Hi John,

Strange - it appears to be working OK here!

In a spirit of experiment and curiosity I uninstalled it (fully, with Revo Uninstaller). It's no longer in my list of programs. Yet I've just run MEPP 2016 and loaded a project from the Recent list, edited it trivially, saved it, closed MEP restarted and all looks well.

Hang on, I'll try MEPP 2017... Yep, that looks OK too.

Can you suggest a more rigorous test?

Oh, and how would I most easily re-install it please?

Hi,

Interesting about the use of Firebird SQL Server. Do you know if it is also the one used with Photo Manager and Magix MP3 Deluxe (19 came free with something recently)? I noticed that when I load MP3 Deluxe that the Firebird SQL server is loaded. I used to use Photo Manager and organized photos using the database, by virtual folder, like the names of people. Then in MEP, under the Import tab, Magix tools or something like that, Database was one of the selections. Opening it would open the Photo Manager and MP3 database, and I could select my virtual folders. I don't see Database as a selection anymore, neither in MEP nor Music Maker.

I just started MP3 adding all of the Soundpools (thousands) and songs that I put under Soundpools to the database. MP3 is running up to 70% of the CPU and Firebird around 8-10%, and will take about 2 hours.

I am interested in knowing if the database of the new PhotoManager version (see below) will work with MEP/VPX. Do you know?

OT - while you are both here, John EB has seen this, but I don't know if you did, Terry. See the Humble Bundle page. You can get 2 of the Xara programs, plus Magix Photo Manager, plus a bunch of other stuff, including Vegas Pro 14 for a grand total of 20$. I am about to take this up. I highly recommend Xara P&GD as it works perfectly with MEP and VPX. And if you want to create some web sites, wysiwyg style, Web Designer Pro is excellent for this. I have created some quick web sites, included videos, and sent the link to friends and relatives rather than sending a YT or Vimeo link.

The other part of this offering, is that the stuff that you don't want or need, you can give away. Magix PhotoStory may make a good gift, Vegas, not so much.

John CB

Hi Terry

. . . . Yep, that looks OK too. . . . .

AFAICS it looks like from MEP 2015 onwards the SQL server is not used, earlier versions of MEP complained - I cannot check the earlier versions at the moment as the latest Windows update (1709) which finally decided to download and install last week, has messed them up.

Correction: after further testing, it was me messing with the Firebird SQL server that caused the issues with older versions of MEP.

Normally, as I stated above MEP, complains that it cannot start the Firebird SQL Server when it is disabled, this time when testing I was getting error codes -6 and -59, which from previous experience were the error codes I got after Windows 10 upgraded to version 1703 and resulted in having to repair the installations.

MEP 17 never did work after the 1703 upgrade, nor would it repair, yet it is now working again after the 1709 upgrade - curious!!!

. . . .Can you suggest a more rigorous test? . . .

Disable the Service in Service tab of Task Manager used to result in MEP complaining about not being able to start the server.

. . . . Oh, and how would I most easily re-install it please? . . . .

You have to re-install MEP again, AFAIK there is no separate installer.

HTH

John EB

I found it here
https://support2.magix.com/customer/en/ie/show_faq
and downloaded firebirdsetup_2.1.32.0.exe in case it ever proves necessary to install it again.

Hi

Thanks Terry link noted and saved. 👍

John EB

Interesting. I have always uninstalled the Firebird SQL server (or prevented it installing via my firewall program) and MEP has always worked fine for me. Until today, I thought that the server had something to do with uploading data to the Magix cloud and/or to Magix's asset site. Given known vulnerabilities in (unpatched) SQL, I didn't want an attack vector. Even tho I apparently misunderstood its function, I never missed the functionality, since I don't do the sharing stuff that some mentioned here,

In any event, as John said above, it didn't try to install itself in my MEP 2016 install. So it's moot now.

Thinking more about it 3 years later, I wonder why Magic would allow it to be uninstallable via the Windows' Programs & Features if it was required for MEP to work?

A moot mystery.

@pmikep

I'm guessing here, but it is needed with Photo Manager which has a database. In years past, MEP/VPX and Music Maker gave access to the database, so it had to run. Magix deprecated the database in these - there is no more access to the database on the Import tab, so the db is no longer required, except for Photo Manager and MP3 Deluxe. The latter seems to have disappeared from the Magix products.

I liked the db because I could categorize photos in Photo Manager and then get the items for a category in the file manager in MEP/VPX and Music Maker. MP3 Deluxe died on me a while back and I never reinstalled it.

John CB