How to get totally rid of FBmn WhiteBal plugin

Christian de Godzinsky wrote on 4/28/2014, 11:10 AM

Hi,

I downoladed the FBM software White Balance plugin for a trial some months ago. Since VP has nowadays a white balance FX I dont need this 3rd party plugin.

During the uninstall something went wrong (uninstall didn't run properly to the end). Every time I start VP12 or VP13 I get the FBMN software's popup widnows that complains that my license has expired or that it was incorrecly installed. The window does not provide any information how to correct this. Neither is there any trace of this software in the uninstall software list.

Tried to contant FBmn via their home page (http://www.fbmn-software.com/en/index.html) but could not do that. Clicking "Contact us" just tries to open Outlook that I haven't on my computers. Since outlook is missing I never see the email address. Nowhere else is there an email address to be found so that I could contact them for advice. Amateurish home page I would say....

So my question is a) how to get rid of what is still left on my system (so that Vegas opens properly withjout this error) and b) does anyone have a working email address to EBmn? Frustrating...

Cheers,

Christian

Comments

redpaw wrote on 4/28/2014, 11:23 AM

b) if you go to http://www.fbmn-software.com/en/about.html it lists contact@fbmn-software.com . Frédéric is usually very quick to reply too.

By the way, FBmn's white balance plugin works much better then sony's.
it's really great tool, the only drawback i find is it's activation system... such a PITA!

NickHope wrote on 4/28/2014, 11:26 AM

Others will disagree with this because they are against registry cleaning, but personally I would try Tweaknow RegCleaner 5.2 (an old version) first. I use it all the time to fix stuff like that.

wwaag wrote on 4/28/2014, 12:28 PM

The Revo Pro Uninstaller will also get rid of stuff like that.

wwaag

Ros wrote on 4/28/2014, 12:37 PM

I purchased the Border plugin and indeed the activation system is just overkilled.
That alone has stopped me from buying any plugins from them.

Their plugins are also slightly overpriced.

Rob

Christian de Godzinsky wrote on 4/28/2014, 1:09 PM

Hi,

Thanks for your input. I just sent an email to them...

Registry Clean Expert could not fix the problem. Manually I don't touch the registry before I get proper instructions from FBM.

The plugins from FBM are slightly overprices AND their activation system is indeed a PITA. Their uninstaller seems faulty as well.

Overall not an nice experience. Hare to admit that the WB plugin worked fairly well.

Thanks for your help.

Christian

Steve Mann wrote on 4/28/2014, 10:39 PM

I suggested to Fred months ago that his 3-layers of activation was probably costing him more in sales than the losses he was preventing from piracy. sure, you can make it harder for pirates, but they weren't ever going to pay for the product anyway.

riredale wrote on 4/29/2014, 7:56 AM

The usual trick to "fix" a faulty uninstall is to install the item a second time, then do the uninstall again. But in this case it sounds like the company was too clever by half and they've tripped themselves up in the uninstall.

So going to the company is probably the only option. Even doing image backups wouldn't have helped here, since it sounds like you've had it on your system for a long time, so you'd be going back in time a long ways to get to the image not containing it.

OR... why not just reinstall it and then not use it?

Good luck.

Christian de Godzinsky wrote on 4/29/2014, 9:46 AM

Hi

Here's Frédérics response (I publish it here since it contains no personal information and it might be helpful for someone else with the same problem):

Maybe the uninstall has occurred while Vegas was still hooking the plug-in binary files in memory - this would explain was the uninstall did not complete properly?

That is probably what happened. I was stupid enough to leave Vegas open during the uninstall of the plugin... I know that's a no-go...

Thanks to all for the good suggestions.

Christian

Edit: Haha, you cannot even call yourself s-t-u-p-i-d in this forum :)

jetdv wrote on 4/29/2014, 12:46 PM

I recommend always rebooting before installing and uninstall plugins. That way, Vegas will definitely not be running. Even when you exit Vegas, there are times when it can remain running in the background keeping files locked. Rebooting will eliminate that.

Frederic Baumann wrote on 4/29/2014, 3:44 PM

Hi all,

I was advised of this thread through the help of a Customer - thank you very much to you once again, dear Customer!

Regarding the uninstall process, Christian has published the details we have answered by email, I hope it will help other users - while I naturally wish that users appreciate the product enough not to uninstall it :-)

It's a real pain for me to have been forced to set a software protection, as it somehow penalizes honnest users. But unfortunately protection was definitely not an option for us if we wanted to go on developing other software over years as we did.

Even though most of our users can activate the software without any issue, following the given instructions, I may understand it may look complex to some others. We do our best effort to be very reactive should any customer get into troubles with this, and we feel that since activation has to be done only once at setup, allowing then unlimited use of the software, it does not impact the day-to-day usage of the products.

Regarding pricing, I am open to know why you feel it's a bit too high. Please do not answer that plugins should be given for free or 1$ :-)

Best regards, and thank you all for your comments, which are always good to read.

Frédéric Baumann - Founder of FBmn Software