finally. it's nice to see it null. i haven't pinpointed the exact problem, but it's some kind of plugin error.

deleting all of the user folder (including all my presets...) and removing all of the plugins (except the two i'm using in the project) created a flat null. so, now i need to slowly bring the plugins in until it breaks.

i have a large amount of plugins loading that i really don't use. hopefully, it's one of those.

i'll just want to do one more reinstall after i isolate it, and then i'm hopefully back in business. 24 hours tops, i'm thinking.

what an absolute total break, though. wow.

i'll have to take a step back and look at a few things when i figure out what the error is. i'm 98% sure that all of the files from the first install were rendered after at least one close/re-open, so the plugin would have almost certainly have to have been disabled at that point. this could almost certainly not have been an issue until i reinstalled. at the end of this, new renders should null with old files. but, i think i need to test it to be sure.

i do vaguely recall disabling plugins at some time in the past, but i don't recall when or what. the error seems to be in the database, rather than the dll (because this didn't work until i deleted the user files), so i'll have to go in and manually wipe that out, too. it's the vst plugin xml file, specifically.