NewBlueFX SPAM in Vegas!

farss wrote on 6/22/2009, 3:49 AM

Here I was playing back something on the T/L to show someone where I'd got to with the project and as soon as Vegas gets to a clip with a NewBlu FX in it this friggin huge white square pops up in the middle of the screen. A few seconds later it's filled with some spam message. I killed it before I even noticed what it had to say.

This is unacceptable behaviour. Thankfully it wasn't a client looking over my shoulder. I would not tolerate this kind of behavior in some consummer level application. That it's permitted to happen in a so called "Pro" NLE is beyond the pale.

Bob.

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Comments

TheHappyFriar wrote on 6/23/2009, 8:21 AM

as far as I could tell it pops up when accessed the first time & then every X times after that. I've had it pop up when I load vegas once & when I plopped it on the TL once.

There's two "versions" of it out there: there's the one that was originally free. It installs to a newblue/vegas folder. The current one installs to a newblue/windows folder. That one has the EXE's that you see pop up.

daryl wrote on 6/23/2009, 10:12 AM

Bob, come to think of it, I don't think I've used this particular plug-in with V9. But it did pop up in V8, only when I added the effect to theTL.
I'll try it in V9 when I get home this evening.

Derm wrote on 6/23/2009, 1:04 PM

Hi,
I contacted New Blue about this last year as I found it very annoying.
The slight difference in my situation was that at the time I owned all of the NB video plugs and here was an annoying pop up reminding me to buy them. I felt that having purchased what was on offer i should''nt be getting the reminder anymore. They said it was a good point and would consider it in the future. As I recall they said that the pop up opens once every 24 hours if a project using Cartoon r was opened. So a solution might be to run the Cartoon r project before showing to a client.

Derm

TGS wrote on 6/23/2009, 3:01 PM

I believe you can have the effect on the timeline, but you can uncheck it, and the pop up won't run until you re-engage the checkmark.
Might need to test that, but I seem to remember that would stop it.

richard-amirault wrote on 6/23/2009, 5:03 PM

The fact is it makes an INTERNET connection to NB before posting a new message on your machine.

Vegas does the same thing. I'm getting pop-ups now reminding me that the special price for the upgrade will soon end. Vegas also checks to be sure that there is only one machine with your registration number running at the same time.

Are you going to stop using Vegas because if it?

Himanshu wrote on 6/23/2009, 6:00 PM

If I recall correctly the first installer for Cartoonr caused more pop-ups than the later installer which is available on their web site now. In fact I think they posted on these forums...I'm sure a search would reveal the post with this info.

TheHappyFriar wrote on 6/23/2009, 6:30 PM

I posted that the new installer doesn't seem to read the net, it uses installed files.

Himanshu wrote on 6/23/2009, 8:22 PM

OK, here's the post that says that the new installer causes less pop-ups. Look for the post by NewBlueFX in that thread.

farss wrote on 6/23/2009, 10:17 PM

Thank you,
having read what NB are saying there it all makes sense.
Thing is although I've worked on the project since I used the plug it would not have been active as I never played out that part of the T/L as I was still waiting for client feedback.
Finally I get it and two weeks later I do play back that part of the T/L. Then NBs popup code says >5 days and it runs.

As for many of the suggestions I should just give NB their money all I can say is "OF COURSE". The problem I have with this is if what's happening with their free plugin is causing users grief and casting NB in a bad light then me simply shelling out the money only fixes MY problem.

Maybe given how Vegas works there's not much NB can do to avoid the behavior I've seen. If so I think they should mention this on their website. That's not a big ask and then no one can complain or justify jumping to the wrong conclusion.

Bob.

alltheseworlds wrote on 6/23/2009, 10:45 PM

Agree 100%. I HATE companies that hide away their marketing crap under the pretence of giving something free.

I wouldn't have a problem with this either except that NB should say exactly what will happen if you use their "free' plugin. If they don't that's unethical and deceptive.

Imagine if every piece of software did this, but neglected to tell you about it when you installed it ? And the "cure" for each and every one was to pay them some money ?

New Blue is doing themselves damage with this sort of cheap-ass tactic.

(edit for typos)

wjsd wrote on 6/23/2009, 10:50 PM

I think you're all avoiding the obvious solution to the popup problem: Just delete or rename the executable file that generates the popup.

Program Files\NewBlue\Free Effects for Windows\Specials.exe

I haven't seen any ill-effects from this so far in VMS 9 -- and I haven't seen the popup since I did it.

Kudos to New Blue for providing the nice plug-in AND for allowing such an easy solution without killing functionality.

TGS wrote on 6/23/2009, 11:16 PM

I knew this had been brought up before:
http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?ForumID=4&MessageID=606309

Tech Diver wrote on 6/24/2009, 5:52 AM

Yesterday I re-installed the NB CartoonR plugin, which of course generated a popup upon being used. As wjsd suggested, I deleted the executable at:
...\NewBlue\Free Effects for Windows\Specials.exe
as well as another I found at:
...\NewBlue\Free Effects for Windows\vegas\RegAssist.exe
I verified that both of these executables bring up the window in question. With the two apps deleted, I have not seen any popups. However, it has not yet been 24 hours since the last popup so I can't say for sure if this really worked but it looks promising. I will know a bit later today.

321 wrote on 6/24/2009, 7:29 AM

There's no Specials.exe in the older Cartoonr version. So I'll have to install the newer version before deleting this file. Does anyone know the procedure to install the newer Cartoonr version so that all my settings and presets are saved in my Vegas projects that use the old version?

Tech Diver wrote on 6/24/2009, 11:17 AM

Updated information on deletion of apps:

It looks like I spoke too soon. Even after deleting "Specials.exe" and "RegAssist.exe", the popups continue to nag!!!!! It looks like the Internet connection is made through the DLL files.

321 wrote on 6/24/2009, 1:33 PM

I thought it was five days between pop-ups with the new version.

Tech Diver wrote on 6/24/2009, 2:15 PM

I observed that the nagging is daily. Perhaps the following entries in the system registry might shed a clue.

In the registry folder called,
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\NewBlue Free Effects for Windows

There are two entries of interest:
CheckDaily REG_SZ 3580698
Remind REG_SZ 3581370

I suspect that this might control how often the nagging occurs.