Have been finding my way around GP2 for the last day. Some very impressive improvements and a few quirks. One as noted in another thread is the addition of an ‘Enable OSC’ checkbox for each widget, which defaults to off. Seems that if there is an OSC name already assigned to the widget, it should default to on.
The strangest quirk is the launch time of GP2 depending on which network I’m using. As a comparison, on my laptop GP1 launches in under 4 seconds regardless of network. If I’m using my studio Wi-Fi network, GP2 launches in about 16 seconds, hanging for a while on the plug-in scan before loading the initial gig. If I disable ‘Scan for new/changed plugins on startup’ in preferences, it loads in 5 seconds.
I have an Airport Express in my gig rack to enable OSC communication between GP and an iPad. I use this device for live performance and it is not connected to the internet. When this network is enabled on the laptop, GP2 takes a whopping 65 seconds to launch. If I switch to my studio Wi-Fi network while GP2 is trying to launch, it will finish launching pretty much as soon as the internet enabled network is connected. Is GP2 doing any sort of online scan while launching now? Can’t account for why this behavior might be occurring.
As I mentioned in the other thread, the widget name is not just for OSC, it’s also used for GPScript. Enabling OSC automatically for widgets that are just needed for GPScript is not a good idea because every time you turn a widget, you are sending out OSC messages and if a particular widget doesn’t need to be sending them, then we’d prefer it doesn’t.
As for the launch time, sounds like you’re being bitten by DNS timeouts. The only thing Gig Performer does on startup is check for updates. Have you tried unchecking that option in preferences? The other possibility is that one (or more) of your plugins is trying to connect to the internet, either for update checking or for license validation, the latter which will happen every time the plugin in question is loaded.
The only way to really see what’s going on is to use a packet sniffer to watch all outgoing connections. A software firewall such as Little Snitch (Mac) or ZoneAlarm (Windows) will give you such information. Incidentally, those are great tools to be running in general to protect malware programs from trying to connect to the internet.
I did uncheck the scan preference and the results were as mentioned above. A quick load when online, very long when not. I’ll try using the packet sniffer to determine what’s going on.
Another simple test you could do is to start Gig Performer and immediately hold down the SHIFT key so that no rackspaces (and plugins) get loaded. If GP starts really fast under those circumstances, then you can be sure that the problem is due to some plugin wanting to connect to its mother!
Thanks David, I did try launching with SHIFT held down and the results were about the same. GP2 launched very quickly on the internet enabled network and glacially on my local network. Installed Little Snitch and it listed a few connections (see screenshot). Denying any connections that GP was looking for made little to no difference in the respective launch times. Still about 5 seconds on online network, 65 on local.
If you look at that screenshot image closely, you’ll see on the left that, inside the GigPerformer process, connections are trying to be made to mixpanel.com and native-instruments.com and those are coming from the plugins directly.
You need to contact the plugin manufacturers - this is not a Gig Performer issue. Denying the connections prevents the plugin from actually connecting, it does not prevent the plugin from TRYING to connect and perhaps waiting some amount of time.