https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=498160
--- Comment #3 from S. Christian Collins <s_chriscoll...@hotmail.com> --- After working through a number of issues trying to get Kdenlive to start, here is a summary of the issues that I'm seeing with the startup VST plugin scan: 1. The VST scan is fragile. If an element of the plugin scan crashes, it brings down Kdenlive as well. 2. On systems with many VST plugins, the plugin scan may exceed the system's limit for open files (1024), leading to a crash. Raising the system limit is necessary to work around this issue. 3. On systems with many VST plugins, the plugin scan may exceed the system's limit for open X clients (256), causing Kdenlive to hang. Raising the system limit is necessary to work around this issue. 4. If any VST opens a GUI element when scanned, that GUI element may remain stuck on the screen until Kdenlive is closed (e.g., Acoustica Pianissimo's sample loading indicator). 5. Kdenlive doesn't seem to remember what it has already scanned, so each time I start kdenlive, it has to scan all of the plugins all over again. This leads to Kdenlive taking several minutes to start, and system file and X client limits must be raised permanently, not temporarily. This is a huge problem for me, as is makes the conditions to use Kdenlive quite adversarial. Furthermore, I have to blacklist plugins that are otherwise useful to me in other applications so that Kdenlive can start at all. (My previous statement that the crashing plugins were all restricted to a specific DAW turns out to be incorrect.) It would seem to me that something like the following might need to be done to avoid app-breaking issues for people with a music studio's worth of VST plugins: 1. Plugins that fail to scan should be placed on a blacklist. Plugins that succeed scan should be placed on a whitelist. The startup scan should look for the existence of VST plugins. If the plugin is on the blacklist, it is ignored. If the plugin is on the whitelist, it is checked to see whether it has been updated or deleted. If updated, re-scan the plugin. This is generally how DAWs behave, and avoids long application start times caused by re-scanning already known plugins. 2. If possible, avoid a plugin scan failure crashing Kdenlive. Otherwise, when scanning a new or updated plugin, place it initially on the blacklist, and then if the scan completes successfully, move it to the whitelist. This way, if a plugin scan crashes Kdenlive, it won't crash on the same plugin every subsequent launch. 3. Make it possible to disable VST plugin support. Perhaps make the VST support opt-in in the settings if it continues to be problematic. If there is some secret way to disable the VST scan, I would love to know as I have videos I need to edit. Peace. 🕊️ -- You are receiving this mail because: You are watching all bug changes.
