Audio Plug in Manager missing?

[cjack99]

Folks, I need some help here.  The Audio Plug in Manger does not show up in the Effect drop down, nor does it show up in the Effects panel, I think it's missing.....

I'm stumped.  I know vst plug ins have to be enabled before they show up as usable, but the place where I always used to enable that was in "Audio effects manager", and now that has gone missing.

History: I purchased Adobe Audition several years ago, as in 12 years ago or so, before they stopped support.  Been using it for years and then suffered a HDD crash a couple years ago, got a new hard drive installed, tried to install Audition and discovered I could no longer license it.  Inertia set in but during the summer I really needed it, so I tracked down the download site and was successful in getting it installed and running under Win10.  Have been using it for several months, and now I need my favorite plug-ins for mastering, and no where can I find the plug in manager so it can be enabled.

All that displays in the Effects drop down (regarding vst) is the following 3 options: "Add / Remove VST Directory..."; "VST Plug in Manager" (I know what you're thinking, bear with me....); And "Refresh Effects List".

I assumed of course that it was now called VST Plug in Manager vs Audio Plug in Manger, and when selected it will scan the appropriate directories and I can click to enable the ones I want, but that's all it does, ever time it's clicked it scans and that's it. 

So - If the "Audio" is now "VST", the question becomes, how does one actually select and launch one of the plug ins?  From my ancient memory I recall just going to Effects drop down and picking the desired plug in off the effects list, but nothing I have enabled displays, so I can't get them to run.

Any help would be really appreciated.

Thanks!

cactus

[ryclark]

What were your 'favourite plugins' that seem to have gone missing? Remember that all the Effects in the Effects menu are the ones built into Audition. The VST Plugin Manager is only for adding third party VST effects in addition to Audition's built in ones. Which version of Audition were you running before and which one now? There were quite a lot of changes when the code for Audition was rewritten to be cross platform compatible with Apple Macs some years ago.

[cjack99]

My favoritis plug ins are IL Max from Image Line, and "pink noise" or something like that from Samplitude 7.  I have a sort of hobby / non-profit (hahaha) supplying Diesel engine sound projects for ESU DCC decoders for the model train community.  IL Max is super for getting a good solid bass to boost the "chug", other wise the sound is rather anemic when it goes from CD quality and headphones / speakers to the tiny speakers used in the models, in fact, you almost have to over drive it and then it plays quite nicely from a sugar cube or other type mini speaker that has almost nothing below 100hz, anyway, nothing native to Audition can compare to IL Max.  If this allows links,,,, I guess I'll find out quickly, here is an example of one of my projects:

Alco 6-251 on Baldwin Test Bed, S gauge, ESU v4 Decoder, AM Baldwin S-12 - YouTube

[cjack99]

Lets see, from a re-read, I see I didn't answer a couple of your questions, sorry:

yes, these are 3rd party, not built into audition.  And the plug-ins are not missing, they are on my PC, I just can't get them launched.  They used to work fine, as indicated by the video clip.  And this is Audition 3.01, the one which is no longer supported due to the retirement of the licensing server,,,, when,,,,, 2009 or 2010'ish???  They call the rest of the line CC now, I think the Audition part is just hanging on nostalgia.  And,,,, no way would I ever "upgrade" to current, Audition 3.01 is all one needs for what I'm doing with it.

Thanks for any help....

[SteveG_AudioMasters_]

Add a suitable directory, and put some suitable plugins in it (they have to be 32-bit ones, and not VSTi's). Run the VST plugin manager, and select the ones you want to use. If this is successful, then you should see them displayed like this in the Effects menu:

[cjack99]

Steve;

Thanks for that picture, worth a thousand words.  On my effects drop down there is no "VST", there is "Unsupported", so my list reads "Time and pitch", "Unsupported", "Add / remove VST Directory".

I will make a new sub directory per instruction and put some plug-ins in there and do a rescan, do you think "VST" will then appear as something to click on?

This will take a bit and I'm running out of time at the moment, will give this a shot and report back in the morning....

thanks!

[cjack99]

Steve;

Part 1 didn't take too long.  I made a new directory C:\program files (x86)\VST.

I copied 5 plug-ins that used to work into that directory.

I then opened Au 3.01 and used effects>add / remove vst directories to add the above.

After the directory was added it immediately prompted to run VST manager, I clicked ok and all 5 plug-ins were discovered, and I enabled them all.

Exited and re-opened Au 3.01, hit the effects drop down, no VST effect in the list, but interestingly enough, "Direct x" is now in the list, above "Unsupported". (Direct x showed up after I previously deleted all the vst directories and added my test VST directory).  Unsupported has a tree to the right with VST in it, but none of the 5 display there, "midi host" does display, but I have no clue where that comes from.  Unsupported also has a "VSTi "SoftSynth" in it, which has a tree to the right "Adobe Audition" which has a tree with 3 plug-ins, but none of the 5 I set up and enabled.  So I don't where that's coming from.

FWIW - within C\program files (x86) there is as expected an Adobe directory, and within that there is a directory for Audition 3.01, and within that there is a directory called "plug-ins".  I suspect some of the things I've seen above may be coming from there, even though I previously deleted that directory from the vst search.

So I'm pretty well out of ideas.  It appears it can find and enable plug-ins, but after that they don't show up anywhere in order to select them.

One thing here, I've done all the above with no open files in regards to sound, and with files open under "Edit", in both cases results are the same.

Now I'm signing off for the day.

Thanks for the help

[SteveG_AudioMasters_]

Well, the screenshot came from doing exactly what you should do, on a relatively freshly installed Audition 3 - which is why there's only one effect in it. The only thing I can suggest is that you completely uninstall and then reinstall it, and see if that brings back the correct menu list. IIRC, VST doesn't appear as a menu item unless the previous installing/scanning steps have been successful...

[cjack99]

Steve;

Of course a lot of time went by due to Christmas / New Year, but that's a good thing.  FYI I fully un-installed Audition, shut down, full install, result: exactly the same.  I'm beginning to doubt my sanity.  Just in case I missed something along the way, for the install I ran the following downloads from the Adobe site, which according to my file record were downloaded in June of 2017:

ADBEAudition_ESD1_WWEFGJIS.exe

Audition 3.0.1 Patch Setup.exe

I did not install loopology as I've never had a need, it was not in my original install from 2006 either.

I ran the 3.01 patch install from the Setup.exe.

Plug-in manager finds all the plug-ins, and they can be enabled or disabled, that works as it should, but after finding them and enabling them, still no way to actually make them go.  The ones that Audition puts in it's effects list all work by simply clicking on them.  I looked for a way to stick other ones in there, but the structure must have been coded by Adobe, you can't modify it. 

I notice that running the zip it extracts 6 .mst files and a components.msi, the msi is mentioned in the document info that is extracted, I ran it for grins but it appears to be just another installer.  3.01 also has a data cab, which I assume it uses during install, but no clue where.  The arrangement and operation of the effects menu appears to be the same under both 3.0 and 3.01.

If someone has a great idea,,,,, I'm ready for it!

cheers and Happy New Year!

[SteveG_AudioMasters_]

cjack99  wrote

Plug-in manager finds all the plug-ins, and they can be enabled or disabled, that works as it should, but after finding them and enabling them, still no way to actually make them go.  The ones that Audition puts in it's effects list all work by simply clicking on them.  I looked for a way to stick other ones in there, but the structure must have been coded by Adobe, you can't modify it. 

This is correct; you can't add items to the internal effects list - that's never been possible, and still isn't now.

But you're saying that if you make a selection in Waveform view, and select an effect directly from the VST list, it doesn't open and work as it should? If that's the case, could you provide a list of the effects, please?

[cjack99]

Steve;

Just for the record, I REALLY appreciate the time you have devoted here to help me.  I'm starting to fear it's a lost cause though, and I can't figure out why.  Regardless, thinking screen pics my answer your last question to me.

I took several, this is after a new install of Audition.  I created a VST directory, and also used the plug-ins directory that Audition creates.  I then ran plug in manager (which does exist, I'd change the title of this maybe....).  I placed a group of test VST's in the directories, all of them come with Audition except for ilmax.  Then I took screen shots of the various steps, attached below, I hope, first time trying to attach a pic.  Each pic is named by step:  (hope this works)

Sigh,,,, assume I don't have privileges to add pics,,,, so,,,,,,

The test VST's were, from top down, HardLimit.dll, IL Maximus.dll, MultiTap.dll, PhaseCorrect.dll, and Reverb.dll.

These all were discovered and enabled by the plug in manager, each ends up with a check in the little box displayed just before the VST name.  So that works.

However, from that point on everything is the same as reported above.  there is a box "VST", but it is in line with "Unsupported" on the effects menu, to the right of that is a grayed out vst.  There is another line, again to the right of "Unsupported" which displays "VSTiSoftSynth" followed by "Adobe Audition" followed by 3 greyed out VST's, none of which match the list I put in the test directories. 

I have the pics and could email them to you if you wish if you think it would add anything to your understanding of the bobble / bug I've got here.

FWIW, I still have my original Audition dvd, which will install fine but does not license due to the missing licensing server.  Is there anyway to make that work?  I'm thinking not, but it's something I've saved......

Thanks again for your assistance!!!

[SteveG_AudioMasters_]

cjack99  wrote

However, from that point on everything is the same as reported above.  there is a box "VST", but it is in line with "Unsupported" on the effects menu, to the right of that is a grayed out vst.  There is another line, again to the right of "Unsupported" which displays "VSTiSoftSynth" followed by "Adobe Audition" followed by 3 greyed out VST's, none of which match the list I put in the test directories.  

I believe that's correct, and I have no idea why you can't post pictures - in 'Actions' whilst you're replying, it's the 7th box from the LHS, after the 'list' options. Here are some screen-grabs of what 'unsupported' looks like here:

What should happen with a selection (or if you don't make one, the whole file) is this:

Followed by this:

There don't appear to be any other options to alter this behaviour, and the only other thing I can think of trying is to locate your preferences folder, delete it completely, and reopen Audition. This will automatically create a new 'vanilla' version of it. Then try yet again...

On a typical Win10 installation, the path to it is C:\Users\{username}\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Audition\3.0

[cjack99]

Well Steve, thanks for those pics, yep, looks the same as mine, except of course, mine is missing the "VST" button that is displayed in your pics directly underneath "Unsupported".  So, no point in posting the ones I was going to post, they look just like yours.

As to "Actions", when I click that all I see is "Actions: Mark as Helpful".  Geeze.  I'm using Chrome, latest version, should I use a different browser?

The world is out to get me,,,,,,,,

Cheers and thanks again!  I'll follow your advice and see if that changes anything, fingers crossed.

[cjack99]

AAAAHHHHAAAAA, I at least figured something out, how to post a screen shot!  (solution, go to the adobe forums, don't use the link in the email). 

Anyway, I'm going to follow your instructions in regards to the preferences folder, will report back.

cactus

[cjack99]

Steve;

Think I have it, but wish to confirm I've got the right one, here's a pic of the Audition directory:

The only file mentioning preferences is "BackendPrefs", is that the culprit?  Or am I off on a tangent?

Of the 2 folders that are there, "UserWorkspace" has 3 empty folders in it.  "DefaultWorkspace" has 3 folders, each with an xml file in it.  They open and appear to be layouts for the screen display, but I'm hesitant to mess with them.

What do you think, should I delete the "BackendPrefs" file?

thanks

[SteveG_AudioMasters_]

It's the correct folder. Don't take any chances - delete the whole thing and let it re-establish everything cleanly.

[cjack99]

Hi Steve;

I deleted the folder as suggested, and as you expected when Audition opened it was back to what it looked like after installation, a clean slate.

I then used the add vst directory option and again selected my test vst folder, along with the audition plug-ins folder, and added in a 3rd directory where I had some vst's that I used prior to my hard drive crash that set all this in motion.  After selecting the directories, I got the expected message that plug in manager needed to scan the directories for vst's, to which I said ok and it found all the vst's in the 3 directories as expected.

After the list populated I selected several vst's at random and enabled them, all enabled as expected according to plug-in manager.

I then opened a test audio file to play with, hit the "effects" drop down, and......... wait for it................ no VST option in the drop down, just exactly as it was before this exercise, therefore still no way to run a 3rd party vst.  The embedded Audition vst's show up and run as before. 

So,,,,, I am beginning to think the audition files that adobe made available for legacy Audition users are corrupt.  Either that or the ones I downloaded became corrupted somehow.  But it seems a stretch to only have a missing VST box in the effects list as evidence.  It's the only thing that makes any sense at all to me at this point though, how can this install example be different from all others?  Wondering at the pedigree of the Audition program files you are running?  Did you download yours from the Adobe site? Or????

The only thing I can think of to do next is to uninstall and purge anything Audition from my PC and then hand purge the registry file, and then go to the Adobe site and download the Audition files again.  And then try another install.  It's the only thing I can think of to try, unless you have any other idea.  I doubt the result will be any different than what I already have, but I can't think of any other thing to try.

Very frustrating and maddening to have a perfectly good legal copy of Audition that cannot be used ever again because some bean counter at Adobe decided to sunset the licensing server, great way to build customer loyalty toward your company.  I cannot help but still be angry about that.  At my age I really do not want to take on the task of paying for and learning to use another sound editing program, but it's starting to look like it's my only option.  Sigh.

Phil

[SteveG_AudioMasters_]

cjack99  wrote

So,,,,, I am beginning to think the audition files that adobe made available for legacy Audition users are corrupt.  Either that or the ones I downloaded became corrupted somehow. But it seems a stretch to only have a missing VST box in the effects list as evidence.  It's the only thing that makes any sense at all to me at this point though, how can this install example be different from all others?  Wondering at the pedigree of the Audition program files you are running?  Did you download yours from the Adobe site? Or????

There's nothing inherently wrong with them at all. The version I've been using for the screengrabs is from the same download that you're using.

The only other thing I can think of (and this is a stretch...) is that you've either got a missing C++ distribution corrupted or missing. The list in this laptop looks like this:

And I think it's the ones marked (x86) you need to worry about. If there is anything wrong, it's much more likely to be a corrupted distribution file than a missing one - one that the installation thought was already there, so it didn't reload, perhaps? Other than that, you'd need the devs to look at this, I think, as I'm pretty much out of ideas...

[ryclark]

Well now that you have discovered how to post screen grabs can you post an image of the Add/Remove VST Directory panel as it appears on your installation? Also a picture of the VST Plugin Manager pane showing the listed found VSTs.

[cjack99]

Well folks, been a few days, more gnashing of teeth.  Since nothing has changed despite the help of Steve; I got creative.  On a whim I dug out an old laptop I have not touched in awhile or two.  It happens to be running on Windows XP heh heh.  So I charged it up, sorted out an ages old anti virus definitions issue, got it on line and proceeded to go through the mire of finding the Audition 3 files for download.  Downloaded Adobe 3, left loopology alone, no point.  Strangely enough, I did not find the 3.01 patch on there, could have sworn I downloaded it before.  Anyway, installed Audition 3 on the laptop, which took some time.  Powered it up, opened a wav file, went to the effects screen and guess what?  What? you all ask.

Exactly the same issue as on my PC, no option to actually RUN a VST, except of course, those that are built into Audition.  Exactly the same effects display as I've previously ranted about.  Just to make ryclark happy, here is my collection of screen pics (not from the laptop, since they are the same on both installs, doesn't make any sense to add more):  The title of the pic explains.

The file names don't show, but the sequence is in order, so I think you can follow it.  Point is, 2 different installs, 2 different operating systems, and the same issue on both.  Pretty sure that rules any sort of corrupted install on my win10 machine.  What it tells me is the Audition download file is at fault, I can't see any other possibility.  I'm now researching the best way to go, but will probably try to find another sound mastering program, and eat my losses with Audition.  No way I can afford $20 a month for Audition cc or what ever they call it, I don't use it but 3 or 4 times a year.  Not happy with Adobe at the moment, not at all.  I don't know if they even care about us "old" guys that used the legacy product, which I thoroughly loved.

[SteveG_AudioMasters_]

Well I honestly don't know. It's not your VSTs - I even tried downloading the demo of one of them myself, and the 32-bit version (they have to be 32-bit versions or they definitely won't show) of it loads fine on Audition 3. I'm also presuming that if you open Effects as a tab, that they don't show there either? Like this...

[ryclark]

The VSTs appear the same as Steve's on my PC.

[cjack99]

I guess you don't quite get it ryclark..... yes, the VST's are there, but they CANNOT LAUNCH BECAUSE THERE IS NO VST BUTTON TO CLICK ON and make them launch.

In my install the only place you see a VST  button is within "Unsupported" on the effects list.  There is corruption in the download from Adobe in which the VST button is GONE.  It should appear right below "unsupported" in the effects list, as you can see on Steve's pics.  If you look at my pics, you will see it does not exist.  That is the issue, and only that.

My belief is Adobe changed the files on the download site, sometime AFTER Steve performed his download and installed Audition 3.01.  Then when I came along after my disk failure and had to re-install I could no longer license my LEGAL Audition package.  I found the "solution" Adobe made available, but by the time I got to it, it was corrupt in that it WILL NOT ALLOW RUNNING 3RD PARTY VSTs.  That's the only thing I can think of, because I have tried 2 installs now on 2 separate PCs, running 2 different versions of Windows, Win10 and Win XP.  Same issue, both platforms, can only mean the SOURCE file is corrupted.

I would LOVE someone to prove me wrong, because I really want to get my Audition 3.01 running again!

regards

cjack

[ryclark]

No I understand perfectly what your installed version of Audition is doing, or rather, not doing. I and Steve have been going through all the possible combination's and cannot get out installations to behave like yours. We both get the additional VST plugins appear in the Effects list but for some reason your installation doesn't show them where it should. So there is obviously something different about your installation which we are trying to pin down. But I doubt very much that there is anything wrong with the AA3.0 download since there haven't been any other reports of similar problems with it although it appears to be downloaded and installed quite often recently.

Have you had a look at Audition's vstpluginmgr_settings.xml file from your 3.0 preferences folder. It is there that all installed and operational VST plugins are listed, both the built in ones and third party ones. Are the ones that you have added listed there? If they are not this is the likely reason why they don't appear in the Effects menu.

[SteveG_AudioMasters_]

ryclark  wrote

No I understand perfectly what your installed version of Audition is doing, or rather, not doing. I and Steve have been going through all the possible combination's and cannot get out installations to behave like yours. So there is obviously something different about your installation which we are trying to pin down. But I doubt very much that there is anything wrong with the AA3.0 download since there haven't been any other reports of similar problems with it although it appears to be downloaded and installed quite often recently.

Okay, well I just uninstalled it and tried again. Ever since the latest Windows upload, it's not behaving particularly well. I got a memory access error during the installation, and I can't get the 3.0.1 installer past the 'accept' screen - if you accept, it loops back around. Tried it in every compatibility mode there is, and it won't budge.

But, and it's a big but - despite the memory error, the basic program runs fine - with the VST menu available and working...

There's no way that Adobe have shafted this. Microsoft, on the other hand, may well have done...