#228 Paid VST plugins run in trial mode

[Wealstarr]

Many VST plugins from reputed companies run only in Trial mode (demo mode) even though the license is correctly parsed and plugins properly activated.

Tested Plugins:
All Voxengo plugins
All apulSoft plugins
All TBPro Audio plugins

There might be more but these are the ones I tested.

License and settings are stored in the same folder either in %APPDATA% or in %LOCALAPPDATA% which EqualizerAPO reads correctly. All settings are read and altered correctly from EqualizerAPO's editor. License insertion and retrieval is also correctly read and parsed by EqualizerAPO.

Plugins show "Registered To" and "full version" in editor. Moreover, other registered features are also available from within editor like saving the custom presets, changing the phase etc.

But the limitations of trial mode where audio is muted periodically or noise bursts are added to the output randomly are there.

Tested the same plugins on other hosts (Studio One, LiveProfessor, Audacity) and there are no problems. Plugins work as expected.

Also, tried on the other computer with EqualizerAPO and still the same problem. Tried on older version of EqualizerAPO 1.2.1 and still the same problem.

If anyone wants to reproduce the bug, I'll happily share my license and plugins, just reply in the thread or send me a PM.

Please, I urge the devs to look into it, I can't use my plugins makes me extremely sad and there are no alternatives to EqualizerAPO.

Any help will be greatly appreciated.

[Etienne Dechamps]

Have you tried the suggestions described in this very similar thread? It looks like you're having the same problem with the same symptoms and it could be solved in a similar way.

In particular, when you say:

License and settings are stored in the same folder either in %APPDATA% or in %LOCALAPPDATA% which EqualizerAPO reads correctly. All settings are read and altered correctly from EqualizerAPO's editor. License insertion and retrieval is also correctly read and parsed by EqualizerAPO.

That might be true in the Editor, but what you need to be aware of is that the APO itself does not run under the same user as the Editor (this is because of the way the Windows Audio Engine is structured). In the context of the APO, the user profile is stored in C:\Windows\ServiceProfiles\LocalService, not in your personal user profile directory. You might want have a close read at my documentation on this.

[Wealstarr]

Hi Etienne,

Thank you for the response and diagnosing the issue. The permission issue is most likely the cause of this.

I read your documentation on the gihub, very detailed and easy to understand. The two solutions you have mentioned, first is a no-go because these plugins have a fixed directory for storing their settings and license information.

So going for the second, I tried running EqualizerAPO.dll as LOCAL SERVICE to no avail. I tried to add the object "Audiosrv" in the permissions for EqualizerAPO.dll but Windows won't allow that complaining that no such group exists.

This permissions issue has always been very complicated for me. Could you please tell me step by step what I need to do precisely to allow Windows Audio Service to have access to the license in %APPDATA%, if possible,

Finally, It seems like I could get this working. Thank you from the core of my heart for helping me out here, means a lot.

Attempt 2: I tried adding LOCAL SERVICE to the folder containing the license, this didn't work either.

[Etienne Dechamps]

I tried running EqualizerAPO.dll as LOCAL SERVICE to no avail

EqualizerAPO.dll (more specifically audiodg.exe which is the process EqualizerAPO.dll is loaded into) already runs as LOCAL SERVICE. That's precisely the cause of the problem.

I tried to add the object "Audiosrv" in the permissions for EqualizerAPO.dll

It makes no sense to do that. The Windows Audio Service already has permissions to load EqualizerAPO.dll, otherwise Equalizer APO itself wouldn't work. (More generally, LOCAL SERVICE typically has access to anything under Program Files already.)

EqualizerAPO.dll is not the problem. It's the settings/license files that are the problem.

Could you please tell me step by step what I need to do precisely to allow Windows Audio Service to have access to the license in %APPDATA%, if possible,

%APPDATA% in the context of this discussion is ambiguous/confusing. The %APPDATA% of your user is different from the %APPDATA% that the APO sees, because the APO is not running under your user. This is usually the cause of the problem. When you say %APPDATA% we don't know which one you mean.

With that said, if you want the APO to be able to access specific files, you need to change the permission of these files (not EqualizerAPO.dll!) so that Audiosrv (or LOCAL SERVICE which amounts to the same thing for this purpose) can access them.

To summarize:

• The Equalizer APO Editor runs under your user account.
• However, when the APO actually processes your system audio, it runs under a different user account (Audiosrv/LOCAL SERVICE).
• Therefore, what you see in the Editor might not be representative of what actually happens in the APO itself. The results in the Editor can be misleading.
• If you want the APO (including any VST plugins running within the APO) to access a given file, the user running the APO (i.e. Audiosrv/LOCAL SERVICE) must have the permission to access that file. It must also be able to find that file, taking into account the fact that %APPDATA% for the user running the APO is not the same as your %APPDATA% for your user, and in particular is not the same as when the VST runs in the Editor.
• If the VST is unable to find the files it needs when running in the context of the APO (because it's looking for them under the wrong %APPDATA% or because it doesn't have permission to access them), it will not behave properly when processing system audio, even though it might appear to work perfectly inside the Editor.
• Process Monitor on audiodg.exe can be useful to figure out exactly where the VST is looking for its files while running inside the APO, and what kind of errors it might be getting while trying to open them.
• To fix this problem, you need to do whatever might be necessary for the VST plugin to be able to successfully open the files it needs while running inside the APO. This might involve copying files to the LOCAL SERVICE profile folder (i.e. C:\Windows\ServiceProfiles\LocalService) so that the VST can find them there, or it might involve adjusting the permissions on files that are not stored in a folder the service has access to.

[Etienne Dechamps]

Attempt 2: I tried adding LOCAL SERVICE to the folder containing the license, this didn't work either.

The best way to understand what's going on is to use Process Monitor on the audiodg.exe process (you'll want to restart the Windows Audio (audiosrv) service to force the APO to reload). There will be a lot of irrelevant noise in the Process Monitor output, but you should be able to find relevant file access attempts (e.g. if you look for the names of VST-specific folders). Most likely you will see that it fails to open a file, and the path along with the error (either NOT FOUND or ACCESS DENIED) should tell you what's going wrong.

[Wealstarr]

I understand you, thank you for detailed response. The simple solution to the problem would be to allow Audio Service to have access to all the files located in MY AppData (C:\Users\wealstarr\AppData) this is where the license+setting are and this is the place from where the editor is reading too.

2nd option would be to run the Audio Service as Admin so that it has access to all the files everywhere. I was digging around and found this:

What does Local System Account means?

I also looked on the Google and found this to be run in terminal:
net localgroup Administrators /add localservice

What does this command do?

Thanks again for taking interest in my issue and helping me out here. I can't express how grateful I'm.

[Etienne Dechamps]

The simple solution to the problem would be to allow Audio Service to have access to all the files located in MY AppData (C:\Users\wealstarr\AppData) this is where the license+setting are and this is the place from where the editor is reading too.

It might be where the Editor is reading them, but are you sure it's where the APO (running inside the Windows Audio service) is reading them? I'm willing to bet it's not.

Again: the APO itself does not run with the same value for %APPDATA% as the Editor. Are you sure the APO is not looking for these files under the local service profile directory, i.e. C:\Windows\ServiceProfiles\LocalService? Have you checked using Process Monitor?

If you are truly certain that the APO is looking for these files under your user profile directory (again I'm very sceptical), then the correct fix is indeed to change the permissions on the relevant folder to allow Audiosrv to read it.

2nd option would be to run the Audio Service as Admin

No. Please don't. This is NOT a good idea. Messing with service user accounts is not only going to compromise the security of your system, it will also create a serious mess with various unintended side effects that could break various things and will likely make things worse. Leave the Windows Audio service configuration as it is.

net localgroup Administrators /add localservice

This is an extremely dangerous command. DO NOT RUN THIS. This will add the LOCAL SERVICE user to the Administrators group, which means all services under LOCAL SERVICE (not just Audiosrv) will have access to everything, which is an incredibly stupid thing to do from a security perspective. You will severely compromise the security of your system if you run this. This will also have unpredictable side effects and could cause serious breakage, because most software does not expect permissions to be messed up in this way.

[Wealstarr]

Hello Etienne,

Yes, you're spot on. I checked with Process Monitor and indeed the plugins look for the license information in Local Service AppData. I used a workaround and it seems to be working. I copied the license files in C:\Windows\ServiceProfiles\LocalService\AppData this has resolved the issue. I've also kept all the plugins Data files (settings+Preset) in MY AppData folder for the editor and that GUI won't complain about missing license. So basically two copies, one for APO and one for editor. Seems to be working fine without any issues.

A million thanks for helping me out on this one, I would have never guessed the issue without your help let alone resolving it. Also, many thanks for all the suggestions regarding the configuration of core Windows modules. If it wasn't for you, I would have totally fk'ed it up.

The solution is also mentioned on Voxengo's website but I wasn't aware that they have Q&A panel, almost all other companies don't.
https://www.voxengo.com/qna/host-equalizer-apo-27/

However, their solution is not as good as yours. Keeping the license information in Local Service Appdata is more tidy. I like things properly structured and organized.

Just one more thing I have to ask you. One of my plugins from Sonible keeps piling up the memory usage on Windows Audio Device Graph Isolation (audiodg.exe) indefinitely until there's no more RAM left for system to use then OS freezes. I talked to the dev, they told me to upgrade but I really can't

Is there any way to clear this RAM usage after every new track plays/streams?

[Etienne Dechamps]

the plugins look for the license information in Local Service AppData. I used a workaround and it seems to be working. I copied the license files in C:\Windows\ServiceProfiles\LocalService\AppData this has resolved the issue.

Yes, this is a proper fix. If you want to get clever you can also make the VST data folder inside LocalService a link back to your personal folder. This way, you don't need two copies and any change you make in one place is automatically reflected in the other. I'm not sure how links interact with file permissions though - you'd have to figure that out yourself.

One of my plugins from Sonible keeps piling up the memory usage on Windows Audio Device Graph Isolation (audiodg.exe) indefinitely until there's no more RAM left for system to use then OS freezes. I talked to the dev, they told me to upgrade but I really can't

Ouch, that's a nasty memory leak. As you found out the hard way, a memory leak in a critical Windows system service does not end well.

Is there any way to clear this RAM usage after every new track plays/streams?

There are two ways to make audiodg.exe restart: restarting the Windows Audio service (Audiosrv), or completely stopping all audio streams and then waiting 5 seconds. I'm not aware of any other way to reset that process.

You could also try disabling and then re-enabling the VST plug-in in Equalizer APO, but if it's a true memory leak then I'm afraid that won't be sufficient to get the RAM back.

[Wealstarr]

Hi Etienne,

Thank you for the response. I contacted the dev but I don't think anything would be done, they have moved on. Don't think supporting the old customers is on the agenda.

So I re-installed APO and now editor crashes as soon as I make any change in the parameters of the plugin, also the output device (Direct Sound) gets locked up. When I go to restart Audio service it ends in error 1054, service did not responded in timely manner. Only restating the PC gets the audio back. It worked fine before.

Would you be willing to check if it's working on your end ?

You can download the plugin from the official store:
https://www.apulsoft.ch/apqualizr2/apqualizr2-win-installer-2-5-2.exe

[Wealstarr]

Sorry, double post.