The latest version of Waves Central - Waves' installer and licensing app - version 1.3.6.3 released March 21st 2018, is suffering an issue which will not allow users to install plug-ins, either using the online installer or creating an offline installer.

This issue is caused by Waves Central's insistence on automatically updating if there's a new version available. If you're doing a fresh installation, like I was yesterday, it lands you in the unfortunate situation of not being able to even install your Waves plug-ins from scratch.

Unfortunately the steps outlined in the troubleshooting guide that the error message gives a link to, are from two years ago and don't work for this issue.

The Workaround

If you contact Waves' technical support, they're directing you to their full offline installer, which they've stopped publicly linking to since handing over main installation duties to Waves Central a while back. It's a 4GB download, but if you're faced with not being able to even install your Waves plug-ins, it's a far better choice than waiting for Waves to fix the problem with Waves Central.

You can download the full offline installer for Windows here and the Mac version is here. This will allow you to install any Waves plug-ins you need offline, without an internet connection.

Auto-Update - A Blessing Or Curse?

This situation has arisen due to the increasing occurrence of software automatically updating, without giving you a choice in the matter. It can leave your software installations out of sync with the rest of your system and doesn't seem to take into account that not all latest versions of software are necessarily the best. I've been caught out before with this with all kinds of software ranging from Adobe to Operating Systems. The only solution I can think of to prevent this happening is to deny internet access to software that does this until you're sure that the new version works. The downside to this though is that you might find yourself missing out on important bug fixes or find that new software won't install or authorise. It's a choice where you have to weigh up the pros and cons for yourself. Of course this workflow doesn't help with the fresh install scenario, where you don't already have a working version to roll back to.