Auto-Loading Session on Startup (Plugin Version)

[ghr74]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.
I'm trying to automatically apply Shell VSTs in a program that struggles with them by using the Element VST as a layer inbetween. Unfortunately, after restarting the program, the session/plugin settings are lost until I go into the Element VST panel and load the file again.

Describe the solution you'd like
An option in the settings to configure a session file to automatically load with the plugin.

Describe alternatives you've considered
An option for automatically reloading the last session would also work, though I guess that might cause issues if you added a problematic Plugin and it causes a crash loop.

Additional context
This probably isn't the target audience for this program but it seems really close to working very well for my problem, it's just missing this feature.
Alternatives I've tried so far:
Carla Plugin Host: crashes for me when trying to load more than one Plugin in the VST version
Hermann Seib's VSTHost doesn't save Plugin settings correctly, also the UIs on half my Plugins are broken in some way
Maybe I'll find some other option, but your program seems very nice and I think it would be a nice feature addition if it's not too much hassle.

[mfisher31]

Load the session file for new instances? Or are you saying that existing instances aren't saving state? Also, which version is this happening in?

[ghr74]

Hi, first off thanks for your reply.

I am using Element Version 1.46.6 in Element_FX.dll VST mode.

To go into a bit more detail, my issue is as follows: I'm using the Elgato WaveLink software to apply VSTs.
It saves plugin state as a Base64-encoded string as a "filterSettings" property per-plugin in its settings.json.
Some plugins (like Waves' Scheps Omni Channel) cause WaveLink to make a rather large string (50k+ characters), which it chokes on pretty hard whenever starting the program or moving VSTs around in priority.

To alleviate the issue, I'm looking for a VST host VST that can act as an intermediary, having a small amount of settings to be saved in the WaveLink file, with the actual plugin settings being stored externally.
Setting up the plugin and the graph works fine, however, moving the ElementFX VST around in priority or restarting the WaveLink software erases my ElementFX settings. See attached Pictures.

Unfortunately the WaveLink software is bound to their products which would make it hard for you to track down the issue, let me know if there's any more information I can provide.
Taking a quick look at the JSON, it appears that WaveLink's filterSettings string doesn't seem to change when I change settings in Element. I've attached an example MixerConfiguration.json as a .txt, the Element FX settings are on line 381.

MixerConfiguration.txt

On an aside, loading the saved graph above in Element again causes some weird issue where it's not loaded back correctly and the Scheps UI is broken:

I tried loading it in a REAPER instance of Element FX, and the issue occurred as well.
Loading it in standalone Element also had the issue.
Here is the used els file as a .txt:

els.txt

Hope this information helps.

[mfisher31]

Ok, thanks for the details. I need to figure out if the plugin isn't saving/restoring correctly or it's a host problem. Nobody else has reported element not saving/restoring in other hosts.