Almost year, workin with no problems , and then after i installed new vsts, something wrong happened and when i opened FL next day it says Gem dopamine need license. It was working all the time with no problems.
So i cleaned up, uninstalled, deleted files from appdata/programdata and installed, cracked with keygen and nothing..I tried 4 times and nothing. Also something happened to my host file, and everything was gone, so i needed to patch again hosts. (all hosts i had there gone..but thats another story) . What can i do ?

 

I am not a big believer in Coincidence. Your hosts file being modified is a pretty specific suspect behavior, and would only be tampered with by a developer who knows people use hosts files to block outbound traffic to selected/added domains. I cannot even remember any kind of malware/trojan/spyware which would do this; as their Command and Control domains are not something anyone would even know to manually block in advance.

Something you have installed on your system either Timebombed; or was not correctly blocked in and allowed some sort of outbound traffic to bypass your firewall. You'd like to guess it was simply the Gem plugin you have found problems with, but that is not necessarily the case if you were relying on your hosts file to block that domain. Once the hosts file is modified/deleted, anything you had being blocked only by domain with no additional firewall rule as a backup control would be able to "Escape to the cloud" too. Deal with the Gem first because it is obvious, but don't be too surprised if it's not your actual culprit.

 

Thank you for reply. Also I forgot to say, I updated my Cloudflare vpn and then it happened..also when i turned it off it changed my WIFI icon like I'm connected to Ethernet. Its weird and then I needed to change my DNS to normal..

 

It could definitely be the opposite sequence of events, also. Whatever updating you did which changed any network settings could be what precipitated a plugin getting out. Sometimes they can go out and retrieve a blacklist, but they can also create scrap objects with seemingly random filenames on the local hd. Then when the program runs a check and finds that file it can continue following instructions, based on whatever sort of conditions being met.

You might be able to find some clues to what happened in any nfo files of any plugins you had installed; or maybe you get lucky and someone has had the same thing happen with a program/plugin you have in common. Or you could catch something sending out packets or trying to get files to download on the sly. Since you are having trouble reinstalling that Gem plugin again; I would still strongly suspect it caused your problem, and It's why you cannot install that specific one again. It's just not the only possibility. I would probably start by searching with the plugin name or developer name as a part of your search string to find any available information.

 

Buy it
Or use u-he's Satin, which does the same thing.

 

Satin? Wow, thanks i gotta try it!

Thank you! I will try to find something!

 

Be sure to check this tutorial. Satin is a very powerful plugin that does quite a bit more than Dopamine, this tutorial dives deep into the compander/Dolby trick (which is what Dopamine does).

 

My money's on this too as the cause. Besides, R2R's Overloud releases lately have very specific hosts file instructions.

That seems interesting, but what I love about Overloud plugs is the very low CPU usage. Although in this case Satin does more.

 

Yeah, Satin is awesome but a bit heavier on the CPU -although not that much, IMO.
But when it comes to top-notch plugins with almost non-existent CPU usage Overloud are king (eg. TH-U).

Another alternative is AudioThing's Type A. Haven't used it in a while so can't say about CPU use; if memory serves me right it had more options but I liked Dopamine better precisely because it was quicker to use.

They also have one called Type B for the other Dolby trick.

 

Last edited: Aug 12, 2023

SOLVED! if anyone will have the same problem, i solved it by searching "dopamine" and "overloud" in whole PC and deleted all files, (there also were files that I never seen before in appdata and also FLSTUDIO Fruity Wrapper presets. I deleted all of them, and edited hosts again added 0.0.0.0 before and it worked! thank you guys

 

it's good you fixed it, but i'd use it as a rude suggestion to reevaluate my choice of firewall. By using edited hosts file, you are blocking whatever domains you add to the list. A firewall with a correct rule and settings blocks inbound/outbound traffic by process, no matter what domain it goes to or comes from. i would look into a 3rd party software firewall option like Glasswire, which someone just mentioned on here and it is free. There are probably 100 of them for windows, check your options out.

 

Are you sure? Did you have a look here https://audiosex.pro/threads/all-my-overloud-plugins-have-become-trial-versions.67622/?

 

My outdated WiN7 firewall was absolutely sufficient, so far (does not apply to timebombs, ofc).

 

I would use both but I agree with the priority. R2R's releases don't disable the "calling home" so the moment for some reason your hosts is changed you're fucked.
I think @r4e or some other wizard did a patch for that but don't remember.

Probably in that thread

 

yes, he made a patcher, like an external utility program. I can't say I actually remember seeing that approach before; it's pretty cool.

I use hosts if I know that ET can phone home, but it's also very easy for a programmer to get around that. The real downside to using hosts is you are also blocking yourself from accessing that developer's regular website, too. But if your application firewall lets out/through traffic like this, i would look into other easier to custom configure, or just more paranoid options.