Please help me to get the inMusic version BFD3 working

BFD3 Archive
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I’m pretty much at the end of my tether here. I’m a software engineer, my job title is DevOps Architect for a software company, so I’m pretty used to computers and installing software. And to be honest, I have not come across commercial software so flakey in a long, long time.

I have seen one post that the experience of using inMusic BFD3 is solvable by doing a full, clean install.
Thing is, I have multiple old projects on the go with FXpansion BFD3 in. I really cannot afford to lose my work - I have mappings for two different drum kits, and a few tailored presets. So I still have FXpansion’s BFD3 installed, and continue to use it.
The notion of installing BFD clean, nice to hear some folk are up and running, but it is something I do not want to take on.

When you say “install clean” - do you just mean the BFD software? We can leave the packs installed on our drives, correct?

You advertised that there were migration steps from FXpansion’s BFD to inMusic’s BFD. They have not worked for me. When I had a semi-working version (3.4.0.24 maybe? can’t recall), there were missing packs. Which is why I have tried to stay current with the latest beta releases from this forum.

So, I currently have BFD 3.4.2.4 installed, was released here over two months ago. Since installation, on Win10, it crashes on launch, every time. There is a Software Bug - calling a pure virtual function in the 3.4.2.4 BFD dll. @BFD_Drew - I PMed you two months ago about this, with the crash dumps. Please revert back with something on this matter - if only to answer the question if this bug is unique to my system.

So tonight, I decided to come back here to see if there is a new Beta. To see if there is a Sticky post on this forum with details of the latest Beta. And what do I see - a pinned post for " BFD3.4.0.24 - Bug Reports" - guys, please understand that Pinned Topics need to capture bugs for the latest release. There have been at least two releases since 3.4.0.24 that I know of. Please pin a topic that captures the download location of the latest-and-greatest stable release, and is up-front on known issues, and resolutions.

So I tried to see if a new version might be available thru the Licence Manager. However, on launching Licence Manager, it says I’m logged in, but no products are shown. Refreshing the product list, I get a dialog with this message:
"There was an issue retrieving your list of products
Our server was unable to process the request. Please try again shortly. Server message: "
(Note - the “Server message:” there is an empty string).

So I leave that dialog open, and a few minutes later, I get this dialog:
“There was an issue retrieving your list of products
Could not connect to the server. Please try again shortly.”
The Licence Manager says that I’m logged in. So it has connected to an auth server, at least. Is your Content server down tonight?

Moving around forum posts here, I see suggestions from you that include actions like deleting registry keys, changing registry values, copying content from one dir to another - that is not a satisfactory experience for your paying customers. You are storing up more trouble for yourselves, to get your paying customers to implement these hacks - from a user-error perspective (sending paying customers into the registry to fix commercial audio software is frankly shocking), and from reputational-damage perspective.

Every such hack you describe on various forum posts can absolutely be automated in a “fix my installation” script. If you find yourself posting a reply to a topic where you list a few steps to fix an issue, then get someone on the team to write a script to automate that process. And idempotent script that won’t break a working system, but one that fixes an issue, and can be run multiple times safely.

In addition, I strongly recommend that you focus on writing a tool that validates an installation, and automates fixes for known isssues. And for issues that your software cannot detect, this tool can be an interactive tool - walk the end user thru launching Licence Manager, launch BFD, scan dirs, … I know the Windows “Help me to fix my problem” Troubleshooters can have a bad name on the internet, but sometimes they are indeed effective.

I also strongly suggest that you release a version of BFD with debug-level logging enabled, for those like me that are struggling to find stability in the software, and are not afraid to dig into a log file. Means we can work with you effectively.

TBH, I still have not told the two drummers which whom I play in bands about this inMusic version of BFD, cause frankly, I’m ashamed that I have this new, latest-and-greatest software that doesn’t work on my system.

I’ve spent a pretty penny on BFD over the years, from the significant initial investment in the software, to paying for upgrades, to the packs I added to my collection over time, If this was free software, or something that costs 20 bucks, then yeah, “you get what you pay for” applies.
But this is not cheap software. But it’s a cheap experience.

Sort it out.

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Your right. I’ve written my own version of this letter. This is the craziest situation I’ve seen with any music software. I’ve actually never had problems with other software.

BFD is the only drum software I am familiar with, and I really like the “Oblivion “ sounds, so I’m hanging in there for now.

Have you found my “New License Manager Won’t Launch “ post. If that doesn’t work, then that’s all I’ve got.

One of my dumb mistakes was thinking that running the license manager was installing BFD. I was panicking over a Pro Tools Crash, and did not realize I needed to click on Bfd3 to open the download window.

Your expansion packs will need to be re- downloaded through InMusic, or at least a new authorization code.

I don’t want to repeat stuff you may already know. Let me know if you need more, or hopefully someone more Davy will chime in.

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I honestly don’t know what more you can possibly do if BFD’s license servers are unavailable. I’ve only briefly experienced this - but that in no way suggests that the service is available worldwide and scaled properly on the time basis that the new licensing scheme requires. It’s absolutely dependent on getting updated keys for both BFD and all expansions.

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I don’t see any reason why you would lose all your maps/presets and projects.
As long as they’re backed up beforehand you can easily reimport any that might have got lost during the migration process.

Alternatively you could bypass the automatic migration process and do it manually but I think it might be too late for that.

Steve

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I have the some problem. :frowning:

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Where exactly might I find those config files? Thanks…

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Yes, thanks - have it here now: New License Manager, Installer won’t launch - #6 by TomLaRosa
I’ll try that.

Wouldn’t the uninstaller take those very same actions tho?
I might try the uninstaller, then use your post to see if those items were deleted by the uninstaller.

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I didn’t mention ‘config’ files. :thinking:

I was talking about presets and key maps as I thought that’s what you were worried about losing.

I’m at work now but I can give you the location for all the config files later.

Steve

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in my case it helped to log off manually in the license manager and then logon again. This helped to get around the message "There was an issue retrieving your list of products Our server was unable to process the request. Please try again shortly. Server message: "
hope it helps

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OK - thank you, will try that too.

If that’s true, then the auth token will have expired. Very fixable in code! To at least present a reason, rather than nothing.
It did say I was logged in on the status bar in the bottom of window… So maybe not.
Nevertheless, it’s worth a shot, for sure.

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Can I please get confirmation that this is the correct, latest-and-greatest, version that I ought to be using? And if not, can you please point me to the installer that I should be using?

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When I got the license server message, I had some luck with logging out of license manager, and logging back in, which seemed to solve the issue.

When updating to a new version of BFD and license manager, you need to make sure license manager is closed before you update, or license manager won’t update, and everything will be broken. It should really force close itself when the installation of a newer version is detected.

I also took a further step the other day, where I deauthorized all of my BFD software/expansions, and reauthorized them, as every 30 days you need to reauthorize everything or you will find that your software activation has self destructed after 30 days, and if authorizations are out of sync, it creates a massive headache when managing projects that use BFD.

If an expansion has been deauthorized and you load it up in your DAW, BFD does not inform you of this, it just fails to load anything. Not only that, but it actually completely unloads all of the BFD kit pieces from the instrument, so if you are unfortunate enough to have saved the project, you will lose all of the BFD settings.

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Right - more stuff to be aware of. I appreciate the advice, thanks.

Honestly - maybe I just run with FXpansion version - wait another while for inMusic to sort this.
Like I say, I really have zero appetite for messing. Last time I checked, FXpansion’s latest BFD version was working fine.

I will try to get stability into the inMusic version tho. But, I’m not poking so much at it that it’d potentially break a working version (the FXpansion installation).

Re. 30 day re-authorisation - is that by design? A bug, or a feature?

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I think that the re authorization thing has been fixed already. However: You could setup the new Version from scratch without touching the old one. Maybe this needs to be confirmed for Windows but on the Mac, all preferences and content folders are different. This could give you the best of both worlds without even trying to migrate stuff. Then you can import the presets and kits without any risk at all and finally (at least this is what I have experienced) come up with a more compact new BFD system that not only has new instruments but is also smaller in filesize without any compromise to the sound.
The new downloads are necessary because they have changed the file format from .wav to .bfdlac

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The authorization thing is not fixed. I had another 3 authorizations deactivated within the last week, 7 the week before that.

It is difficult to believe that self destructing authorizations it is not ‘a feature’. In the last iteration, it was ‘always online’, so expansions would deactivate as soon as there was no internet connection. Apparently that was ‘a bug’.

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Oh yeah? So the pack content has changed with this new 3.4.x release of BFD too?

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I believe most have been .bfdlac for a few years now. IIRC anything with a download ticket over at FXpansion was in bfdlac format.

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Sorry for making assumptions.
The only thing I know is that previous versions were able to read wav whereas the new versions don’t. I just have noticed that all that was not wav has been updated.

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a clean install as suggested there has naught to do with your user files. Make a copy of presets, kits or maps and that in a user directory if you don’t have one. This will be under a top directory named BFD Drums (what used to be fxpansion) in a subfolder eg., BFD 2 or BFD 3. Per the latter be advised the audio Data is its own folder, “BFD3 Core Library”, your presets et al don’t go there. Apparently BFD3 will save these in a factory folder but to be safe make sure you have a user directory particularly if you’re experiencing that migration difficulty. I don’t know about windows, the migration part of this was seamless for me under OSX Catalina. However the “fixed” de-authorization assertion has to be tempered by the understanding it will phone home (at least?) ‘once a month’, albeit here I saw it twice in as many days here.

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Hi folks, so logging out, and in again, thru Licence Manager, works. My packs and BFD are authorised.

But BFD is still crashing on launch, with an internal error bug.
Opening the Minidump in Visual Studio…

image
image877×191 5.45 KB

Like I said above, I’m on 3.4.2.4.
Can someone please tell me if that beta is known to be goosed? And advise what version I should be running?

1 Like