MixWave EHX Big Muff and Deluxe Memory Man
Why they never showed up, and what actually fixes it. Diagnosed 8 August 2026 on Jacks-iMac. Bought, paid, delivered, never activated.
Verdict: everything was bought and delivered. The licenses just need activating.
Both plugins are fully installed, code-signed by MixWave LLC, notarized by Apple, and they pass Apple's own AudioUnit validation. Nothing about the install failed.
Both orders completed. #MW58681 EHX Deluxe Memory Man and #MW58682 EHX Big Muff, $39.00 each, 4 August 2026, Mastercard ending 2819 through Venmo. MixWave's order status page for each one reads "The licenses have been delivered to 7onething1" with fulfillment status Complete.
So the licenses are in the iLok account under username 7onething1, deposited and not activated. A deposited license does nothing until it is activated to a location, and an unactivated plugin hangs rather than reporting a license error, which is what froze Ableton's scan.
The whole remaining fix is: iLok License Manager, Available tab, right-click each license, Activate. The app is already signed in, so it costs no login. No support ticket, no refund claim, nothing owed.
1. The purchase, and where it actually stalled
MixWave's own support documentation states that after checkout a customer receives an order confirmation email, a separate product download and license email, and a deposit of the licenses into their iLok account.
The checkout used brandonxchavez@gmail.com, which is Gmail account u/2 in the same Chrome profile. Both order emails are there, and both order status pages confirm delivery.
| Item | Status | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Payment 1 | CHARGED $39.00 | Venmo receipt, SP MIXWAVE, 4 Aug 2026, 2:23 PM PDT |
| Payment 2 | CHARGED $39.00 | Venmo receipt, SP MIXWAVE, 4 Aug 2026, 2:55 PM PDT |
| Order #MW58681, Deluxe Memory Man | COMPLETE | status page: delivered to 7onething1 |
| Order #MW58682, Big Muff | COMPLETE | status page: delivered to 7onething1 |
| iLok license deposited | YES | both status pages, iLok username 7onething1 |
| iLok license activated | NO | iloktool auths, 0 MixWave of 25 |
MixWave does not deposit a license until the buyer supplies an iLok username on the order status page. The order email spells it out:
Redeem & Activate Your license(s) will be deposited into your iLok account automatically when you provide your iLok username on the order status page.
That step was done, so the licenses reached the account. Deposit is not activation. They have been waiting in the Available bin ever since.
iloktool auths lists only ACTIVATED licenses. A license that was deposited and never activated does not appear there. So a zero result rules out activation, and it does not rule out a license waiting in the Available bin for one right-click.
The two mailboxes hold different halves of the story, which is what made this look like a delivery failure. Searching 7onething1@gmail.com with in:anywhere returns 14 messages in all history and every MixWave one is marketing:
MixWave | The D.W. Fearn Collection, Back at Intro Price | 8 Aug promo MixWave | Your code is expiring! | 6 Aug 15% code RVXGZWWH MixWave | Thanks for subscribing! And, as promised | 4 Aug 15% code RVXGZWWH Venmo | Receipt from SP MIXWAVE - $39.00 | 4 Aug x2 in thread iLok | iLok.com Account Activation | 30 May account signup
The same search in brandonxchavez@gmail.com holds the orders:
MixWave | #MW58682 | Your order is complete | 4 Aug 4:56 PM Big Muff MixWave | #MW58681 | Your order is complete | 4 Aug 4:23 PM Deluxe Memory Man MixWave | Another order?! Thanks so much! | 5 Aug MixWave | 194608 is your code | 6 Aug
Payment, order, download, and license deposit all succeeded. The only step never taken is the last one, activating the deposited licenses in iLok License Manager.
2. What you paid for is on the disk
Every install target was written and every receipt was recorded. This is the part that was never broken.
| Check | Big Muff | Deluxe Memory Man |
|---|---|---|
| AudioUnit component | present | present |
| VST3 | present | present |
| AAX | present | present |
| Presets | present | present |
| Installer receipt | written | written |
| Architecture | x86_64 + arm64 | x86_64 + arm64 |
| Code signature | valid | valid |
| Notarization | accepted | accepted |
| Quarantine flag | none | none |
| AU registers with macOS | yes | yes |
| auval static tests | PASS | PASS |
| Plugin instantiates | HANGS | HANGS |
| iLok license active | NO | NO |
Gatekeeper agrees the files are legitimate:
/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/VST3/MixWave EHX Big Muff.vst3: accepted source=Notarized Developer ID origin=Developer ID Application: MixWave LLC (V2J4XC4KHG)
3. The actual failure: a frozen socket read
Running Apple's validator on each plugin shows the shape of the problem. Both clear every static test, then freeze the moment the plugin is actually opened.
VALIDATING AUDIO UNIT: 'aufx' - 'MEBM' - 'MxWv' AudioUnit Name: MixWave EHX Big Muff Component Version: 1.0.1 (0x10001) * * PASS -------------------------------------------------- TESTING OPEN TIMES: COLD: ← never returns
Sampling the frozen process shows exactly what is blocking. Every single sample, on both plugins, is inside PACE's protection wrapper, waiting on a socket receive.
2589 Thread_1628277 DispatchQueue_1: com.apple.main-thread
2589 handleWrapEvent (in PaceProtectionWrapper) + 715
2589 handleWrapEvent (in PaceProtectionWrapper) + 118899
2589 handleWrapEvent (in PaceProtectionWrapper) + 5176343
2589 __recvfrom (in libsystem_kernel.dylib) + 10 ← blocked here
2589 of 2589 samples on Big Muff. 2607 of 2607 on Memory Man. This is not intermittent, and it is not a timing coincidence.
Each frozen instantiation also spawned a PACE "Software Activation" helper, the prompt that asks you to authorize the product. It runs as a background UI element, so a plugin-scanner process can never answer it. The plugin waits on that answer indefinitely.
executable path="/Library/Frameworks/PACEEdenExperience.framework/Versions/Current/Software Activation" pid = 25696 type="UIElement" Version="6.0.0.6838" checkin time = 195 seconds ago ← spawned by the plugin load
4. The license check
Your iLok cloud session is open under 7onething1@gmail.com, and 25 authorizations are active on this machine. None of them is a MixWave product.
Active licenses found
Universal Audio: 175B & 176 Tube Compressors, Warm 4, Dream 65 Reverb Amp, PolyMAX, SSL G Bus Compressor, SSL E Channel Strip, Teletronix LA-2A, Teletronix LA-3A, Waterfall B3 Organ, Lexicon 224, Pultec Passive EQ, Fairchild Tube Limiter. Antares: AutoTune and the Vocal series.
MixWave, EHX, Big Muff, Memory Man
Zero matches, and that is the trap. It reads like the licenses were never bought. Section 1 proves both were bought, paid, and deposited.
MixWave licenses go through PACE iLok. The license is deposited into your iLok account at purchase, and it then has to be activated to a location: this machine, iLok Cloud, or a USB iLok. iloktool auths reports activated licenses only, so it cannot see a deposited one, and its zero result carries no information about ownership. The Available tab in the GUI is the one place that shows a deposit.
Your iLok cloud session is open and your password is stored in the keychain, which iloktool confirms. iLok License Manager will not ask you to sign in again. The obstacle was never a login.
5. What happened on 6 August
The order of operations caused this. The plugins were installed before iLok License Support existed on the machine.
Ableton's own scanner log records the giving-up moment:
18:52:11 info: VST3: check plugin at path: "/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/VST3/MixWave EHX Big Muff.vst3"
19:00:17 error: Failed to load plugin: calling 'bundleEntry' failed
19:00:17 info: VST3: not a plugin
19:00:17 info: VST3: check plugin at path: "/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/VST3/MixWave EHX Deluxe Memory Man.vst3"
(scanner log ends here, the process died mid-check)
6. Why Ableton still hides them
Live wrote that failure into its plugin database and has trusted it ever since. Its 6 August verdict is still cached, so later scans skip both plugins without retrying.
| Module | scanstate | Rows in plugins table | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| 107 healthy modules | 1 | 1,740 | scanned, usable |
| MixWave EHX Big Muff | 3 | 0 | failed, cached |
| MixWave EHX Deluxe Memory Man | 2 | 0 | failed, cached |
Clearing those two rows makes Live rediscover the plugins from scratch on the next scan.
Activate first, then rescan. Every scan of a still-unactivated MixWave plugin re-triggers the 8-minute freeze and re-caches the same failure. That is also why Live has been slow to start.
7. The fix, in order
Three steps, and the first one is the only part that needs a human.
- iLok License Manager, Available tab, activate both. The app is already signed in, so it prompts for nothing. Right-click MixWave EHX Big Muff, choose Activate, pick this computer or iLok Cloud. Repeat for MixWave EHX Deluxe Memory Man. Each license carries two activations, so a second machine stays possible.
- Quit Ableton Live completely, then run the repair script. Live cached a failed scan on 6 August and skips both plugins until that cache is cleared. The script backs the database up first, refuses to run if Live is open, and refuses to run if the licenses still are not active.
~/Projects/_outputs/mixwave-ehx-fix/repair_live_plugin_cache.sh
- Open Live, go to Preferences > Plug-Ins, hold Option and click Rescan. Both plugins appear under Plug-Ins > MixWave.
Confirm the activation took:
iloktool auths | grep -i -e mixwave -e muff -e memory
Two lines means it worked. An empty result means the Activate step has not gone through, since iloktool reports activated licenses only.
No support ticket is needed. Both orders read Complete and both licenses are deposited. Nothing is owed and nothing needs disputing.
8. Commands used
Every claim on this page came from one of these.
pkgutil --pkgs | grep -i mixwave # install receipts grep -i mixwave /var/log/install.log # installer history lipo -archs <binary> # architectures codesign -dv / spctl -a -vvv -t install # signature, notarization xattr -l <bundle> # quarantine flag auval -v aufx MEBM MxWv # Big Muff validation auval -v aufx MEMM MxWv # Memory Man validation sample <pid> 3 -mayDie # the frozen stack iloktool auths / cloud --status -v # license state lsappinfo list # the activation helper sqlite3 Live-files-53.db # Live's plugin cache ~/Library/Preferences/Ableton/Live 11.3.43/PluginScanner.txt # purchase and delivery evidence, read from the signed-in Chrome session: Gmail: in:anywhere mixwave OR ilok OR paceap # 14 results, all history Gmail: from:mixwave.com OR from:ilok.com # 5 results, zero orders