Problem
In order for the Capsule Plugin and Portal to communicate, Portal is setting up a local server process which all Capsule Plugin instances connect to.
For this, the server uses the dedicated network port number 1337.
Due to technical limitations, there can only ever be one server process using a given port number.
On most machines this works without any issues.
However, we have received reports from some users (mostly on Windows), about conflicts with other software services on their machines that are also using port 1337 (e.g. some graphics card utility programs of a certain vendor have been found to use that port).
If such a 3rd party program is running when Portal is launched, it will fail with the following error message:
Work is in progress to avoid this issue entirely, but until this has been released, there are currently two possible solutions if you encounter this error:
- Quit the 3rd party program that is using port 1337 and re-launch Portal
Use your OS's task manager to identify and terminate that program.
Providing a detailed description of how to do this is outside the scope of this document, so this option is really only applicable to power users who already know how to do this. - Change the port number Portal is using to something else than 1337
Please see below for how to do this.
Solution
Please follow the steps below exactly as described to change the default port number that Capsule Portal and Plugins use to communicate:
1. Prerequisite
- Make sure to quit any DAW application where the Capsule Plugin might be loaded.
- Make sure that Capsule Portal is indeed not running!
This is very important to avoid overwriting the changes you are going to make in Step 3
2. Find and open the Portal settings file
The portal settings file is a standard XML file, that provides some basic configuration values that Portal uses on startup.
It can be edited with any standard plaintext editor.
Follow the detailed steps below to open the file in your OS's default text editor application.
macOS
- Open up a Finder Window
- Press CMD + Shift + G or select Go / Go to Folder … from the top menu bar
- Enter ~/Library/Application Support/Soundslates and press Enter
- Find a file named Capsule Portal.settings
- Right click on that file, select Open With
- if TextEdit already appears as a choice, select TextEdit
- Otherwise, select Other… and manually choose TextEdit from your Applications directory
Windows
- Press Windows + R or right click Start and select Run
- Enter %APPDATA%\Soundslates and press Return or click OK
- Find a file named Capsule Portal.settings
- Right click on that file and select Open with…
- If Notepad already appears in that list, select it
- Otherwise, click on More Apps, find Notepad in the list and select it
3. Edit the Portal settings file
The actual contents of this file will be different for every user.
The following is an example of what it could generally look like:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <PROPERTIES> <VALUE name="SoundLibRootPath" val="/Users/user/Capsule"/> <VALUE name="LastChosenMainType" val="None"/> </PROPERTIES>
Please note:
Whether you see more or less VALUE lines, depends on how far Portal got when launching.
Don't be alarmed if your file looks very different, the important point is adding the line, as explained below.
To tell Portal to use a different port number please add the following line right above the last line:
<VALUE name="IpcPort" val="1338"/>
So given the example file above, after modification, it should look like this:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <PROPERTIES> <VALUE name="SoundLibRootPath" val="/Users/user/Capsule"/> <VALUE name="LastChosenMainType" val="None"/> <VALUE name="IpcPort" val="1338"/> </PROPERTIES>
Please note:
Again, your file might look very different. The important point is, that the line be added as shown here.
Make sure not to change any other lines, since that could negatively affect Portal's performance and stability!
4. Make sure you save the changes you've made
5. Launch Portal
Now try to launch Portal and see whether it's starting up.
If it starts up normally now, you are done and you can close all Windows and Documents opened in the step above.
If you are still getting the same error, please repeat all the steps, increasing the port number by one with every attempt (e.g. 1339, 1340, 1341, etc.) until Portal launches normally.
