the bus.

No, I don't think so. But some Macs have both USB 1 and 2 busses, and putting the dongle on the slower one may make a difference.

But to me the answer to any instability problems - which I haven't really had on my 14GB 8-core - is to run VE stand-alone outside Logic. Don't use the network connection (because it unloads when you load a new session), use Soundflower or better yet a hardware loopback. I have a Metric Halo interface here, and it does that very well once you figure it out. RME and Apogee Symphony do that too, but you can also just loop an ADAT lightpipe out to in.

[DG]

@julian said:

 My Logic load from boot up including scanning the whole VSL EXS 24 library is between 12"-15" and Logic boot-up with VE as a plug-in is a total of 2':00. Be interested to know what your launch time for Nuendo is i.e. what's the quickest you can get a Vienna Sample Player into operation!

Julian

1' 30" by double clicking a Project file. If I do it manually I can shave a couple of seconds, depending on how quickly I can click...!

Last point. If I start up Nuendo (no Vienna) and then launch a standalone, the scanning time is 1'07", exactly the same as for a plug. It seems that Nuendo can initialise the dongle much quicker than Vienna can.

FWIW my dongles are on an unpowered hub which is attached to my monitor, so I'm not sure that the positioning of the dongle is necessarily crucial. I also have 2 Syncrosoft dongles, if that makes any difference.

Julian, I'm very impressed with the thoroughness of all your testing, but I really can't be bothered to unplug stuff in order to try to save a few seconds on loading. If I need to re-load my template, it will take over 15 minutes, so the scanning time doesn't matter to me. However, depending on the development of VE, and whether or not I move to a two computer set-up, or not, this opinion may well change.

DG

[julian]

@julian said:

 My Logic load from boot up including scanning the whole VSL EXS 24 library is between 12"-15" and Logic boot-up with VE as a plug-in is a total of 2':00. Be interested to know what your launch time for Nuendo is i.e. what's the quickest you can get a Vienna Sample Player into operation!

Julian

1' 30" by double clicking a Project file. If I do it manually I can shave a couple of seconds, depending on how quickly I can click...!

Last point. If I start up Nuendo (no Vienna) and then launch a standalone, the scanning time is 1'07", exactly the same as for a plug. It seems that Nuendo can initialise the dongle much quicker than Vienna can.

FWIW my dongles are on an unpowered hub which is attached to my monitor, so I'm not sure that the positioning of the dongle is necessarily crucial. I also have 2 Syncrosoft dongles, if that makes any difference.

Julian, I'm very impressed with the thoroughness of all your testing, but I really can't be bothered to unplug stuff in order to try to save a few seconds on loading. If I need to re-load my template, it will take over 15 minutes, so the scanning time doesn't matter to me. However, depending on the development of VE, and whether or not I move to a two computer set-up, or not, this opinion may well change.

DG

 

The bit it don't follow, and perhaps VSL can shed some light on, is why launching Nuendo (without any VSL plug-ins) would speed up the licence scanning process by over 2 minutes!

With regard to removing stuff from the USB bus I can have every thing working at once (all USB peripherals) but if for example I plug my iLOK into the same bus as the Vienna Key the scanning time is increased by 20 seconds.

Nick mentioned that the Mac itself has a series of busses and certainly if I look at the system profiler loads are shown however aren't these things like usb hubs on attached keyboards and screens and internal bus connections like bluetooth? I think that the 2 usb ports on the back and the 2 ports on the fron of a MacPro may be all the same bus.

Julian