Scanning stuck with Audiothing TypeX plugin

Hi all. I’m using Ardour 9.0.0 in Ubuntu Studio 24.04. I have been using AudioThing plugins with no problem a lot. But yesterday I tried plugin Type X - installed as vst3 - and though it is recognized the scanning seems to be stuck. It ran for hours and I had to cancel the process. I cannot find any specific log entry on this. Using the plugin in Audacity on the same configuration works Ok, so I figure the plugin itself is OK. Anybody can help me out on this? I’ve posted this one already in the AudioThing forum.

Could you try to scan it manually from a terminal Window? The output of that may shed some light:

LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/opt/Ardour-9.0.0/lib/ /opt/Ardour-9.0.0/lib/ardour-vst3-scanner -v -f ~/.vst3/audiothhing.vst3

I guessed where audiothing.vst3 is, you may have to change the path to the VST3 bundle.


PS. Also Ardour 9.0 has a few critical bugs, it is highly recommended to update to 9.2.

Thanks Robin. I will do the scan in a terminal window as soon as I’ m behind the desk again. I heard somebody else in the AudioThing forum experienced the same with this plugin in Ardour.

I ran the scan and it gets stuck again:
[Info]: Scanning: /home/jan/.vst3/TypeX.vst3
[Info]: FactoryInfo: ‘AudioThing’ ‘https://audiothing.net’ ‘mail@audiothing.net’
[Info]: Class count: 3
[Info]: Class: 0 ‘Type X’ ‘Audio Module Class’
[Info]: VST3: media: kAudio dir: kInput type: kMain n_busses: 2
[Info]: VST3: - bus: 0 count: 2
[Info]: VST3: media: kAudio dir: kInput type: kAux n_busses: 2
[Info]: VST3: - bus: 1 count: 2
[Info]: VST3: media: kAudio dir: kOutput type: kMain n_busses: 1
[Info]: VST3: - bus: 0 count: 2
[Info]: VST3: media: kAudio dir: kOutput type: kAux n_busses: 1
[Info]: VST3: media: kEvent dir: kInput type: kMain n_busses: 0
[Info]: VST3: media: kEvent dir: kOutput type: kMain n_busses: 0

OK, so it hangs somewhere in the cleanup stage, after correctly detecting the channel layout

I’ve never seen that before with a VST3. I suppose feedback from the vendor would be helpful here.

PS. Ardour’s plugin manager scan has a default timeout of 30 sec. Did that show up during your scan?

image

The message showed up, but the scanning process did not stop.There were no popup dialogs either

Yeah, it’s just a clue.

Some plugins show a license dialog or wait for a user to activate the plugin; others (e.g. waves) may ask for a folder where samples are located, when they are first loaded.

Sometimes those dialogs show up on a different screen, or behind the scan dialog.

But in case of Type X it seems to be a bug somewhere…


Do other plugins from audiothing work? Have you tried the VST2 version?

Other AudioThing plugins work OK (vst3). I have not yet checked with vst2. In the AudioThing forum they thought it might relate to the sidechain implementation within the plugin. They already have send me 2 new builds, but to no avail. Gonna sleep now, will have a look at it again tomorrow.

Just checked it out. Vst2 version is scanned correctly and works.

1 Like

That is good news. So you have at least a working solution.

All this indicates that the issue is likely a bug in Type X.vst3.

Are you in contact with audiothing ?

Yes, they already shared 2 new builds with me which - unfortunately - did not work. They think the side chaining within the plugin related to how Ardour processes this could be the issue. Is the way a vst3 is processing side chaining within Ardour different from how a vst2 plugin processes it?

btw I installed Ardour 9.2.0 yesterday and tested all in this version, but vst3 of this plugin is still not scanned/processed properly.

Side-chain (busses) are entirely different in VST2 and VST3 specification.

Other VST3 plugins with side-chain work just fine. They’re really just busses here and show up in the scan log that you posted. The plugin has stereo side-chain input.

The plugin hangs after scanning of the first class, when it is deactivated, and resources are released: see above Scanning stuck with Audiothing TypeX plugin - #5 by x42