Renoise can't find plugins after vendor renames them

[Meander]

Hi everybody,

I started a topic about an option to save fxp files from failed plugins, but I’ve just run into the problem again, and I think fixing an issue might solve many of the problem’s cases.

In the past, Waves has renamed their plugins between releases 7 and 8, or something like that.
It looks like this:
First a plugin was called (cat. Waves:) Waves RBass etc.
Now, the name is simple (cat. Waves:) RBass etc.

UAD has done something like that as well. The UAD LA2A now being called the UAD Teletronix LA-2A

In both cases we’re talking about exactly the same plugin, but the rename totally throws off Renoise.
When I open my older xrns I get loads of “missing” plugins, that I actually (still) own.

The thing is, other DAWs don’t seem to have the same problem. It seems that Cubase for instance understands that these plugins are the same and load them in spite of the renaming.
If this was just a problem for a couple of songs, I could open the files and try to edit in the new names myself, but I have hundreds of songs with this problem.
I don’t know if this happens because Renoise handles plugins in a more absolute way, but… Help!

In case this is not retroactively fixable, a function to swap the failed plugin with a working one, whilst keeping the preset would be fantastic. I believe quirky Madtracker could actually do this.

I hope you can help me with a fix or a workaround.
Thanks a lot!

[Beatslaughter]

Renoise uses the filename and not the ID to identify a plugin, that’s why other DAWs find them still. I had similar issues when Renoise went 64bit, so you can use the following terminal script to upgrade your songs manually after editing the plugin table.

Snippet: Replace Plugin Ids Inside Song.xml

This script basically solves this problem for me. Not too much error checking is done but it works and is much less a hassle than doing it all manually. You may have to adjust the plugin table for your own needs first. In my case the key “m” is the x86 filename and “r” the x64 one. You can also fix plugins with version numbers in the filename for example. The replaced plugin HAS to be preset compatible, otherwise the new song will probably not load correctly. Download the script, since it includ…

Also put an enhanced plugin search into Ideas and Suggestions, but not many people seem to run into this.

Improve Missing Plugin Search To Use Plugin Id

Don’t know how much work this would be, but i would find it very handy if Renoise could search for a plugin with the same plugin ID first before telling me the plugin could not be found. I have switched to Renoise x64 and a lot of 64bit plugins use a different filename than the 32bit version. I guess the plugin still uses the same ID though and could be identified easy?

[Meander]

I am throwing cases full of beer for you at the screen. I’m going to try it out right now!

[Meander]

@Beatslaughter

Renoise uses the filename and not the ID to identify a plugin, that’s why other DAWs find them still. I had similar issues when Renoise went 64bit, so you can use the following terminal script to upgrade your songs manually after editing the plugin table.

Snippet: Replace Plugin Ids Inside Song.xml

Also put an enhanced plugin search into Ideas and Suggestions, but not many people seem to run into this.

Improve Missing Plugin Search To Use Plugin Id

I’m trying to run your script, but keep getting an Unzip failed error. Any idea what I’m doing wrong? Thx!

[Beatslaughter]

@Meander

I’m trying to run your script, but keep getting an Unzip failed error. Any idea what I’m doing wrong? Thx!

Not totally sure why it would fail, just tested it here again and works so far. Few ideas maybe… the script is only for Windows currently and does not work on another OS without modifications. The Unzip could also fail if you have loaded an old RNS module instead of a XRNS, resave the song then into a new file. Very deep path lengths or odd chars in a path could also make it fail maybe. If nothing of those help, try inserting the following print above the Unzip command in the script, around line 75.

print(unzip .. " -p -o \"" .. xrns_in .. "\" Song.xml >\"" .. tmp_in .. "\"")  

This will print the full commandline used to the Renoise terminal. Hit Windows Key + R and type “cmd” into the run box, hit enter, then copy and paste the full commandline from the Renoise terminal into the Windows command prompt and try to run it. Maybe the Unzip utility provides some useful error message.

[Meander]

I’m not sure what’s going on…

It seems to be skipping the whole os.execute routine (also the print command) and skipping straight to failed.
I’m on Win 8 x64, using an XRNS, paths are nested but nothing ridiculous.

Sorry, I’m no good at this lua stuff…
As soon as the script is running, I should be adding my problem plugins to the local identifiers = table.create({ bit, right?

Thanks for your time.

PS. One more thing that may or may not be related: once I’ve edited the lua file, I cannot save it, even though it is not read-only. I’m beginning to suspect Win admin rights and am going to test that out.
PPS. The admin thing fixed the save problem, but not the error. Actually, adding the print command makes the script break there:
*** ReplacePluginIDs.lua:76: ‘)’ expected (to close ‘(’ at line 74) near ‘unzip’

[Beatslaughter]

I’m also on Win8 x64, so the OS should be fine. I have prepared a small download here with the print command included and will do a step by step guide to be sure.

1. Extract the downloaded file to: "C:\UsersUsername\AppData\Roaming\Renoise\V2.8.1\Scripts"

2. Enable the developer tools as described on this page: https://code.google.com/p/xrnx/

3. Run Renoise as admin and go to “Tools → Scripting Terminal & Editor…”, double click on “ReplacePluginIDs.lua” in the left side file browser.

4. Now edit the table at the top with the plugins you want to fix, “m” is the filename without extension to match and “r” is the new filename of the plugin. Only edit the parts highlighted in orange between the quotes.

If you need more entries in the table, simply add the following line before “})” (line 20):

{m = "match", r = "replace"},  

5. Load a song in Renoise, which has plugin problems. Now click “Execute” on the bottom right of the LUA Editor. Ideally the script should run fine now.

If you still have problems, make sure the table has no syntax error and looks exactly like mine, just with different plugin names. If the unzip still fails, try running the unzip with the commandline provided by the print output, described in earlier post.

@Meander

Actually, adding the print command makes the script break there:
*** ReplacePluginIDs.lua:76: ‘)’ expected (to close ‘(’ at line 74) near ‘unzip’

This looks like some syntax error, probably some bracket is wrong.

[Beatslaughter]

Just for reference, in case someone has the same problem… the Unzip error was solved. The script was installed into the Renoise installation directory instead of the User directory.