Vienna Instruments and Pro Tools Interface Glitch

[siegfriedmeier]

We're having a problem using Special Edition with Pro Tools HD 7.3.1cs3. Quite often I'm unable to open the interface up to make changes. I can view the actual window that reads "Vienna Instruments Server Interface" but clicking on "show window" does absolutely nothing. I have to shut down Pro Tools and the computer and do a complete restart to make it work. Initially we thought that OSX was getting bogged down so we completely reformatted and installed everything fresh, but the problem still exists. Can anyone shed some light on this? It's getting quite ridiculous to keep restarting every time we want to make a change. Thanks, Siegfried Meier

[nick.halliwell]

Hi Siegfried,

I've been using VI with PTHD7.3 (cs5, I think it is) for months with no real problems at all. There's just one possibility that occurs to me -  I may be totally wrong but it's usually best to eliminate the simple solutions first. Could it be that the VI interface is present but off your screen? That'd explain why it's not brought up when you hit the button. I've got a vague recollection of something similar happening to me at one point; I'd click on the "show window" button and be unable to see anything. So I changed my display resolution to a higher format and there it was, tucked away in a corner of the screen that'd been invisible at lower resolution. 

To be honest this probably isn't the answer in your case, I think that with me it was because sometimes I was sometimes using two monitors and sometimes just one, so the interface would be on the second screen and thus invisible when I was using just one but, as I say, it's worth eliminating the most obvious things first. Just try it: when the interface disappears try switching your display resolutions to see if that makes it reappear.

That's all I can think of right now. You don't say which version of the VI interface you're using - it's probably worth making sure you've got the latest release. As I say, it all works just fine on my system, which sounds very similar to yours.

Regards

Nick   

[crsmany]

Yes, actually the window does appear, but most of the time it is below the ProTools window. If you shrink the window down or press Hide ProTools, you'll see the main VSL window. I usually make my PT window a little smaller to the right of my screen and then pull the VSL window all the way to the right, so if this happens I can easily click on it and bring it to the forefront. Helpfully, this helps. Chris

[todorkobakov]

I have the same problem. Also, if I open an articulation but then decide to close it and open another one, Pro Tools crahses. Has that happen to anyone else? 

[siegfriedmeier]

Yeah, it's not what you guys are describing. I don't have 2 monitors nor do I open sessions with 2 monitors. The problem just happened again now. Just fired up the computer for the first time today, loaded up a session, and the window is nowhere in sight and "Show Window" does nothing. This is a serious problem, and seems there would be such a simple solution. Instead, I have to completely restart the computer just to get it to work again. Shouldn't be this way. I'm hoping the new update this coming week will fix it, but I already spoke to the VSL team and they haven't seen this to be a problem yet, so there most likely won't be a fix. Siegfried

[nick.halliwell]

Hi again Siegfried,

It depends on whether this is a purely display-related problem or not. Can you just give us a bit more info? You say that the main VI GUI disappears, leaving just the VSL server window, and clicking the "Show Window" button fails to bring it back. But, from what you say, it sounds as though the VI isn't closing down, am I right? i.e. when this happens the VI plug-in is still working, it's producing sound, it's just that you can't bring up the GUI to make changes. Can you still play in new parts? i.e. is the plug-in still accepting MIDI input? What happens if you insert a new instance? How many instances are you using?

Assuming I've understood you correctly, it does sound like the problem is with displaying the GUI rather than with the operation of the underlying plug-in. Just as a matter of interest, have you tried what I suggested? i.e. when this next happens try switching your display resolution in OS X, if possible switching to a higher resolution. Even if you've not been using multiple screens (which I think was the cause when this happened to me, but I might be misremembering that), this might show up some display-related anomaly. Actually, which version of OSX are you using? I'm using 10.4.8, I think - you're not using Leopard, are you? That has the new "Spaces" feature and various other display-related things which might possibly muck around with the way PT displays things. The other thing that occurs to me is whether you've reprogrammed the various key commands - I've a recollection that OSX introduced a number of default keyboard commands which can clash with PT commands and which needed to be reprogrammed otherwise you can hit a key in PT and find that it does something unexpected at OS level. It's quite a long time since I installed my system so my memory's a bit hazy, I'm afraid...

In any case I'm thinking out loud. If you can let us have a bit more info about your system I can compare with my own (which is working just fine) and see if we can identify where the problem might be. It's certainly an odd one if it is just the displaying of the GUI which is affected but it must be absolutely infuriating for you so I'll help if I possibly can. 

Nick     

[michaelgungor]

Hi, I was having a similar problem, but it is was with new tracks only. When I pulled up older songs that have the plugin, I could click "show window", and everything worked fine. But if I started a new track, and insert the plugin, it started with a little "default" logo in the bottom left hand corner, and I couldn't show the window to load any tracks. I finally figured out that I was pulling up a wrapped VST plugin rather than the original one that I had used. That was the problem for me.