Bugzilla – Bug 1404
VSTs with bypass button cease to function if the plugin is closed with bypass button unchecked.
Last modified: 2018-08-20 11:45:43 UTC
1. Install an example plugin, such as http://www.simulanalog.org/guitarsuite.htm 2. Add some audio 3. Open the plugin and observe that checking the Enable button applies the effect or bypasses it. 4. Close the plugin with the Enable button unchecked. 5. Reopen the plugin and observe that the plugin can no longer affect the sound, whether Enable is checked or not. Tested to see whether this will apply to all plugins with Enable buttons once one is broken. Seems like each plugin has it's own state of enabled/disabled, and that closing it with the button unchecked causes that state to get stuck in the disabled position.
Thanks, Tony. Copied the steps into the "Steps to Reproduce" box. Raised to P2 as it seems crashes are involved and our control is faulty, but not written any release note yet or modified the bug title, awaiting clarification. Almost all VST's will be real-time Preview effects and so will have an "Enable" checkbox supplied by us. The http://www.simulanalog.org/guitarsuite.htm set seem to be text only and don't have their own enable or bypass control. Can you confirm what exactly you downloaded? I got http://www.simulanalog.org/GSuite.zip. On Windows 10 if I close those Guitar Suite plugins with our Enable checkbox unchecked, then reopen the plugin, our checkbox is checked again, but the effect does not audibly change the audio. If I then apply the effect, it usually crashes, especially if applied during playback. Do you see those crashes on Win 7? If it does not crash on Apply, it does apply the effect to the waveform. It does not crash if you never uncheck Enable. I have also tried the ReaPlugs VST's and Ambience so far. Yes, closing the effect with our Enable button unchecked means the effect no longer real-time previews in that session, but those effects do not crash. ReaPlug's own "Enable" checkbox does not show the bad behaviour of our Enable checkbox (but if the state of their "Enable" checkbox is changed, it requires restart of playback (bug 1399)). Have you found any specific plugins where closing the effect with it disabled by its own Enable or Bypass control then breaks its real-time preview? I have not found any so far.
This fixes the problem, which I found applied generally to realtime effects (such as the built-in Bass-Treble), not only to VST effects: Closing a dialog with Audacity's added Enabled checkbox in the off state, then opening again, made the effects inoperative after that, no matter what the state of the checkbox. I did not reproduce the crash Gale reported in comment 1 with Guitar Suite, but I have a strong suspicion that this should be enough for that too. https://github.com/audacity/audacity/commit/ff60610adf99dcb0ec5df7c53e3ae307f4ba732f
I have no desire to download unknown plug-ins to my Macbook. Perhaps the original reporter of this bug, Tony Kirkland, could be good enough to give this a test with the latest nightly. 27Jul17 Nightly avialble from here: https://www.fosshub.com/Audacity-Mac-Nightlies.html
(In reply to Peter Sampson from comment #3) The problem in older builds, and the solution, should be demonstrable with the built-in Bass and Treble effect. It is common to that and to third party real-time plug-ins.
