As of this release on rutracker: FabFilter - Total Bundle v2024.02.15 SAL, VST, VST3, AAX, CLAP x86 x64 {R2R} [15.02.2024], the timebomb mentioned by afteright still exists (only on EqualizerAPO, works perfectly fine in FL Studio). I don't understand why everyone's disagreeing with him as this issue exists and has haunted me since March (Windows 11 Home). I couldn't access the "Anonymous Cracker" release he mentions though, so I provide another solution in the attached text file.

As of this writing, there is one later release which wasn't available at the time of testing: FabFilter - Total Bundle v2024.05.30 VST, VST3, AAX, CLAP x86 x64 {R2R} [24.06.2024] which I haven't tested. If somebody can test this on EQAPO, that would be very nice, or I might do it myself some time and update here then.

Testing for the timebomb is simple: Simply use any FabFilter plugin from this release as a VST plugin in EQAPO for your speakers/headphones, and keep EQAPO running for a month. You could add a no-op setting and that should still work. If after a month, you run into the issue of your speakers not running until you launch the EQAPO Editor interface and save manually (CTRL + S), then you have run into the timebomb. A more reliable way to check is to turn the FabFilter filter on and off, and see if the audio mutes whenever it's turned ON, until you press CTRL + S which, for whatever reason, gets it working for some time. Per my tests, it takes roughly 20 seconds of no audio output for the audio to get muted again, needing you to press CTRL + S again and again. Especially annoying if you have the FF filters on mics, because you need to keep going back and forth for meetings.

HOW DO WE FIX THIS?
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During my attempts to fix this, I came across this post: https://sourceforge.net/p/equalizerapo/discussion/general/thread/3acd12f8d2/

This presented a registry hack to reset the activation period for the plugins used only in EQAPO. It involves backing up the registry first, then identifying and deleting registry keys associated with only those FF plugins used in EQAPO from all the registry paths they occur in. In my experience, deleting them from the HKCU path will delete the rest of the keys from all other paths. It is always good to check again manually though, as some of the HKU paths may sometimes remain unaffected - don't know why.

This process needs to be repeated every month, but the variables are only in the first time you do this on a computer which will take some time (took me about an hour but I could get it done in 30 minutes now that I know the process), and for all consecutive repeats on the same computer with the same plugins, you should be able to do it in 5 minutes tops since the regenerated keys after the initial deletion from the registry are the exact same, so as long as you record what those keys were, you can quickly search for and delete them again to redo the process. You could also use scripting to set a scheduled job that runs every month or so after the initial run and forget about it.

In the attached text file, I have simply covered the post in much more detail, with exact steps along the way that I followed to get it working. Hopefully, that will help anyone still struggling with the issue, at least until R2R provides a release which works with the old but gold EQAPO.

Again, the timebomb is ONLY in EQAPO, and not in FL Studio (which is the only other place I use it).