Hello all. I recently purchased Scaler EQ, and it is causing somewhat of a problem with my entire system. It installed fine, and functions/functioned correctly. The standalone opens and works, but when I update a master file I get this warning,“An unexpected error occurred in this application or one of its plug-ins!” When I go to the .dmp file, it says that the Scaler_EQ .dll is unknown. It’s (.dll) is sitting right alongside the other thousand plugins I have in the same folder, that work without issue, (UAD,Izotope,Soundtoys,Waves,etc).
The next phase was Studio One just hanging up, and not updating the Master, with me having to use the task manager to end the process.
Then other anomalies started to happen. My Apollo started being unrecognized by Studio One during start up, and my VU meters disappeared. My anti-virus started alerting me that Scaler_EQ is accessing my microphone…which isn’t a big deal…so does Ozone RX11, but usually it’s programs like OBS, or Davinci that utilize mic operation. Lastly, Studio One started asking me if I wanted to block it…then just blocked it.
I’ve uninstalled, and reinstalled multiple times, running as an Admin, with the antivirus and defender both disabled, and it always ends up the same. I’ve changed directories multiple times, all with the same effect. It’s almost like a virus, and I know that it’s not, but it is behaving like one. I sent a ticket in on Fri, and it’s now Tue, and all I’ve heard back is sorry, we’re busy, but we’ll get to you soon. I’m kind of unhappy with the current state, as I have used this plugin in a recent project, and it worked out well, until this started.
Once I completely deleted it from my system, all functions of my PC, and DAW went back to normal.
OS: Windows 11 Home
Processor: Intel(R) Core™ i7-9700K CPU @ 3.60GHz, 3600 Mhz, 8 Core(s), 8 Logical Processor(s)
Gigabyte Z390 AORUS ULTRA
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660
RAM: 128 GB
Hi @SPIKER67, welcome to the forum. Sorry to hear you’re having all this trouble. For what it’s worth I should note that we are running Scaler EQ 1.1.3 on a Windows 11 machine here with Studio One 6.6.2 and having no issues with the VST2 or VST3 versions of Scaler EQ.
So I’m really not sure what’s going on with your PC. Very strange to hear this also led to issues with your audio interface and other plugins not being recognised. And you say your Apollo interface and all other plugins are being recognised again as soon as you uninstall Scaler EQ?
Just to clarify, you said Scaler EQ was working fine stand alone and as a plugin at first? Did anything change on your computer? You also mention a few times ‘… when I update a master file’ but I’m not sure what you mean by this. What master file are you referring to?
From the crash report it looks like you’re installing the latest version 1.1.3 of Scaler EQ, but it only mentions the .dll which is the VST2 version. You could try installing again but remove the VST2 version from the install options, to only install the VST3 version. I suggest re-downloading the latest installer file from Plugin Boutique just to be sure.
Your earlier image does also suggest an issue with the VST3 file, but I think it’s worth a try anyway. Also I don’t have an explanation for why the VST2 version would be causing any grief, but see how this goes then we can investigate further.
Hi Tristan, Thanks for the response. I guess it’s best to start off with the “Update Master” part, because that’s where the real trouble is.
So, unlike ALL other DAWs, Studio One has a Song (Mix) page, and a Project (Master) page. Once you have the mix the way you like it on the song page, you click on “Song” at the top, and select “Add to Project”. It then takes you to the Project page where it updates the “Master”. Every time you want to go back to the “Song” page you can either right click on the wave, and choose “edit song”, or…Ctrl + Tab will toggle you back there, where you make an edit, hit save, then hit Ctrl +Tab again to get back to the project page. This is where everything goes wrong. For some reason Scaler is the one plug in that doesn’t want to play ball, and that’s when either it freezes S1, or gives the pop up warnings.
To answer your other questions. Yes, once Scaler is uninstalled, everything goes right back to normal…My VU meters came back,(which was the oddest thing I’ve ever had happen in all these years), and S1 recognizes the Apollo after a full system reboot…PC and Daw. The odd thing is that once I get the warning that S1 doesn’t recognize the Apollo, I go into audio, and just toggled to another audio device and back, and it would see it again.
Also, I have installed Scaler with just the entire package…then just the VST3, then just the VST2, etc. I have read other threads here where these were some problems along with where the files should be located, so I allowed it to install the way it wanted to, then chose my own directories…I saw where one guy said he was pointing towards his “Temp” file. So, I gave that a spin too. No matter which way I went, I wound up in the same place. I downloaded the .exe, and installed it with all anti virus, and Defender off. You can see from my PC specs that there is no issue with any functionality.
I’m not a newbie. I’ve been doing this for a while, and I mostly use UAD, Ozone, and other higher end plugins, but I also have a ton of free , cheap plugins accumulated over time that have never given me the slightest hiccup, however crappy they may be. This is the first time…I would have to say…ever, that anything like this has happened. I’ve been with S1, since S1 was actually S1.01…LOL
So, with all this info, is there anything that might come to mind other than what I have already tried?
I just went through the motions again, installing every combination in the installation menu. It didn’t block any functions , or delete anything this time, it just gave the same popups, and hung up the mastering process. It also generated the same .dmp files. If you install it, and load it onto a Studio One track, all is good, until you try to update the master. It refuses to comply with that process.
OK well that’s interesting. We haven’t heard any reports of similar issues with Studio One in the past however we will certainly do some testing here and see what we can figure out. I’ll let you know what we discover and if we can suggest anything else to try.
Thanks.
I sent you a DM with a vid showing the process.
So, I went a little old school, and copied the .dll file to my desktop. Then I deleted the entire program from my PC.
Then I dropped the .dll into a VST folder I have on an external drive, and …it worked…kind of? I don’t have the standalone now, or any presets…but does it even come with presets?
Anyway, the key detection works, but I don’t know enough about the plug in to know if certain functions will not work. It seems to be a functional EQ at this point.
I performed the update master process 5 times…on the third time I got the warning pop up, but then 4 and 5 worked. I’m not sure how it could be hit or miss, but that’s what it is.
It may be unrelated but have you tried deleting (or moving) your plugin settings file and letting S1 rebuild it?
Unrelated oddball S1 issue just last week (not Scaler EQ) that I couldn’t figure despite numerous plugin removal & reinstalls. Eventually removed plugin settings file & no problems since! I’ve not used the S1 project functions much recently myself.
If you are talking about deleting, or moving C:\Program Files\Vstplugins…I have to say respectfully, that there is no way I would jeopardize a flawlessly working system with many $$ worth of high end plugins over a $40 EQ. No offense to anyone here.
But, I also have VST files on a SATA connected drive, as well as an external, which is where the .dll is sitting now, and have moved the program,(Scaler EQ), across all of them.
I’m pretty convinced at this point, that this is an issue with the way Studio One toggles between its Song page, and Project page. If one were to never use that feature, the issue I’m having would never be encountered, as it works fine as long as you stay on the Song page. Which defeats the whole concept of how Studio One is designed.
And , it just crashed Studio One again, even with what I thought was a work around. At this point I’ve done all I can do with my knowledge level, so unless the Devs at Scaler can figure something out, I’m afraid I cannot have this plug-in on my system.
Hi @SPIKER67 . We have done some quick testing of Scaler EQ 1.1.3 on our Windows 11 machine running Studio One 6.6.2 and haven’t had any issues updating the master or moving from song to project. We attempted this many times with both the VST2 and VST3 versions of Scaler EQ.
We would however like to try to figure out what it happening on your end and hopefully get this solved for you, if you wouldn’t mind trying a few more things to help us pinpoint the issue,
I believe @don1thedon is suggesting you delete Studio One’s plugin preferences, not your plugin folder. I managed to do this by removing all the plugin related files in C:\Users"your username"\AppData\Roaming\PreSonus\Studio One #\x64 which forced Studio One to rescan all plugins next time it opened. You can backup these up if you’re concerned.
Also your video is only showing the error with the VST2/dll version of Scaler EQ. To help us confirm it is not specifically a VST2 issue, it might be wise to uninstall Scaler EQ via add/remove programs, plus manually delete any .dll files you’ve manually moved around like to your external drive or desktop. Then delete your Studio One plugin preferences again.
Then reinstall Scaler EQ selecting only VST3. Then try your song-project process using only the VST3 version of Scaler EQ.
Please let me know if this results in the same crash and we will investigate further. Thanks!
Can you tell me specifically which files in this folder can be deleted?
I’m no Studio One expert, however I looked through a few forums and people suggested deleting PluginScanner.log or Plugins-en.settings. Personally I just deleted all files with the word plugin which seemed to work. But we are only using Studio One for testing. Again you can backup these files instead of just deleting if you’re worried.
All words that included,“Plugins”… 
I went on the Presonus Forum, and the suggested files are Plugin Scanner log, and Plugin Blacklist…and…it worked!
I installed the 32 and 64 bit VST3, but left out everything else, including the standalone. What exactly is the purpose of the standalone?
Hey @SPIKER67 looks like you found the correct files to remove to force a fresh plugin rescan in S1, I hope this fixes your issue - Good Luck!
Thanks Don, and Tristan. I also installed the standalone without any issue, but Tristan, what exactly is the purpose of the standalone? I’ve googled it with no avail. Thanks again.
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Good to hear you got this sorted. Thanks @don1thedon for the suggestion, sounds like that’s what fixed the issue.
Regarding the stand alone version, as I understand this version is simply created as part of the plugin build process so it was decided to include it anyway. People do often use the stand alone iPad app for a variety of tasks, and there was some chat on this forum about using the desktop version as a standalone effects processor which is an interesting application.
So there’s no one use case in mind, but you obviously don’t need to ever use it or even install it if you don’t need it.
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