Blamsoft is back .. just great !

k-chaffin · September 9, 2022, 1:14pm

Thanks. I was mostly just wanting to understand how these types of plugins are managed as I am so particular as to what I will install on my machine. I assume that Andrew does the integration testing behind the scenes? As long as someone at VCV is in the Quality Assurance loop, I’m fine.

Steve_Russell · September 9, 2022, 1:19pm

You’re welcome; I remember you saying on a post somewhere that you only add library released plugins; I would imagine there’s a few other users that have that policy.

IIRC Christoph @cschol handles that; Andrew then updates the manifest(s) once(?) a week or so, this makes the update available and visible on the library web page.

cschol · September 9, 2022, 1:29pm

Closed source plugins are submitted in binary form to VCV directly without submission of source code reference to the library repository. VCV will perform the integration testing before release through the library.

Open source plugins are submitted in source code form. I will perform review and integration testing, which gates integration into the library repository. The VCV build server is responsible for building the final binaries based on the integrated library repository.

k-chaffin · September 9, 2022, 1:33pm

Thanks Christoph. Does VCV perform virus/malware scans on submitted binaries before releasing to the library?

Schabbes · September 9, 2022, 1:40pm

Nice!!! I have been asking Blamsoft if he is going to port them some weeks ago and was just wondering yesterday if I should write him again.

Since they are not entirely new, they don’t appear at the top of the Library, so I hope word will get out to newer users about how great XFX Wave is.

Steve_Russell · September 9, 2022, 1:53pm

They do (currently) appear at the top of the library list if you sort by timestamp i.e. VCV Library - Plugins

For some reason this doesn’t work on the “front” page i.e. VCV Library

[Edit] The former uses buildTimestamp the latter uses creationTimestamp editing the second link thus: VCV Library does show them at the top.

cschol · September 9, 2022, 3:08pm

Please contact VCV Support for questions about closed source plugins. Thanks.

TroubledMind · September 9, 2022, 3:15pm

It would be good for others to know the answer to this.

k-chaffin · September 9, 2022, 3:46pm

Thanks Christoph. I asked this question to the one who knows all via PM for V1 regarding self managed cross platform build chains but I received no response.

For my own purposes, I will make the logical inference as to the answer to the question

Vortico · September 9, 2022, 4:21pm

We require proof of identity such as government ID to release closed-source plugins on the VCV Library.

diimdeep · September 9, 2022, 6:42pm

For me, Blamsoft plugins didn’t load with error /Documents/Rack2/plugins/Blamsoft-XFXF35/plugin.dylib, 6): Library not loaded: libRack.dylib

I fixed it with this commands

install_name_tool -change libRack.dylib /tmp/Rack2/libRack.dylib ~/Documents/Rack2/plugins/Blamsoft-XFXDistortionPack/plugin.dylib
install_name_tool -change libRack.dylib /tmp/Rack2/libRack.dylib ~/Documents/Rack2/plugins/Blamsoft-XFXF35/plugin.dylib
install_name_tool -change libRack.dylib /tmp/Rack2/libRack.dylib ~/Documents/Rack2/plugins/Blamsoft-XFXReverb/plugin.dylib
install_name_tool -change libRack.dylib /tmp/Rack2/libRack.dylib ~/Documents/Rack2/plugins/Blamsoft-XFXWave/plugin.dylib

macOS 10.15

ruipacheco · September 9, 2022, 7:31pm

do you type this in the terminal?

chaircrusher · September 9, 2022, 7:56pm

Yes. It looks like on OS X, Blamsoft’s plugin.dylib has a bad name for librack.dylib embedded in it. the install_name_tool changes the librack.dylib path in plugin.dylib.

What I don’t understand is why he’s changing it to /tmp/Rack2/librack.dylib, which IIRC is NOT the normal install path for libRack.dylib.

The command in this case is:

install_name_tool -change oldPath newPath fliename

I don’t have a Mac to test this with.

Another option is to set the DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable for running Rack.

DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH=“/tmp/Rack2:${DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH}” Rack2

or

export DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH=“/tmp/Rack2:${DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH}” ; Rack2

I don’t know what other plugins that don’t have this problem do to access libRack.dylib.

steve · September 9, 2022, 8:10pm

Just to say I’m on a Mac and it works fine without any file path renaming.

chaircrusher · September 9, 2022, 8:20pm

It may well be that it works fine if you just let Rack install in whatever the default path is. I don’t even know where Rack goes if you just double-click the PKG file. I do NOT think /tmp/Rack2 is a standard installation path.

diimdeep · September 10, 2022, 4:14am

Plugins expected to use this path 1 2

Squinky · September 10, 2022, 5:40am

yeah, this is cool. good stuff. But who is Blamsoft now? Didn’t the company formerly knows as Blamsoft go out of business? New owners?

Squinky · September 10, 2022, 5:45am

See @diimdeep 's post, above. Rack puts in a symlink so that every plugin that’s linked correctly can find it. Doesn’t matter where you actually install it - the symlink will point to it. At least that’s how I read it.

It seems, however that the Blamsoft plugins aren’t linked correctly, so they don’t see the symlink.

Schabbes · September 10, 2022, 6:30am

As I understand it, it’s still the same guy, still carrying on the rich legacy of Dr. Blam, selling various Ham Radio technology as Rack Extensions and AUV3

LarsBjerregaard · September 10, 2022, 11:47am

OMG @Blamsoft, you’re awesome! I did not dare to hope that your modules were coming back, this is so great. Thank you very much!

As others have remarked above, there seems to be a linking problem, at least on macOS (10.12.6) with my Rack2 (Pro, 2.1.2, running standalone).

The plugins download and install just fine on disk, but cannot be seen in the module browser. Rack just wants to re-download them to no result and the log says this:

[0.539 info src/plugin.cpp:162 loadPlugin] Loading plugin from /Users/lab/Documents/Rack2/plugins/Blamsoft-XFXDistortionPack
[0.542 warn src/plugin.cpp:228 loadPlugin] Could not load plugin /Users/lab/Documents/Rack2/plugins/Blamsoft-XFXDistortionPack: Failed to load library /Users/lab/Documents/Rack2/plugins/Blamsoft-XFXDistortionPack/plugin.dylib: dlopen(/Users/lab/Documents/Rack2/plugins/Blamsoft-XFXDistortionPack/plugin.dylib, 6): Library not loaded: libRack.dylib
  Referenced from: /Users/lab/Documents/Rack2/plugins/Blamsoft-XFXDistortionPack/plugin.dylib
  Reason: image not found
[0.542 info src/plugin.cpp:162 loadPlugin] Loading plugin from /Users/lab/Documents/Rack2/plugins/Blamsoft-XFXF35
[0.543 warn src/plugin.cpp:228 loadPlugin] Could not load plugin /Users/lab/Documents/Rack2/plugins/Blamsoft-XFXF35: Failed to load library /Users/lab/Documents/Rack2/plugins/Blamsoft-XFXF35/plugin.dylib: dlopen(/Users/lab/Documents/Rack2/plugins/Blamsoft-XFXF35/plugin.dylib, 6): Library not loaded: libRack.dylib
  Referenced from: /Users/lab/Documents/Rack2/plugins/Blamsoft-XFXF35/plugin.dylib
  Reason: image not found
[0.543 info src/plugin.cpp:162 loadPlugin] Loading plugin from /Users/lab/Documents/Rack2/plugins/Blamsoft-XFXReverb
[0.543 warn src/plugin.cpp:228 loadPlugin] Could not load plugin /Users/lab/Documents/Rack2/plugins/Blamsoft-XFXReverb: Failed to load library /Users/lab/Documents/Rack2/plugins/Blamsoft-XFXReverb/plugin.dylib: dlopen(/Users/lab/Documents/Rack2/plugins/Blamsoft-XFXReverb/plugin.dylib, 6): Library not loaded: libRack.dylib
  Referenced from: /Users/lab/Documents/Rack2/plugins/Blamsoft-XFXReverb/plugin.dylib
  Reason: image not found
[0.543 info src/plugin.cpp:162 loadPlugin] Loading plugin from /Users/lab/Documents/Rack2/plugins/Blamsoft-XFXWave
[0.544 warn src/plugin.cpp:228 loadPlugin] Could not load plugin /Users/lab/Documents/Rack2/plugins/Blamsoft-XFXWave: Failed to load library /Users/lab/Documents/Rack2/plugins/Blamsoft-XFXWave/plugin.dylib: dlopen(/Users/lab/Documents/Rack2/plugins/Blamsoft-XFXWave/plugin.dylib, 6): Library not loaded: libRack.dylib
  Referenced from: /Users/lab/Documents/Rack2/plugins/Blamsoft-XFXWave/plugin.dylib
  Reason: image not found

Inspired by dmitry above i executed the following hack-fix:

install_name_tool -change libRack.dylib "/Applications/VCV Rack 2 Pro.app/Contents/Resources/libRack.dylib" ~/Documents/Rack2/plugins/Blamsoft-XFXDistortionPack/plugin.dylib
install_name_tool -change libRack.dylib "/Applications/VCV Rack 2 Pro.app/Contents/Resources/libRack.dylib" ~/Documents/Rack2/plugins/Blamsoft-XFXF35/plugin.dylib
install_name_tool -change libRack.dylib "/Applications/VCV Rack 2 Pro.app/Contents/Resources/libRack.dylib" ~/Documents/Rack2/plugins/Blamsoft-XFXReverb/plugin.dylib
install_name_tool -change libRack.dylib "/Applications/VCV Rack 2 Pro.app/Contents/Resources/libRack.dylib" ~/Documents/Rack2/plugins/Blamsoft-XFXWave/plugin.dylib

That made everything work just fine, all the symptoms are gone and the modules can be found and used in Rack, awesome!

Thanks a million again for releasing these!