I've had problems with Media Manager after upgrading to VP8 (actually I've not used MM with previous Vegas versions). Now I chose to give it another try, but it crashes my computer and loses Sony Reference Library.

Ok, I thought that I post a support request to SCS people and wrote:

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I've been using Vegas Pro 8 since its launch without any major problems. Now I decided to install Media Manager to manage my Audio FX-library. MM installs and initally starts ok. I can enable installed Sony Reference Library and tag my audio clips. Everything works very smoothly until I restart Vegas. After the restart it says that the Reference library cannot be found and asks whether I would like to reinstall it. If I choose the reinstall, it asks if I would like to replace the existing ref.library. So obviously it still is there. It can be enabled from MM settings w/o reinstall.

After this if I load a Vegas project, it kills Vegas completely. Vegas does not give any crash dump but Vista says that the app has stopped working and needs to be shut down.

I've tried to reinstall MM several times without any success. It always acts as described.
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And got the answer:

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Hello,

Thank you for contacting Sony Creative Software.

A reference library contains information about media from a vendor.

When the Sony Sound Series Loops & Samples reference library is installed and set as the active reference library in the Media Manager Options dialog, tags and custom properties from the reference library will be applied to media from existing Sony Sound Series Loops & Samples or Loops for ACID collections when you add media to your library.

The Sony Sound Series Loops & Samples reference library is not installed by default, but you can install it from the application CD or download it here. After installing the library, go to the Media Manager Options dialog and choose the reference library from the Reference library drop-down list.

You can also use a reference library to search media files that aren't part of your collection. For example, if you're unable to find the perfect loop for an ACID or Vegas project in your own collection, you could use the Sony Sound Series Loops & Samples reference library to search the entire Sony Sound Series Loops & Samples catalog and purchase a new loop library.

You can use the Media Reference Library drop-down list in the Media Manager Options dialog to determine which library is opened when you click the Switch to Media Reference Library button .

1. Click the Switch to Media Reference Library button . The reference library specified in the Media Manager Options dialog is opened. Media in a reference library is displayed in gray text to indicate that the files are not available on your computer.

2. Find the media you're looking for with a standard or advanced search.

3. Tag media from the reference library as needed.

4. When you select a file in a reference library, the Product Information pane displays information about the selected file and a link you can use to purchase the media.

I hope this information is helpful. If you have follow up questions or need further assistance with this issue, please update this incident.

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Great. I DO know what the reference library is and where and why it is used.

I think I told that I had it installed. The problem is that Vegas (or MM) thinks that ref.lib. is not there. On the other hand MM asks whether I would like to replace it. How can I replace something non-existent? (Ref.lib. is there all the time).

And then: Vegas crashes completely. Why is this?

To my understanding not one item in the reply actually even remotely touched my problem. It looks like the helpdesk agent has not even read the initial description.

Most of the time I try to manage without any support requests but sometimes I think that this kind of request would be good info for the manufacturer to point out possible problems/shortcoming in their product. With this kind of support I should really save the bandwidth and stop global warming.

Thanks for listening (anybody out there?)