[Solved] Waves 13 Plugins, Live 11, Win10 "Not Compatible" ?

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

[Solved] Waves 13 Plugins, Live 11, Win10 "Not Compatible" ?

Post by jestermgee » Tue Nov 02, 2021 8:58 pm

Had to update to Waves to v13 because of mac issues (of course) and have just discovered now on my Windows machine that when I open Live I get the message that Waves plugins are not compatible. All plugins are listed in the plugin menu but cannot add any and all projects that use them cannot load them either.

Live Version 11.0.11 (latest available release)
Using VST2 plugin version

Have not tried the Beta but see no mention in the changelog about this.

Anyone else see this issue or have any idea before I open a ticket?

I do see the recommendation is to use VST3 here:
https://help.ableton.com/hc/en-us/artic ... patibility

But I have many projects using VST2 version and cannot honestly just remember the settings of every plugin to go and update them.

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

Re: [Solved] Waves 13 Plugins, Live 11, Win10 "Not Compatible" ?

Post by jestermgee » Wed Nov 03, 2021 12:09 am

So thankfully even tho both an Ableton tech note and even Waves own compatibility FAQ page both state VST3 is required for use with L11 I managed to get VST2 working again.

If possible tho it would seem updating and switching to VST3 will be the best option but what I needed to do was completely uninstall Waves plugins in the (horrible) Waves Central manager > Settings and under "Uninstall" select ALL versions of the plugin especially if you have updated over the years.

Then just simply reinstall and launch Live again. This seems to kick things back into gear again as I had already attempted a rescan of the plugins (holding ALT to force scan) and even removed the wave shell plugins, launched Live then placed them back again to refresh the scan. Nothing other than a complete remove/reinstall worked.

Phew, still frustrated with how flakey Waves always seems to be.

blyons
Posts: 2
Joined: Mon Sep 03, 2018 5:13 pm

Re: [Solved] Waves 13 Plugins, Live 11, Win10 "Not Compatible" ?

Post by blyons » Mon Nov 22, 2021 7:22 pm

The fix above worked for me also with some tweaks on the instructions.

1. Quit Live.
2. Launch the Waves Installer
3. Log in to the Waves Installer if necessary.
4. Click on the Settings Gear.
5. Click on the Uninstall Select Drop Down.
6. Check every version of the Waves plugins for deinstallation. On my version of Waves Central, I was able to check V10, V11, V12, and V13 plugins for deinstallation along with the Applications and Sound Grid I/O Drivers.
7. I'm not sure about the next steps, but I did them to ensure that Waves was completely uninstalled off of my system.
8. I clicked Cleanup on the Complete Waves Cleanup line.
9. I clicked on Fix permissions and ownership.
10. I clicked Clear on the Clear Central Cache.
11. Then, I reinstalled all Waves plugins.
12. I verified that all of the Waves plugins that I had purchased had corresponding .dll's in the C:\Program Files\VstPlugins directory.
13. Then, I launched Ableton live. Holding the Alt key at startup did not seem to force a rescan of my plugins so I went into Options/Preferences and chose the Plugins Tab.
14. Then I hit Rescan on that Dialog Tab.

Everything (finally) started working again. I agree with the previous poster. It's a real shame that vst vendors aren't testing their products with the major DAWs especially for folks that are upgrading from previous versions of owned products.
Last edited by blyons on Mon Nov 22, 2021 10:03 pm, edited 3 times in total.

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

Re: [Solved] Waves 13 Plugins, Live 11, Win10 "Not Compatible" ?

Post by jestermgee » Mon Nov 22, 2021 9:20 pm

VST2 should not be in x86 program files, that is for 32bit applications and waves VST2 are 64bit. Also, VST3 should never be changed from the common files location as all VST3 plugins install to a single folder…. Unless you mean VST2 (32bit) and VST2 (64bit)?

Only thing in short that was needed was to just uninstall and reinstall again if it was all previously working.

blyons
Posts: 2
Joined: Mon Sep 03, 2018 5:13 pm

Re: [Solved] Waves 13 Plugins, Live 11, Win10 "Not Compatible" ?

Post by blyons » Mon Nov 22, 2021 9:59 pm

Thanks Jester - Yes! Earlier I had try to reorganize some of the VST folders so that they made sense to me (i.e. putting all Waves plugins in Waves folder instead of WavesShellXXX). I did it mainly for the massive amount of IKMultimedia plugins that I own. Silly me. I got burned many years later by the Waves deinstallation procedure. Since it doesn't know about the locations that I had moved my Waves plugins to (still some variations of common locations). I'm now stuck trying to manually remove the custom locations that I had created. Lesson learned, but still painful. I do wish that there was a way for vst vendors to use the same hierarchy in the vst directories. I have correct my prior post with your recommendations.

Monbaza
Posts: 2
Joined: Fri Dec 10, 2021 2:07 am

Re: [Solved] Waves 13 Plugins, Live 11, Win10 "Not Compatible" ?

Post by Monbaza » Fri Dec 10, 2021 2:10 am

Hi all,

Same here. Thank you for providing the solutions. I've tried so many times with no success.
So I contacted Waves and here is their instruction. It does not work for me still, but I guess it worth to share here:
+++++++++
I would first suggest uninstalling and reinstalling Waves to verify that everything is installed correctly:

I would suggest a complete manual uninstall and reinstall of Waves to verify that everything is installed correctly on your computer.

First, uninstall:
Launch Waves Central.
Go to the Settings page in the bottom left corner.
Under Maintenance, look for Uninstall and click the drop-down menu.
Checkmark all the available version entries and click uninstall.
Press [Win key]+R, type %AppData% and hit Enter.
In the Roaming folder that shows, drag the Waves Audio folder to your desktop.
Press [Win key]+R, type %LocalAppData% and hit Enter. In the window that shows, delete the Waves Audio folder.
Press [Win key]+R, type %ProgramData% and hit Enter. In the window that shows, delete the Waves Audio folder.
Go to C:\Program Files\Waves Central - run the Uninstall Waves Central.exe file.
Delete the Waves Central folder in C:\Program Files
Delete any WaveShell files you find in the following locations (if exist):
C:\Program Files\VSTPlugins
C:\Program Files\Common Files\VST3
C:\Program Files\Common Files\Avid\Audio\Plug-ins
C:\Program Files (x86)\VSTPlugins
C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\VST3
C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\WPAPI
Once uninstalled, Install your plugins following the steps below:
Download and install Central.
Quit any host application.
Launch Waves Central.
Go to the Install Products page.
In the My Products tab checkmark the product(s) you wish to install.
Click Install in the summary column.
Launch Ableton Live and go to Options > Preference
Hold down the [Alt/Option] key and click Rescan.
+++++++++

Bests,

Monbaza
Posts: 2
Joined: Fri Dec 10, 2021 2:07 am

Re: [Solved] Waves 13 Plugins, Live 11, Win10 "Not Compatible" ?

Post by Monbaza » Tue Dec 14, 2021 5:11 pm

Hi there,

The Waves engineer phone me up (yes, traditional call from +1 (865)909-9200) and check my Waves Team Viewer ID. Ithen can see him tweaking my folders. Very sureal experience.
Result: V13s still down. But V12s are OK.
Solution: Wait for Waves Central Update.
Solutions (not working but at least he tried so hard in 40 minutes):
1. Turn-off NVIDIA driver's vertical sync
2. Repair Microsoft Visual C++ 2012 up Redistributables.
3. Create a local administrator account instead of a Outlook account and use English as major language

I'll keep updating upon anything from Waves.

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