Ok the new switch did not help....

So, I guess I'll provide a little more information so hopefully someone can help me get to the bottom of this issue.

I notice that when I load a project, it seems that Logic is getting hung up on "Vienna Ensemble Pro" a couple of times...like it is trying to connect to the instance but then it can't find it so it skips over it and goes on to the next one.

Is it possible that that is what is happening here?

Occasionally, when I try to manually connect in the plugin window, I'll get a message saying something about Vienna Ensemble Pro cannot connect to such and such instance and it usually also gives me the IP address I believe. 

On another note, I'm going to go ahead and try MADI. Is this a good interface?

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?A=details&O=&Q=&ap=y&c3api=1876%2C%7Bcreative%7D%2C%7Bkeyword%7D&gclid=CjwKCAiA9rjRBRAeEiwA2SV4ZRyTEkRbKEoZ6FPfYXKzaqLeM2mQ4hZwY2rHfLB5-P8wu0LyyuL3mhoCS6QQAvD_BwE&is=REG&m=Y&sku=1005522

I have zero experience with MADI, so any help would be much appreciated.

Also, I bought Midi Over Lan a while ago, so I think I should be able to use that for what I'm trying. Will I need something for syncing? Like a clocking device? What would you recommend? Is that what the Apogee Big Ben is used for?

Ok, it did it again. I loaded up a project.

My Spitfire 1st Violins failed to connect to the Mac Pro server (among other several other instances which also failed to connect). I opened the plugin to manually connect and get this error message:

Could not connect to "192.168.2.2 Nathans-Mac-Pro-2 [64] (1st Violins)".

 

Tried again and Got the same error message. Tried a 3rd time and it connected....This must be what is happening when the projects are loading. They are trying to connect but failing and then moving on to the next track. 

 

So, what could be the root of the problem? 

On another note, I used to connect directly from computer to computer, and I never had this issue. It only started when I added a 3rd computer and got a switch...

Anyway, have you at VSL every considered offering a tech support/network trouble shooting service? For a fee of course, but I'm sure many people would be interested. Looking through the forum, it does seems like a lot of users end up having trouble with the networking.....they are composers after all, not computer experts. VisionDaw offers a remote support, but for me, I'll will only use macs and never touch PCs, so there is no obvious place to get support for this kind of issue...except for maybe directly from you guys. It would be great to have remote support for a yearly fee or something like that....just a thought.

Hi, 

We're looking into your specific problem, but need to find a way to reproduce it. 
Can you please send your template to support@vsl.co.at?

Regarding network support: Always tricky to do that via remote. We are happy to help with the basics, but a working network is actually one of the system requirements for Vienna Ensemble PRO. 

Networks can become very complex quite fast, and many people work with a setup that somebody else has set up for them (so they don't know too much about hardware or specific settings that may have been added).

So I'm afraid we'll have to pass on such a service and leave that field to network specialists. 

Best,
Paul

I had 2 network specialists come to my studio and they both said that the networking is fine and that the issue must be with the software. 

I'll send my template.

Hi,

Have you by any chance installed any 2cAudio plug-ins, any network utilities like Little Snitch or any parental control applications on your Master computer, as these are known to possibly interfere with VE Pro connectivity?

And, when sending your template, would you please include screenshots of the network settings on all three computers?

Best, Marnix

Hi. I’m writing from my iPhone on the train so please forgive any typos. Just an update and hopefully this will help anyone else who may run into this problem. So, I discovered that the problem went away after I did a full restart of my system. I don’t usually do any restarts for my system because my 2013 Mac Pro slaves each have 128gb of owc ram. On one I have mostly Kontakt and that loads relatives quickly. The other has play and it can take well over a half hour to load. I’ll probably start doing periodic shutdowns and reboots of the slaves. In my busy season I usually just leave them on because I’m in the studio up to 18 hours per day.

Also to answer your question Marnix, I have not installed any of those plugin or put any type of parental controls on the master