Pace service consuming 10%-12% cpu

The pace licence service is taking about 10% of my cpu at all times when cubase is instantiated. Not a cubase issue per se but PACE/Ilok support don’t want to know and have no way to troubleshoot. How much CPU is your PACe service using if your using an ilok?

Suspicious it’s Slate plugins checking their licence all the time

Not getting near as bad as you…ilok barely registers use maybe peaks at 0.2% with no Slate loaded but I load a couple Slate VMR and it jumps up to 1.5 to 2% so your suspicions may be correct.
Exactly the same in Reaper so not a Cubase thing.

My computer spec is similar to yours actually Grim. PACE ilok support say 0.2% is an average use on a modern computer. Whatever is making it consume 10% average on mine I have no idea. They say they have no tool / verbose way of knowing whats calling the dongle. I find that hard to fathom!

Check an empty project? low cpu use? Now add multiple Slate plugs. High cpu use? Contact Slate support!

@Mart - You are right about this. Also using Slate plugins and my CPU is at 8%-9% CPU. The plugins are mainly on the Busses and Sub Mix channel. Not a lot of instances IMO so quite high.

Did you manage to find out what was causing the high CPU from Slate support?

Hi Benjamin

Just now have narrowed it down to definitely Slate plugins causing it and have submitted the ticket. It might get more notice if you go and submit a ticket also. I think its Slate plugins excessively checking their licence on the iLok perhaps

also if you could also try starting Cubase without VCC on any channel. look at your PACE service. Then start a VCC instance and watch it again and report back just to check how that goes for you

Ok so I tried Cubase with no VCC instance and the usage is 0%, but as soon as I add a Slate Virtual Mix Rack with nothing playing or any tracks enabled the Pace Service hits 10%-12% by doing nothing. This does not seem normal. Seems like just checking with the iLok it uses CPU, without any processing taking place.

They are apparently testing an update for VMR2 to “fix some issues people are having”…Maybe this is one of them.

One guy on GS is reporting 15- 30% cpu with a single VMR :open_mouth:

15%-30% :open_mouth: :open_mouth: :open_mouth: :open_mouth: :open_mouth:

Well lets hope the fix will address this.

I’ve quoted a post of Slates and asked for confirmation this is being addressed.

That percentage of CPU activity corresponds to my experience here.
I submitted a ticket to Slate a few days back but nothing back so far.

I’m actually on VMR 1.x (latest version of version 1)
But I had the same experience with version 2 which is why I went back to 1

Also for the record, Version 2 does not recall groups properly on VCC because of ‘dreamstrip’ limitations, which is why I went back to V1 also. Its a known issue but a big one when your recalling mixes!

Slate support gave me a fix which was to remove the unlicensed VMS modules from the VMR installation.
If you have either of these installed “VMS Tube collection” or “Instrument collection” remove them.

1 Like

Good to know.

This seemed to resolved itself by performing an total uninstall of Slate VMR and moving through several folders after that clearing out any files left over. Then reinstalling slate VMR. I had already tried an uninstall and reinstall but there may have been certain slate files left over from previous installations causing the issue.

Great to know. I had quite a few Slate modules that I didn’t buy, so apparently PACE keeps running them, making its service consume up to 8% CPU.

Once I removed the modules I didn’t have a license for, PACE is almost close to 0% usage. Perfect!

ook at your PACE service. Then start a VCC instance and watch it again and report back just to check how that goes for you
https://www.dayforenews.com/

This is simply amazing. I’m really enjoying the new Slate Mic, but DAMN. Cubase took forever to start up and even longer to shut down. I noticed the LDSvc.exe process was having a field day. I really wish they just didn’t install those additional modules that I could care less about. I have plenty of plugins. No need to annoy me.

Another hot tip is to add all your project folders (and maybe even the entire system drives) as Windows Defender/Antivirus excluded folders. That was another thing SERIOUSLY slowing down quite a few operations… mainly with Kontakt libraries.

What a friggin difference. I just went from super pissed to delighted in the last 30 minutes. Attached is a screenshot of the Slate folder after deleting all the stuff that wasn’t included with the VMC ML-1.

I mean… what’s the purpose of a dongle when:
A) You have to own the hardware for the VMS stuff to really work right
B) SInce when did PACE or dongles ever really stop software cracks? NEVER.

  • for good measure -
    C) Microsoft sucks with its over-bearing “we shall protect you… we know better than you” antivirus mess…

Cheers!

Looks like Slate has never fixed this properly. I have noticed my PACE License server running several percent and was often the second highest CPU usage program after Cubase. So I uninstalled everything Slate and now I have to scroll down to the bottom of the Task Manager to find the PACE server when sorted by CPU usage.
Done with Slate. I was only using the free stuff, but I liked Revival. Too bad.

Make sure you remove modules you do not have licenses for. I think it may be to do with the Slate software doing checks ‘am I licensed’ and taking cycles with your iLok service that is probably a slow USB key attached to the port. The only Slate plugin I consider worth having in the system to be honest is Virtual Console.

1 Like

Hi guys, had the issues with Pace License Service permanently eating 13-15% of CPU and slow loading times of Slate plug-ins, very slow opening and closing times of DAW projects, random freezing in DAW etc. Tried making exclusions in antivirus (Bitdefender) and removing modules in VMR, activating/deactivating iLok licenses, synchronized my iLok dongle… nothing helped.

Then I read about other possible solution: you need to go to Task Manager, Services tab and find PaceLicenseDService, press right mouse button and select Restart. AND IT’S WORKED!!! Everything is blazingly fast again and no weird issues above! Tried to restart the machine, everything is still working like it should, no problem. Pace License Service is 0-0.5% of CPU all the time now. Had these issues for several months and it’s so good, when everything is fast again!

Let me know if it works for you.

I’ve also just created a bat-file to automatize it, if it strikes back, so here it is:

:stop
sc stop PaceLicenseDServices

rem cause a ~10 second sleep before checking the service state
ping 127.0.0.1 -n 10 -w 1000 > nul

sc query PaceLicenseDServices | find /I "STATE" | find "STOPPED"
if errorlevel 1 goto :stop
goto :start

:start
net start | find /i "My Service">nul && goto :start
sc start PaceLicenseDServices
1 Like