Ableton not showing vst's

Discuss music production with Ableton Live.
ellicottvilleny
Posts: 14
Joined: Sat Jan 16, 2021 5:23 am

Re: Ableton not showing vst's

Post by ellicottvilleny » Fri Jan 22, 2021 2:27 am

If anyone from Ableton reads this, y ou know, it would be very friendly if you actually popped up a warning and when someone points a VST2 or VST3 folder at something that doesn't contain 64 bit VST2 or VST3 things, but rather something else, and the product said "You just pointed me at a bunch of 32 bit DLLs, that's not going to work", or "you just pointed the VST2 folder at a bunch of VST3s", that would be really user friendly.

Just saying.

codified
Posts: 1
Joined: Sun Dec 27, 2020 4:52 pm

Re: Ableton not showing vst's

Post by codified » Sun Jan 24, 2021 7:04 pm

Sigh. I, like others here, spent a ridiculous amount of time on this. It wasn't apparent from the manual or google (at least with the search terms I was using). I was coming to a new computer and ended up (re)installing Ableton 3 times, deleting preference files twice, re-installing plugins with admin privileges (yikes?) and generally bemoaning the loss of a day. Hopefully this bump in thread keeps it prominent for other folks having this issue.

Thanks very much for the explanation.

jestermgee
Posts: 4500
Joined: Mon Apr 26, 2010 6:38 am

Re: Ableton not showing vst's

Post by jestermgee » Sun Jan 24, 2021 11:48 pm

ellicottvilleny wrote:
Fri Jan 22, 2021 2:27 am
If anyone from Ableton reads this, y ou know, it would be very friendly if you actually popped up a warning and when someone points a VST2 or VST3 folder at something that doesn't contain 64 bit VST2 or VST3 things, but rather something else, and the product said "You just pointed me at a bunch of 32 bit DLLs, that's not going to work", or "you just pointed the VST2 folder at a bunch of VST3s", that would be really user friendly.

Just saying.
But knowing users as I do, some special case will decide to install all their 32/64 to a single directory and have all their applications just scan that and this would then cause another issue where you then need another workaround. You can build all the protections in the world to safeguard a maniac from themselves but eventually a bigger maniac will come along and you then have to lower the bar again. Better instead to educate users on how to run a tidy ship IMO and keep track of your stuff. Prob a good reason that Live provides only a single VST location to add in... it is how it should be really.

jestermgee
Posts: 4500
Joined: Mon Apr 26, 2010 6:38 am

Re: Ableton not showing vst's

Post by jestermgee » Sun Jan 24, 2021 11:56 pm

codified wrote:
Sun Jan 24, 2021 7:04 pm
Sigh. I, like others here, spent a ridiculous amount of time on this. It wasn't apparent from the manual or google (at least with the search terms I was using). I was coming to a new computer and ended up (re)installing Ableton 3 times, deleting preference files twice, re-installing plugins with admin privileges (yikes?) and generally bemoaning the loss of a day. Hopefully this bump in thread keeps it prominent for other folks having this issue.

Thanks very much for the explanation.
I guess it is a sign of the times. When I was young and learning computers and stuff, one thing I would never have done is reinstall an application 3 times expecting a different result. 1 time, didn't fix, look at something else. Things like plugin formats, 32/64bit difference/compatibility is all assumed knowledge one should have before getting into a production environment. Same way as playing in a band, one pre-requsite you probably need is to know how to play an instrument. If you have invested in Ableton software and plugins then one would think/hope you have learned the differences between VST2 and VST3 and these settings within software.

Anyway, you may have "lost a day" but hopefully this has helped build on your understanding now and also maybe hopefully given you some extra troubleshooting skill that will make your next issue a little quicker to solve. What you see as a loss of a day is actually some much needed self learning on the technical side of things... that will happen a lot as you go.

Bob Arctor
Posts: 1
Joined: Thu Jul 29, 2021 12:51 pm

Re: Ableton not showing vst's

Post by Bob Arctor » Thu Jul 29, 2021 1:09 pm

jestermgee wrote:
Mon Jul 22, 2019 12:28 am
Your VST2 folder is pointing to the wrong location. It should not be pointing to your 32bit path. VST3 is different than VST2 64bit. Change the VST2 path to your pictured 64bit path and try a rescan
Hey 2021 here, and another user saved by this blessed post and reply. To make it clear for Ableton to understand why we probably all did struggle with this : We just confuse 32 bits vst plugins with vst2 plugins. So we're installing our x64 vst2 plugins in our custom x64 folder, and we think pointing live to this folder for vst3 plugin will work. For vst2 plugins folder configuration in live, as we confuse it with x32 plugins, we point it to our x32 folder, or we just don't set it up. So nothing appears for us, and its normal. This is easy to be confused about, since the .dll files of our vst2 plugin are often only named with x32 or x64, but not with vst2, so we don't get its not a vst3. I understand now that vst3 plugin have their own .vst3 extension, and its clearly written in the basic vst plugins live help page, but even with that written I just assumed my .dll plugin was a VST3 with an old odd file type or something like that, because i'm new to theses things.

So In official Live troubleshooting page for undetected pluggins, we should see a point explaining this : that you might confuse x32 and vst2, and that .dll files CAN't be vst3 plugins, so that setting up both vst2 and vst3 custom folders to the same x64 custom folder will probably resolve everything for begginers.

slow.robot
Posts: 188
Joined: Thu Feb 18, 2021 2:06 am

Re: Ableton not showing vst's

Post by slow.robot » Sun Nov 06, 2022 2:43 am

was really hoping this would solve it for me, but no dice...

brand new Mac--first time installing Live on a non-PC, and I cannot for the life of me figure out why the .vst3 file in the standard system folder for VST3 isn't showing for either of my Neural DSP plugins.

I've tried...
- uninstalling+reinstalling the plugins
- using the option+rescan feature liberally through most/all of these steps
- using the stock folder setting only
- the custom folder only (pointing to the stock folder)
- both together (screenshot below)
- moving the .vst3 plugin file into an actual custom folder and pointing Ableton there
- disabling the VST2 folder and not installing those files in the Neural DSP installer (to make sure I wasn't triggering the same problem others here have had)

none of which have helped in the least. the only thing I've gotten to work is to load the AU versions of the plugs. that would be totally fine if I hadn't just spent the better part of two weeks tweaking tones and setting up custom macros, MIDI and a bunch of other automation so that I could start using Live, well...live. of course the set won't load without the VST3s I set everything up with.

of course the other VST3s I've installed so far (a bunch of XLN Audio stuff) are working just fine.

what the hell am I missing? 😰

Image

slow.robot
Posts: 188
Joined: Thu Feb 18, 2021 2:06 am

Re: Ableton not showing vst's

Post by slow.robot » Sun Nov 06, 2022 11:48 am

well I figured it out at least...guess Neural DSP doesn't have full native M1 support yet. found a video explaining how to get Ableton to open in Rosetta mode, and that did the trick. a little disappointing, but not as disappointing as having to rebuild and map everything manually with the AU version. 😅

Junior1983
Posts: 1
Joined: Fri May 19, 2023 6:33 am

Re: Ableton not showing vst's

Post by Junior1983 » Fri May 19, 2023 7:08 am

andrewf wrote:
Sun Jul 21, 2019 5:26 pm
I am using ableton live lite which on the website shows it supports vst plugins. I have set up custom folders and pointed ableton to them and re scanned multiple times, i have re installed plugins multiple times to different locations to try to fix the problem nothing worked. The only plugins that show up are plugins that have a .vst3 extension any .dll plugins whether it is 32 or 64 bit will not show up in ableton no matter what i try, i have tried the articles on the help website and tried all the steps i have wiped my entire system and did a clean install and tried the steps above to see if it was an external process that was interfering but i still have the same problem no .dll plugin will load no matter where i put it no matter where i install no matter what i do it does not show up in ableton, i have no idea what to do. The website only provides support for intro, standard and suite so i am out of luck.

If any one has any idea on how to solve this i would be grateful.
Can You post an update on routing the VST2 plugins in ableton live? What version of Windows do you have? and if you upgraded to a new version of ableton live did it cause your vst plugins to go missing again?

incogito
Posts: 1
Joined: Fri Nov 10, 2023 5:47 pm

Re: Ableton not showing vst's

Post by incogito » Fri Nov 10, 2023 5:50 pm

I am having the same problem, but the above solution did not work!

Last night, I had a few .dll files installed in my custom VST folder. They were working perfectly. I had both the 32 bit and 64 bit files in the same folder, and there was no issue.

This morning, I added a few more VSTs - BlueCat EQ and frequency analyzer. One of them came with additional data folders - containing skins, etc. I added them to the same VST folder and they worked. Then, I quit and re-opened live. None of my VSTs have been showing since :evil:

I tried moving allt he files to new folders, splitting out the BC VSTs and leaving just the ones that worked before, splitting the 32 bit and 64 bit filesi nto spearate folders, deleting my live database. Nothing has worked. Please help!!

-----------

update - i put them all back in one folder and now it works

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