ASC is just useless, looking for answers

[ASC_does_not_work]

I have had endless problems with ASC. I have never been able to download even a single instrument using it. Instead I download the instruments directly using a browser, install them, and hey presto ASC sees them. For one instrument this is an OK workaround. But I took the opportunity to acquire the V Collection, and that is 39 instruments. ASC could not download even one of them. Download failed, download failed. Every instrument downloaded first time using Chrome. That was something like 30GB if I recall correctly.

I spent way too much time going backwards and forward with support. They were polite, they offered me special builds of ASC, I turned on logging within ASC. But all to no avail. Nothing worked. They could not provide a solution, and frankly it was a waste of my time and patience. I gave up dealing with them. This is on a brand new MacBook Air M3.

I updated to Sequoia last week, and thought I would give ASC a try. It doesn’t even run. I have to force quit it several times, because it is ‘not responding’. If I leave it long enough, long enough being a non-standard term for impatience, it opens. But then it does not do anything. The status shows: Checking connection. How long does it take to check? I don’t know, because it sits there checking but not apparently doing anything. Well it takes about 10 minutes, it seems because it is now open.

I have seen the homily about ‘not updating to Sequoia for now’, but also in the same article it is mentioned that no specific issues have been observed. I have had enough of this rubbish. All I want to do is have ASC working. In my other life, I have done software development for about 30 years. Let me give you a clue: writing a program which makes a network connection, checks entitlements, downloads things, and installs them is NOT HARD. I was doing this back in the good old days of dial-up internet. But it seems to be beyond the competence of Arturia.

The final straw which leads me to make this post or rant is that today ASC takes forever just to open. That is unacceptable.

I would like to know if other customers are seeing problems with ASC on MacOS recent versions, and how they handle them. I don’t believe I am alone. It’s not my MacBook, it’s not the network. If it was, I wouldn’t be able to download these instruments using Chrome or curl.

Thanks.

[Funtmaster]

Welcome to the forums.

I feel your pain and can see it’s been a rough road. The only things I can think to ask is:

Do you have AntiVirus installed and if so, can you try with it disabled?

Have you tried creating a new account on your mac?

Have you tried on another PC/Mac if possible?

Can Arturia create you a new account and transfer purchases across or just use it as a test?

I know these suggestions may be grasping at straws but maybe…

[matjones]

HI @ASC_does_not_work and welcome to The Sound Explorers Forum!

Sorry to hear about your experience, i’m not a Mac user myself so cannot offer any solid advice other that what @Funtmaster has already suggested, i have however, created a support ticket on your behalf.

Please bear in mind what time of year it is currently though.

HTH!

[ASC_does_not_work]

Thank you for the reply, but I already have a support case open. ASC just seems to have problems unrelated to reality. I took advantage of the free Augmented Mallets offer today. It registered in my account, I opened ASC (it opened promptly this evening), and clicked to install it. It almost got to the end, then there is an error message: Waiting for other downloads to complete. I’m 100% clear here - there are NO other downloads waiting to complete, so this is a bogus error. Eventually this error did clear and for the first time, ASC actually managed to install something. So what has changed? I haven’t changed anything. My laptop is the same. No updates. So with my software developer’s hat on, ASC is unpredictable and unreliable.

[Jon_Vincent]

That sounds like there are ‘partials’ somewhere in an Arturia hidden folder that the downloader is waiting for the ASC to delete before it will install Augmented Mallets. This is because the Arturia installer makes sure there aren’t too many of its apps being installed at the same time, which would grind your computer to a halt.

All this sounds like it’s one big permissions issue, in so far as the OS isn’t granting ASC the right to install stoftware. Hence the partials still sitting there. And mostly this is Apple’s fault because the whole system is geared to installing software via the App Store not from developers’ custom installers. But to have your apps in the App Store, Apple sucks 20% of the purchase price because they’re scum.

Hopefully some tech bods here or Arturia staff can help you overcome this issue.

[mkochsch]

Curious as to anyone else having issue downloading over a network cable interface. My downloads repeated failed until I manually went into my network card and changed it from automatic to full 100 duplex.

[Jon_Vincent]

@R.I.P

I would very much prefer simply downloading installers from the account via browser, and then install whenever I want.

You literally can do this. Just go to the Downloads area. Arturia doesn’t exactly make it hard to do. But to install 30+ apps of a V collection this way is absolutely mind-numbing.

What complicates things is we’re not all having this issue. I’m using a Mac with MacOS Sonoma 14.7 and I’ve had zero issues. Everything works and installs.

[Jon_Vincent]

@R.I.P

To me that’s just a different way of forcing you into using the ASC. The sneaky way…

I think your persecution-complex maybe overtaking your rational thinking. Any size-differences will likely be because ASC downloads a compressed version which Windows can’t natively unpack and install. From a downloading perspective, the whole idea of the ASC is to save you time, and to provide a one-stop-shop for keeping your downloads up to date. Nothing more. Arturia aren’t getting more money if you use ASC vs. if you don’t, so your consipracy-theories don’t hold up to scrutiny. It’s literally in Arturia’s best interest to give you the smoothest experiences possible and not p*ss you off.

EDIT: I do empathise with people having problems with using ASC to install software, but the internet makes the problems seem more mainstream than they are, because users who aren’t having problems don’t join support-forums to say they’re not having problems. And that’s not to detract from your very valid frustrations, but the fact you are minority edge-cases is probably what makes it difficult to pin down for the devs.

[R.I.P]

that earns a little...

lol

[Funtmaster]

Now I feel bad for having had zero problems with the ASC.

[tobiasuk]

Hi
I have never had any issues with ASC, but was having problems recently trying to download some updates in UVI’s Portal (same thing as ASC but for their instruments).
It turned out to be my VIrgin Media broadband settings.
This may have absolutely nothing to do with your issues, but I thought I would at least share the support I got from UVI that resolved my download issue completely. Here it is:
We’ve received several similar reports from users in the UK who are using Virgin Media as their internet service provider. It appears that the issue is linked to Virgin Media’s Web Safe feature interfering with CDN download links.

If you’re subscribed at Virgin Media, I invite you to follow the steps below to solve this issue:

1. Visit virginmedia.com/myvirginmedia and sign in.
2. Select ‘My Apps’.
3. Click ‘Web Safe’.
4. Disable the option next to Virus Safe or Child Safe.
5. Click ‘Apply’ to apply the changes.

Even if you are with another broadband service, they might have similar settings (features).
Throughout this whole issue for me, my internet was fast and accessing other services fine. And since changing the settings it has also continued to be fine, but UVI instruments can now download correctly.

Good luck

[ASC_does_not_work]

I don’t believe this is a network issue as the problem does not exist outside ASC. As mentioned, I downloaded every instrument in V Collection one at a time in Chrome without seeing a single problem.

I’ll show a typical log entry from ASC:

| 55561     | T1335498 | download    | notice  | Download start https://dl.arturia.net/products/dx7-v/soft/components/DX7_V__1_13_1_5024__vst3.pkg
| 56996     | T1335498 | download    | notice  | Download complete ("/tmp/Arturia/DX7_V__1_13_1_5024__vst3.pkg") 1434 ms
| 56996     | T1335498 | download    | error   | The size of /tmp/Arturia/DX7_V__1_13_1_5024__vst3.pkg is 16842219 while 22402901 is expected

You can the download starts, ASC marks it as complete, but the size is wrong. I have seen this over and over and over - the log file shows a complete download, but it is always smaller than expected. It doesn’t matter if the download is about 500MB for a smaller synth, or much larger.

If the download is marked as complete, then it should be complete. If the size truly is wrong, then why is the download marked as complete?

It’s unlikely to be a permissions problem. Permissions would not allow about 99% of a download to occur, but then prevent the last 1%.

[Jon_Vincent]

@R.I.P

“Mr. Permission” will surely try to tell everyone that’s a permission thing.
Or that Windows OS can’t handle an .exe file, just like he did in that earlier post that contained 95% of pure nonsense

Frankly “Mr Permissions” DGAF if you solve it or not because it’s working fine for me, and for many others. I’m just a regular guy like you, giving up unpaid time to throw ideas at your problem to see what sticks, to maybe help you solve it. But hey with that disrespectful attitude, you can take a hike.

Thread unwatched.

Oh btw, also I never said windows can’t handle an .exe file.

[Tim.Arturia]

Hello.

The crash have been fixed and will be released in the next ASC version. We’re sorry for the inconvenience.
We do have a lot of ASC reports lately and we are focusing on releasing multiple fixes as soon as we safely can.

I don’t know if you did, but it is always good to report the problem to our support even before claiming it here.
I didn’t find any support case referring to this problem so it seems you didn’t.

Thanks.

[ASC_does_not_work]

Guys and Girls,

Can we try and avoid the finger pointing at each other? My complaint is mostly about ASC on MacOS not being able to download V Collection. It is not about anyone offering advice here.

I see there is a range of experiences with ASC. Some people have no problems. Great. I’m glad for you. If you have seen problems in the past and somehow solved them, please offer advice.

I would like to keep the thread on-topic. If you experience ASC related crashes when a program checks plugins, please put that in a separate thread.

Thanks.

[Trensharo]

@Jon_Vincent

do empathise with people having problems with using ASC to install software, but the internet makes the problems seem more mainstream than they are, because users who aren’t having problems don’t join support-forums to say they’re not having problems.

Your Gaslighting game is on point.

ASC has been half-broken on macOS for years.

I ended up just removing everything from my Mac and don’t bother using it for music production at all. Not worth the trouble. Some of the other issues I’ve run into have been one-time fixes, but the ASC has to be one of the buggiest, worst software managers that I have ever had the pleasure of dealing with. It has ALWAYS been this way on macOS.

To be frank, some of this is also macOS. I got an M1 Pro MBP when they released, and I’ve probably used it a cumulative 20 hours. So many issues esp. with updates, etc. that I ended up just going back to using my PC Laptop whenever I needed a portable machine.

I only use it for productivity and Group FaceTime chats with family members, now.

It has been the most problematic computer I have ever owned in my life. Never again.