Some VST companies like Softube and Waves occasionally update their plugin installation center, and every other time, this update causes problems, the main one being the initialization of their plugins when Cubase is opened.
The latest plugin updates from these two companies (Softube in particular) left Cubase scanning the VST3 folder for an interminable amount of time. After 10 minutes, I used Windows Task Manager to close Cubase. I restarted Cubase again, and the same scenario repeated itself until I removed all the Softube and Waves plugins (WaveShell), and Cubase magically restarted normally and very quickly.
Why does Cubase allow this interminable amount of time for plugins whose servers donāt seem to allow their use? It would be so simple if, after a certain amount of waiting, Cubase would say āTOO BADā, and it would be Waves and Softube plugins, or possibly others, for the future.
At least the user is informed that these plugins cannot be used at the moment, and they can still continue working without themā¦
My last experience with updating the plugin installation centers of these two companies was excessively unpleasant and a waste of time I wouldnāt have done withoutā¦
A TIMERwhen initializing the VST3 folderto reject these annoying plugins that seem to do whatever they want, please.
Nuendo user here and yes this is excruciating. So much of my life has been wasted watching the Initialising: Scanning VST3 plugins pop up. I canāt believe this behaviour is deemed acceptable by Steinberg. There has to be a way to deal with this.
A year or so ago, I accidently (for ten minutes) had Softube ilok stuff registered to somewhere other than the dongle.
The scan was hanging and I could see it was because of Softube updates.
Upon exit and checking my licenses, I realized Softube was in the wrong place, moved the licenses back to the dongle, and then Cubendo restarts/scans were back to super fast.
I never did figure out exactly why Softube was hanging for cloud/machineā¦.but once back to the dongle, whatever the issue was disappeared.
The vstscanner-Process creates a file called āvstscannermaster.logā where it writes the name of every plugin it starts to scan in the āCubase Pro VST3 Cacheā directory of its preference folder (https://helpcenter.steinberg.de/hc/en-us/articles/115000245510-Preferences-of-Cubase-and-Nuendo). So while scanning, the last line of this file usually shows the plugin that is hanging.
It is usually not neccessary to kill the whole Cubase process, if you search in TaskManager (or whatever Mac equivalent) for a background process calles āvstscanner.exeā and just kill that, the faulty plugin will be added to the block list and the scanning will continue.
And yes, I have recently had this issue with plugins (one being Steinbergās own Halion Sonic) that seem to hang for whatever reason (one e.g. was fine in C14, but not in C15) and it is annoying, and for not-so-technically inclined users probably irritating and confusing.
A time-out for the vstscanner could be a solution, but of course the issues with those is always: āwhat is the correct value?ā. If it is too short, but the plugin just takes some time, it could end up on the block list through no fault of its own, If it is too long, the user might kill Cubase anyway.
Maybe it could be handled like Windows does with programs that do not respond anymore, after a time present the user with a dialog like āplugin xy hasnāt responded in z minutes, terminate [yes/no]ā, or similar.
So this is imho a case where the technical solution is relatively easy, but the UX solution not.
That would work, but just loading the āCubase Pro VST3 Cache\vstmastercsanner.logā in an editor (preferably one that can follow is written to the file, but even Notepad works if you reopen the file once in a while) will show you the culprit much quickerā¦
Considering VST Scanner has checks for 32 bit and invalid plugins, I donāt see how it would be difficult to implement a timeout routine that skips the problematic plugin or adds it to the blocklist after some period of time has passed. If you have to manually manage your third party plugins at OS level, thereās no reason for things like the VST Plugin Manager to exist.
To my knowledge, the timeout for WaveLab 12 during the initial plugin scan is not documented. WaveLab waits around 15-30 seconds for a response from a single plugin before classifying it as āunresponsiveā and issuing a corresponding query (continue/discard).
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