Vienna VI experience so far not good

[garylionelli]

I'm usually not quick to complain, but after having purchased the entire new library a few weeks ago, I'm about to return it for a refund. Aside from the fact that I'm very disappointed as to the number of new samples as opposed to what I already have with owning the Basic Edition, Pro Edition and complete Horizon series, I might feel just a little better if it were possible to at least get this thing to work reliably, which is near impossible. I feel like a beta tester. To say the least, this has been a frustrating experience. I just don't think this library is anywhere near ready for prime time yet. When I am able to get the VI to open as a plug-in in Digital Performer, the instantiation time takes forever, or just crashes half the time. Right now, however, nothing is working. I'm gettting multiple Syncrosoft Licence Control errors all the time, crashing, spinning beachballs that last forever. No way to do a job with this library at this point. I'm running a superbly tuned G5 Quad and this VI is bringing everything down. Not sure what to do at this point. Is there any new version of the Syncrosoft Licence Control beyond 5.0.0.1 that is about to be released?

I'm certainly in favor of sticking it out a little longer in hopes of updates correcting these issues, but so much time has been wasted at this point, and I don't have any indication that anything's being done about it from Syncrosoft or VSL. To work, I'm using my older Vienna libraries for now.

[JWL]

gary

sorry to hear about your nightmare.

There is SLCC 5.0.2.0 available, but I went back to 4.9.7.6 and it's working well. If you try a different version, uninstall 5.0.0.1 first.

Also, since VSL released 1.04, the load times are much improved-- ten instances of loaded VIs in 2 minutes or less from start to finish. Before, it took about 2.5 mintues before the sounds would even BEGIN loading. From there it would take 5-10 minutes, or would never load at all.

I was pretty fed up for a few days myself, but things suddenly made a turn for the better.

[Bruce]

I've been through exactly the same thing Gary and was ready to give up. Don't. It IS worth the hassle. And I swear it sounds better too.

My hunch is to re-install 1.04. Dont wipe anything just re-install it and be sure your USB Vienna key is on the front of the G5 Quad.

Shut down and then restart. Run the Vienna Instruments Directory manager again and remove everything and then put it back in,

Repair disk permissions again.

Run DP 4.61 and load a VI. Go make a coffee give it 10 minutes for the 1st time.

It should work. I've set the VI up on 3 Macs now so I do have some experience. Once you get it running is quite stable. Remember the VI is taking over the MAc at a root level something that even the EXS doesn't do. As a result the timing is far better than EXS and you won't have to warm up the tracks just to get the timing right. VI and the MAc QUad is a BEAST!

We should send a bill for our time to Synchrsoft 'cause they are the culprits for not beta testing this thing.

[garylionelli]

Hey guys, thanks for the help, but Bruce, I tried all your suggestions and everything's still the same -- no go. Syncrosoft Error #1.

[Bruce]

OK Gary that happened to me as well and I got past it somehow I can't remember exactly what I did but when I got that error I moved the USB from the keyboard to the front of the G5 and rebooted and then it worked. Take your other keys such as Logic or Mach5 or whatever out and just use the VI key for nowand put in somewhere else and try again. btw I am using 5.0.0.1. Then run the Licence Control center to verify that its working. and repair disk permissions again.

Try the standalone again (it will still take time to read the library when it first boots) and you will see the spinning beach ball but when you move the mouse after a minute or so you should see the message in a silver box: please wait reading data. Then you are laughing. Load an instrument and play it to verify. Once thats done it should load fine into DP and you'll not have these hassles again unless you move the key and that may be ok too.

[Guy Bacos]

Yeah, at times it could get frustrating, I was running real smooth for the last 3 weeks and suddenly the beach ball game started... the VI loading time went from 1 or 2 sec to 15 sec, and had weird things happening as Gary described, but then I updated to VI SoftwareOSX-1.04 and that fixed the problem instantly. I also work with a quad, so it should work fine at the end. [:)]

[Bruce]

Another thought: if that doesn't work maybe you have a faulty key and need a replacement.OR you are drawing too much power somewhere on your USB bus. If it works well in standalone then DP is the culprit and you need to re-install it but somehow I doubt that. I never re-installed DP. I might have re-installed the synchrosoft a few times. I never removed it just kept reinstalling and eventually it all worked.

[garylionelli]

Bruce -- can't even get standalone to boot.

[Bruce]

Thats weird. If you haven't run it for awile this is what happens with the Standalone:

Double click and then you see the beach ball for a minute. Move the mouse and then it says: please wait reading licences. ANd then NOTHING for a few minutes. Then it appears like out of nowhere. Check Activity monitor to see what is happening.

Is the Licence Control Center actually reading the VI key?

If nothing at all happens after 15 minutes AND you are getting no errors then reinstall everything shut down restart and try it again. and chant this mantra: IT WILL WORK IT WILL WORK!

[pieca]

hi,

I've got somes big issues at first.
Since I've put my viena key directly on a USB port, everything is smooth.

[Guy Bacos]

Every time we must install a new product it's like doing your taxes all over again but with different figures and rules....

[Nick Batzdorf]

I don't have the Vienna Instruments yet, but Syncrosoft does have some "quirks" on G5s. It works fine on all my Windows machines and one of my G5s, but there are a couple of Syncrosofted programs that simply won't run on my main G5. They just crash. What's weird is that the same dongle will run some Syncrosoft-protected programs and not others.

I'm convinced that my and Gary's total failure problems are rare - they'd be out of business by now otherwise - but I have to confirm that this is real.

[marnix]

Dear Gary,

I´m sorry to hear about your (absolutely understandable!) frustration, but I am positive we will be able to solve your problems!

First of all, let me please ask you to give us some specifications about your current system, i.e. OS, RAM, CPU...etc...

Have you closely followed the instructions from our Video Tutorial covering Registration and Installation of our Vienna Instruments, which is to be found in the User Area of our website at http://www.vsl.co.at/en-us/68/375/243.vsl ? Have you downloaded and installed the latest version 1.04 of the Vienna Instruments software? Have you successfully installed the library content and have you created a matrix custom folder?

You mention that not even the Vienna Instruments standalone actually could be started up. What exactly happens when you try to launch the application - does it bounce a couple of times and then sits in the dock without reacting to anything or are there any error messages involved? Do you eventually get the information that it is scanning licenses? Please give us a detailed description of what´s happening!

In fact, you wrote that you were formerly able to open an instance of the Vienna Instruments Audio Unit in Digital Performer (although it took a long time to load...) and that this is not possible anymore. Has the plugin ever passed the AU validation? Can you see it in the plugin list now? What could have changed between then and now?

As a first guess, please try to rescan the existing folders in the Directory Manager or even better, please remove all of them and reassign them manually one by one...

Have you tried to repair permissions on your system volume and checked access privileges for the directories containing your Vienna Instruments files?

Does the License Control Center actually recognize your Vienna Key and does it list the licenses to all the products you authorized?

Please apologize all my questions, I am just trying to identify or rule out possible culprits, since I made the experience that version 1.04 runs smoothly on all systems I get in touch with - this is definetely not a "known issue"...

Please, don´t loose your confidence!

Best, Marnix

[garylionelli]

Hi Marnix -- nice to hear from you, and thanks for stepping in. When I first installed the library, I followed the video tutorial and did have everything working, but since that original installation, things have taken a turn for the worse. I'm on a Quad G5 2.5 Ghz, 8 GB RAM, (4) 400 GB SATA drives JBOD, with a Sonnet SATA E4P PCIe card. When I try to boot the VI standalone, it just bounces for a while, then nothing happens, or the beachabll just spins forever. At one point I got a numeral 1 error message, other times a -1 Syncrosoft License error. It did work initially. I've re-installed all the software, 1.04, everything, still no go.

Everything has passed AU validation, but if I try to instantiate it in DP, I get a beachball. I've rescanned with the Directory Manager, removed all items and then reloaded as per Bruce, nothing works. I've repaired permissions a zillion times. I do understand how to do this, as it did work briefly 2 weeks ago.

I'll try again tonight and see if my luck improves. Thanks again.

Best,

Gary

@marnix said:

Dear Gary,

Have you closely followed the instructions from our Video Tutorial covering Registration and Installation of our Vienna Instruments, which is to be found in the User Area of our website at http://www.vsl.co.at/en-us/68/375/243.vsl ?

Have you downloaded and installed the latest version 1.04 of the Vienna Instruments software? Have you successfully installed the library content and have you created a matrix custom folder?

You mention that not even the Vienna Instruments standalone actually could be started up. What exactly happens when you try to launch the application - does it bounce a couple of times and then sits in the dock without reacting to anything or are there any error messages involved? Do you eventually get the information that it is scanning licenses? Please give us a detailed description of what´s happening!

In fact, you wrote that you were formerly able to open an instance of the Vienna Instruments Audio Unit in Digital Performer (although it took a long time to load...) and that this is not possible anymore. Has the plugin ever passed the AU validation? Can you see it in the plugin list now? What could have changed between then and now?

As a first guess, please try to rescan the existing folders in the Directory Manager or even better, please remove all of them and reassign them manually one by one...

Have you tried to repair permissions on your system volume and checked access privileges for the directories containing your Vienna Instruments files?

Does the License Control Center actually recognize your Vienna Key and does it list the licenses to all the products you authorized?

Please apologize all my questions, I am just trying to identify or rule out possible culprits, since I made the experience that version 1.04 runs smoothly on all systems I get in touch with - this is definetely not a "known issue"...

Please, don´t loose your confidence!

Best, Marnix

[JWL]

Just curious, Gary--

In DP, some people do not have to save their matrices via the AU GUI. I seem to have to save the matrices in each VI console as well as the AU GUI.

Not sure if that will make a difference, but it helped me a great deal. Neither am I sure why this seems to be an issue, because I'm not using the files saved from the AU GUI-- only in the VI custom folder.

We're all rooting for you...

[marnix]

Hi Gary,

Please also try to plug the Vienna Key into another USB port!

You are running LCC v.5.0.0.1, correct? License Control Center shows all your products allright? The actual VI content installed flawlessly and you reassigned the folders containing the .dat files in Directory Manager manually? Have you created and assigned a folder for the "Custom Matrices"?

I really wonder what is going wrong here...!

Best, Marnix

[Bruce]

update on my system:

after over 1 week of flawless VI performance I changed the buffer settings in Logic 7.1 and this corrupted the License Control Manager. Spinning Beach Balls galore. Unacceptable.

Solution: I moved up from 5.0.0.1 to 5.0.2.0 and restarted. Problem Solved.

[garylionelli]

@Bruce said:

update on my system:

after over 1 week of flawless VI performance I changed the buffer settings in Logic 7.1 and this corrupted the License Control Manager. Spinning Beach Balls galore. Unacceptable.

Solution: I moved up from 5.0.0.1 to 5.0.2.0 and restarted. Problem Solved.

Bruce -- I'm always changing things like buffer settings in DP, maybe it's the reason my setup stopped working. If this could truly be a factor, then that's just not acceptable, if everyday routine changes of audio settings freaks out the LCC. Hope not.

Marnix -- I'm on 5.0.2.0, it shows all my products, and I did plug the key right into the front of the Mac, no hub (it was on my keyboard last week). I definitely reassigned all the folders and have created the Custom Matrixes folder. I'm going to re-install everything again for a third time, since there's nothing else I can do at this point.

[Bruce]

Gary, I didn't have this problem with DP at all. Change buffer settings or audio ins or outs DP just reloads what it needs and purrs along. It only happened with Logic and this is on the Quad. DP also has been saving all my VI changes automatically without me having to do so individually per instrument. This is very good.

Once you make changes in the installs I think it is important to shut down and restart.

Do let us know what happens when you start the Standalone.

[JWL]

@Bruce said:

DP also has been saving all my VI changes automatically without me having to do so individually per instrument. This is very good.

Bruce-- you are among the blessed because of this--!!