'Cannot run two instances of VST Connect' error

Hi

this is doing my head in so if anyone can point me in the right direction I would be very grateful.

Using Cubase 9 - I may at some point have tried to Create VST Connect from the Pro an SE menus. Tried to remove in/out channels, cues, control room channels etc. In the VST Cloud menu for both VST Connect Pro and SE only the Create VST Connect and Check and Repair Configuration options are available, the rest are greyed out. When I click on the latter I get ‘Cannot run two instances of VST Connect’. I have found no documentation on how to solve this, where these instances are to be found, as they don’t seem to appear anywhere I can see, or how to delete and start again.

When I’ve deleted everything I can see and tried to start again, in the Mix Console and VST Connections panel, the drop down progress panel opens, but it doesn’t create a performer track (greyed out). The VST Connect edit panel doesn’t open so there is no way of logging in and starting. All those options are greyed out in the VST Cloud menu. Every other measure I’ve tried gives me ‘Cannot run two instances of VST Connect’.

I’ve replaced and reinstalled the app, the prefs, the settings from backup… no difference. Reinstalled VST Connect 4update… no difference.

How do I get rid of one (at least) of the instances?

In desperation, I tried my older Cubase 8.5 installation. It worked, up to a point, with video connection both ways but no sound either way. In theory, this is an amazing piece of technology as I should be able to record a singer in Paris from my base in London. But I can’t.

Was thinking about trying Connect SE and if successful, buying the Pro version. But the documentation has many holes and I’m finding it frustrating, especially as this new version was supposed to be ‘one click and you’re good to go’… it’s not, and I’m not.

cheers

ian

Hi,

let’s try to get it up and running.

First let us remove your VST Connect PRO installation
Delete the following files and folder
File : /Library/Application Support/Steinberg/Components/vstconnect.bundle
Folder : /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/VST3/Steinberg/VST Connect

Let us remove your local Cubase preferences. Delete the following folder
Folder : /Users/YourUserName/Library/Preferences/Cubase 9.5

Be sure that you are running the latest Cubase version (9.0.40)
The latest installer can be downloaded here
https://www.steinberg.net/en/support/downloads/downloads_cubase_pro_9.html

Now start Cubase, create a new and fresh project and run “Cubase // Menu // VST Cloud // VST Connect SE // Create VST Connect”

Is it working?

Have a nice day,
Michael

Hi Michael,

many thanks for the reply. I’ve taken the steps you suggested and made some progress, but…

when I try and log in through the MySteinberg option on the VST Connect editor, I input my email and password, click on the tick, and a popup dialogue appears telling me to input my email and password, which I do again and another popup dialogue appears telling me to input my email and password, and on and on in a loop. With the key option it seemed to log in ok though. Confusing. I won’t know if it actually works until I try connecting with my singer during our proposed session tomorrow, though…

A couple of questions - I backed up my preferences, of course - which ones can I safely reinstate to return Cubase to the way I need it to be? Or maybe it’s quicker to say which ones I can’t…?
Also, does it matter if you log out of VST Connect or not before closing the project / quitting the programme, or does closing / quitting automatically log you out?

Thanks again.

Ian

Hi,

Are you using a valid MySteinberg account?
Can you tell us the exact message of the dialogue?

If your MySteinberg account is not working (at the moment), yes, please use the key-option.

Hm, good question. There are so many files. :slight_smile: You should not replace the “Vst*.xml” and the “Defaults.xml” files.

No, VST Connect will logout when you are removing the plug or closing Cubase. You don’t need to care about it.

Have a nice day,
Michael.

Hi Michael

The error message reads:

“Login
Please enter email and password.”

Just tried again in VST Connect, same error message. Just tried accessing MySteinberg via the website and that connected normally. Strange.

I replaced a few preferences, and all is back to the way I like it. I think “UserPreferences.xml” is probably the most important in this case.

cheers

ian

Hi,

Hm. Some MySteinberg accounts can trouble the VST Connect Login routine. But this is really rare. Can you login to the MySteinberg website, change your password and try again to login to Connect? If it is still not possible to login, please contact me and tell me your credentials - m.spork (at) steinberg.de

… you are talking about your Cubase settings?


Thanx,
Michael.

Hi Michael

I emailed you as suggested, but as I’ve not received a reply I’m assuming it ended up in your spam folder, so I’ll copy here what I wrote and hope to get the benefits of your expertise once again…

As you suggested, I changed my password but this had no effect. Also, it seems you have to change the password twice - for MySteinberg and for the forum, to the same password, which seems a bit strange.

But the issue with VST Connect remained as stated above. In fact, it is a little bit more complicated; one of the problems when I tried going with the key method is that it was unreliable and unstable, and if it crashed the ‘key’ option disappeared from the VST Connect editor window - the login option was there but the ID button had disappeared so there was no way of using the key method, unless I closed and reloaded the entire project.

There were other problems too:

The talkback cue in the upper left section of the editor was not mirrored from the control room to VST Connect until I clicked repair in the VST Connect menu. However, occasionally, clicking repair led to Cubase crashing and quitting.

We managed to record a vocal just once. Every other time I tried to record, it recorded just silence.

The performer’s reverb didn’t work.

In the control room panel, I couldn’t hear music when set to mix, I could only hear music on cue.

The performer’s video feed got more and more distorted until she re-selected it, which seemed to re-set it, which happened constantly.

The metronome click has disappeared too. I can see the signal in the control room panel but it doesn’t output anywhere, and in the VST Connections panel I can’t select anywhere for it to appear. (In a new project without VST Connect it works.)

Also, would I be correct in assuming that the recording quality is dependent on the internet stream quality and the Pro version is not affected by this? I would love to get the Pro version although, as it stands, I’m a long way from being convinced it would work as it should.

I included my credentials in the email of 11th April, but won’t here, obviously!

And yes, the “UserPreferences.xml” file in the Cubase settings folder.

Thanks

ian

some remarks:
a) it just shouldn’t crash. If it does, we are happy to learn how to reproduce if ever possible.
b) there is a bug that makes the ID option disappear once you close a connection. Closing and re-opening the VST Connect plugin view should help, otherwise remove and re-install the VST Connect plugin. Will be fixed, sorry.
c) “it recorded just silence” - pls have a look at the sync LEDs, recording must always work unless these become red. Try to increase “RemoteLatency” to 2 seconds for instance.
d) reverb works, but you have to enable a send (tiny horizontal fader in the channel) plus the reverb active switch.
e) check if the metronome click is visible in the cue send in Control Room. The meter should show the same in the plugin. Make sure click is activated in the Control Room VST Connect Cue channel. Click has never failed to work so far.
f) the PRO version works like the SE version, but it can record up to 16 channels and recordings are additionally stored in full resolution on the Performer computer and later transfered. As such, yes, recording quality is obviously better.
g) you may check https://www.connectvst.com, it may provide some hints as to what may go wrong.
Hope that helps.

Hi musicullum

thanks for the reply.

a) it just shouldn’t crash. If it does, we are happy to learn how to reproduce if ever possible.

It happened three or four times, one in three maybe, just by clicking the repair option in the menu - ‘Cubase quit unexpectedly’… Will let you know if it keeps happening.

b) there is a bug that makes the ID option disappear once you close a connection. Closing and re-opening the VST Connect plugin view should help, otherwise remove and re-install the VST Connect plugin. Will be fixed, sorry.

Glad to hear it! However, this doesn’t address the main problem, which is that using the login option, I click login and it tells me to put in my email and password after I’ve just done that. (See original post). After I changed the passwords, as Michael suggested, it still does it. VST Transit, MySteinberg and the forum all log in as they should, just VST Connect has this problem. This is the one I need addressing first.

I’ll be able to check the rest when I try again to have a VST Connect session next week, but I’d like the login issue resolved before I try, as it is hugely frustrating trying to communicate with a performer in a different country when stability is so unreliable.

cheers

ian

you have to update to the latest VST Connect version.

Thanks guys for trying to help. In the end we just gave up. The latest VST Connect version didn’t work, (and if there’s a new one we’d give it a try,) but there were so many problems, even after following all the recommendations given by the connectvst site, emails from Michael and posts here that it was unworkable. It’s a shame as I really wanted it to work, and would have got the Pro version if it had. Hopefully, sometime in the future…

cheers

ian

I’d like to not yet give up on this. What does “didn’t work” mean exactly? Your last problem was that you couldn’t log in and we recommended to update to the latest version. If you create an empty project and apply “Create VST Connect”, what doesn’t work?
You may also want to look at https://www.connectvst.com but we are also here to help if you still have problems. Thanks for your patience.

Thanks musi, I appreciate your persistence!

I’ll copy part of the email that Michael tried to help with, in case it is of any help to other users…

"First, we (myself and my singer) both updated to version 4.0.20. My version logged in ok, but the performer plugin didn’t really work - my singer was using a Mac laptop running OS 10.13.4; she just got a blank white page for about three minutes, before it opened briefly, froze, then crashed. She tried again and just got the white page. Then she uninstalled it and went back to the previous version, just to see if it would work. It opened ok, but using the key as the login still didn’t work (which we already knew of course), but the connection was not good. When she turned off the video, it helped, but was still unstable. She was plugged in via ethernet.

The version my end still had many problems:

Login worked my end, but we had to use the key system as the performer login didn’t work, as I detailed above.

I use an iMac, display resolution 5120x 2880 and another display, resolution 1920 x 1200. When I dragged the VST Connect plugin editor to the secondary monitor the plugin window didn’t display correctly - bits of the image missing, wrong size, and it crashed Cubase after one drag across…

The drop down menus are just white boxes and the info is invisible, although I was able to guess and change the settings.

We finally managed to record our first vocal take, which sounded ok, but all subsequent takes were unusable with distortion.
As with the previous version, the monitoring via the cue meters was silent until I ran the check and repair function in the menu. This should work straight away, I imagine, and I shouldn’t need to do this."

Michael suggested sending crash logs, but given there are only so many wasted afternoons I can put my singer through, that’ll have to wait. :wink: I’m going to record her in person in September, so maybe after that…

cheers

ian

afaik the gui problems (white page/menus) are OSX version related and solved but we can’t release yet. Distorted sound is most likely to be a problem of local audio (buffersize etc), we never had that as a result of network problems. So let’s see when the new versions are available. Very sorry for the inconvenience, entire albums of famous artists have been created with VST Connect so there will be a way :slight_smile:

Hi there

I don’t know if anyone can read this.

I have downloaded VST Connect Pro v5 for Cubase Artist 11. When I try and create a VST connection it informs that “You cannot run two instances of VST Connect”

I tried uninstalling everything and re-installing and it did not work.

Please can you help

Try empty project, then Create VST Connect. Do not insert any VST Connect plugins manually. Also may try ‘Check and Repair VST Connect’. Also see https://helpcenter.steinberg.de/hc/en-us/articles/360012899079