LV2 scan at launch

#1

With each launch of Ardour, an LV2 plugin scan occurs automatically.
This means that the more LV2 plugins a user has on their system, the longer their launch of Ardour takes to open.
For example if user has LSP plugin bundle LV2 versions installed + others.

If a user opens Ardour often, this can lead to the process feeling slow and inefficient.
I am using an SSD personally, but I imagine even worse for HD based users and NVMe users will have no idea what I am talking about :slight_smile:

Other audio applications/DAWs that I have tested that use LV2 are able to allow user to manually scan for LV2 plugins / do not require any kind of scan at startup of these applications, making them load up considerably faster then Ardour.

In other forum posts about this, it has been said that this LV2 scan in Ardour is needed due to something that has to do with native Ardour based LV2 plugins.
-I was wondering if there was some way that developers could modify this so that ACE plugins do not required to be scanned each time?
-Because I know the answer to the above will not even be considered, if this LV2 scan at startup is absolutely required for Ardour based LV2 plugins, would it be possible to somehow limit this LV2 scan to only detecting ACE plugins and then stop. Allowing user to manually perform scan for 3rd party LV2 plugins?
-Because I know the answer to the above will also be no, is it possible to… I am just kidding, I am out of ideas :slight_smile:

Just to me it seems that once ACE plugins have already been scanned once, seems strange that they would need to be scanned every time. Seems like they are the least likely for user to be messing with as they are in Ardour folder itself and not in users .lv2 folder.

I know that there are “more important things” but if there weren’t, would this be something that would be possible, or is this absolutely not possible?

Thank you to anyone who reads this

#2

That forum post is wrong. LV2 plugins do not need scanning in the first place.

LV2 plugins are discovered by meta-data alone, which happens unconditionally when Ardour launches.

A later scan just [re-]indexes already discovered LV2 plugins. Some LV2 plugins may replace LV1 plugins (which need to be scanned).

#3

(Hopefully this will make sense)
I am aware, from what I have heard, that a benefit offered by LV2 plugins was that when they are scanned their GUI elements are not, allowing their scans to perform more quickly.
This sounds similar to what you are saying.
However, I guess if that is true then it is the scanning of the meta-data that I am speaking of.

Even though it is not a huge amount of time, it can add a noticeable difference that causes Ardour to load slowly especially when opening projects often.

I compared this by timing with LV2 plugins in .lv2 folder and without.
The without does load up quicker.
Although I still wish it was possible (regardless of scans or not) if Ardour would be able to launch even more quickly.

Anywas, so can that meta-data scan be altered in any way or is it a must to occur each time Ardour is launched?

Thank You