FabFilter plugins break 30 days after activation/license
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Hi, I recently encountered this problem. FabFilter plugins which were activated stop working 30 days after you activated them. For 30 days all activated plugins work with no issue then you have to start using a workaround. It's like the trial timer code is still running, or there is a conflict with EQ-APO.
The Problem:
If I start a song or any audio playback, the audio is muted. I have to interract with any setting in the EQ APO Editor, like toggle a VST plugin or click on any VST slider, knob. Martin calls this "re-initialize" (source/link below) Then the audio starts playing like I would have opened a gate. So when there is no sound ouput then this gate closes again.
Workaround:
A workaround for this is to open a song in MPC-HC and click on pause. Then the "audio gate" stays opened. But even this will close after a longer time, when there is no audio playback. You can improve this by creating a dummy.wave file which has only some low frequencies which I can't hear on my TV. You can play this on repeat in the background.
The problem with this issue is that it is so "clever/sneaky" that it's hard to know the true reason why this happend. I also first blamed this on software I installed the day before.
The proof to this is that when I activated a FabFilter plugin which I wasn't using before, so it wasn't activated (reverb) This plugin works with no issues.
I hope there can be a solution to this.
This issue is present on Win7 Win10 and Win11
Sources:
here are links to people who enctountered this problem
https://prod.fabfilter.com/forum/topic/5950/how-to-reauthorise-fabfilter-plugins (jim)
https://sourceforge.net/p/equalizerapo/discussion/general/thread/47a0a79116/ (martin)
https://www.reddit.com/r/oratory1990/comments/kqc8lo/which_eq_vst_do_you_use/ (flum-flum)
Last edit: Peter Dirk 2024-05-03
Problems like these are usually caused by the actual instance of the VST running in a different context (different user/permission/profile directories) when it's run as part of Equalizer APO itself, as opposed to being used in a normal application. Note "normal application" includes the Equalizer APO configuration editor too, so the behavior of the Equalizer APO configuration editor is not necessarily representative of the behavior of the VST when it's running inside the actual APO.
For more information on this general problem, see this doc.
Yeah I guess the context then changes after 30 days
I fixed it, solution is found.
Okay this won't be that easy. You have to find cryptic (there is no name like fabfilter, it's just numbers and letters) registry entries done by fabfilter and remove all of them. They are always located in the CLSID category, in multiple places. The number of them depends on how many plugins you have activated.
A good place/way to find the right entries is in
Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Classes\CLSID\
Computer\HKEY_USERS\S-1-5-19\SOFTWARE\Classes\CLSID\
Computer\HKEY_USERS\S-1-5-21-243455848-2868656242-4241194107-1001\SOFTWARE\Classes\CLSID\
the entries have no dropdown entries, they are solo, this will help you differentiate them from other entries. You will start to see a pattern.
example
Name:{FC49FD6E-2A58-11E2-87E3-58076288709B}
Value: {111F2218-4C73-6E5F-0C01-461900000000}
To check the right entries you can use a program called ProcessMonitor/procmon (from microsoft)
Then monitor editor.exe (Equalizer APO Editor) and search for the name of your plugin for example "FabFilter Pro-DS.dll" and look out for CLSID registry entries.
So after you find all your entries. Search the registry and delete all of them. I had 6 entries in 9 different locations, so take your time and don't mess up.
Here are my 6 entries:
{48B1000E-9A02-4DE7-9AD0-C52FA8DC3912}
{527C6302-E65F-11DE-AFE7-249C56D89593}
{53C412DA-8EE8-11E1-A8A2-7C01BBE59B18}
{D2797A50-2815-4B9A-AC13-C02CE23D7925}
{E810C473-B8B6-4452-8068-BE5C33F9BEBC}
{FC49FD6E-2A58-11E2-87E3-58076288709B}
and the locations:
Computer\HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID{48B1000E-9A02-4DE7-9AD0-C52FA8DC3912}
Computer\HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\WOW6432Node\CLSID{48B1000E-9A02-4DE7-9AD0-C52FA8DC3912}
Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Classes\CLSID{48B1000E-9A02-4DE7-9AD0-C52FA8DC3912}
Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Classes\WOW6432Node\CLSID{48B1000E-9A02-4DE7-9AD0-C52FA8DC3912}
Computer\HKEY_USERS\S-1-5-19\SOFTWARE\Classes\CLSID{48B1000E-9A02-4DE7-9AD0-C52FA8DC3912}
Computer\HKEY_USERS\S-1-5-21-243455848-2868656242-4241194107-1001\SOFTWARE\Classes\CLSID{48B1000E-9A02-4DE7-9AD0-C52FA8DC3912}
Computer\HKEY_USERS\S-1-5-21-243455848-2868656242-4241194107-1001\SOFTWARE\Classes\WOW6432Node\CLSID{48B1000E-9A02-4DE7-9AD0-C52FA8DC3912}
Computer\HKEY_USERS\S-1-5-21-243455848-2868656242-4241194107-1001_Classes\CLSID{48B1000E-9A02-4DE7-9AD0-C52FA8DC3912}
Computer\HKEY_USERS\S-1-5-21-243455848-2868656242-4241194107-1001_Classes\WOW6432Node\CLSID{48B1000E-9A02-4DE7-9AD0-C52FA8DC3912}
After deleting them, restart your PC and everything should revert to normal behaviour.
I hope this makes sense.
I guess this has to be redone once a month (30 days), but you can make a registry script and delete the entries with one click.
Last edit: Peter Dirk 2024-05-06
I was poking around for an hour trying to understand exactly what it is you're doing but I for the life of me could not with confidence identify the registry keys I am to delete. I monitored editor.exe and found a ton of registry keys it was opening and querying and stuff but yea I'm just a bit lost trying to work through your steps.
Yes this is no that easy as I mentioned, and process monitor shows 5000-6000 events.
Here is a screenshot maybe this can help you to narrow down the results. If you look for "HKLM\Software\FabFilter\" the entries should be above in "HKCU\SOFTWARE\Classes\CLSID{"
it also works the other way around, look for the VST .dll file name like "FabFilter Pro-DS.dll" or "FabFilter Pro-L.dll" etc.
and the entries should be below, they should be sandwiched between them
Have you looked manually inside winreg?
Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Classes\CLSID\
Computer\HKEY_USERS\S-1-5-19\SOFTWARE\Classes\CLSID\
Computer\HKEY_USERS\S-1-5-21-243455848-2868656242-4241194107-1001\SOFTWARE\Classes\CLSID\
important to know that process monitor changes the name from "HKEY_CURRENT_USER" to just "HKCU" etc.
Another way would be if you haven't activated all of your plugins, like for me it was reverb, you can make a screenshot of these locations (registry paths above) before and after activation and then compare them. I did the same thing.
If you already activated all of them, you can make this on another machine to see which registry entries will be added. Or install Windows on a USB stick or something.
I hope someone with more registry skill can make this process easier in the future. I am also not a pro on this but I figured this out with some luck in one day, you can make this too..
Last edit: Peter Dirk 2024-05-08
Huge thanks!
I even registered here to thank you for the work done. I don't know how one could figure this out - it was enough for me to understand that my microphone stopped working in Discord specifically because of FabFilter in Equalizer APO, but that the cause was in the registry, I probably wouldn't have thought of that. My keys were:
{53C412DA-8EE8-11E1-A8A2-7C01BBE59B18}
{59445067-049F-4805-985F-F95058CAA137}
{08547EC7-07E2-4C59-8A5C-43EC9F1E8D9E}
{08EB28AE-17FA-11E0-A693-8D5FDFD72085}
I just searched for them in the regedit, looked at the contents for keys with duplicate path names and deleted them. After restart, everything worked.
A huge thank you!
Your keys were exactly the ones that appeared in my case.
It seems they are the same for a specific product?
I personally have fully activated versions of:
Pro-Q 4 (Equalizer)
Pro-DS (De-Esser)
And I had trial versions (already uninstalled) of these plugins:
Saturn 2 (Saturation)
Pro-C 2 (Compressor)
After deleting those keys, I was able to use them again in Equalizer APO.
One piece of software that turned out to be extremely useful for this task is RegScanner from NirSoft.
Simply enter one of the keys in “Find String” and make sure to check all the base keys in the option “Scan the following base keys” so it searches the entire registry (Local Machine, Current User, etc.).
The great thing about this software is that you can delete every match in one go, and before doing so, you can also export them all as a backup.
I'm still unsure as to how to find the entries with the programs. I tried finding them by name on processmonitor and found no entry. And also tried to use the RegScanner to see if any fabfilter things would show up but idk what to do with each one of those. I also tried deleting the folders that matched on \HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Classes\CLSID\ and restarted, but with no luck.
{53C412DA-8EE8-11E1-A8A2-7C01BBE59B18}
{59445067-049F-4805-985F-F95058CAA137}
{08547EC7-07E2-4C59-8A5C-43EC9F1E8D9E}
{08EB28AE-17FA-11E0-A693-8D5FDFD72085}
I'm sure I have more folders since I have the full suit installed but only using Q-4 and L on EqualizerAPO and a bunch more on Reaper (but those work fine)
I spent an hour searching around to figure out exactly what you were doing, but I was unable to confidently identify the registry keys I needed to remove. I noticed that editor.exe was opening and querying a lot of registry keys, but I'm still a little kisskh app confused as I try to follow your instructions.