Ableton Forum

I'm having an issue were plugins that have been removed from my system continue to show up in my vst3 browser in Ableton. I had a brainworx bundle that I uninstalled and yet the entire bundle still shows up in the vst3 section. It does not however show up under the vst2 section. After the uninstall, I went into the vst3 folder and made sure any remnants of the plugins were deleted. I have show hidden folders turned on. I even went into registry editor and removes any leftover brainworx stuff... Yeah nothing seems to work. The entire bundle is still there in Ableton under vst3. Even if I use the exact name of one of the plugins and search my entire hard drive for it, nothing shows up. For the life of me I cannot figure out why it still sees them.
None of them will actually load, if I try to load any of them, Ableton states they cannot be found.

If I have Ableton rescan the plugins folder, it still lists them. Is there a way to like "clear the cash" or somehow get Ableton to do a true rebuild of the vst3 folder during a scan? At that point there might be a chance it doesn't find them.

I'm not sure how to fix this, some advice would definitely be appreciated.

PS: forgot to mention I'm on Windows 10 operating system.

Try holding the alt key when pressing the plugins "rescan" button.

[jur] wrote: ↑

Tue Mar 22, 2022 6:54 pm

Try holding the alt key when pressing the plugins "rescan" button.

I gave that a shot and everything still shows up under vst3 folder. It's driving me nuts, I just don't understand how it can find something that isn't there. I searched my entire hard drive again for the plug-in names and a complete windows HD search can't even find them.

Anyone with more ideas on a fix?

Reset Live?

https://help.ableton.com/hc/en-us/artic ... eset-Live-

Pitch Black wrote: ↑

Wed Mar 23, 2022 1:19 am

Reset Live?

https://help.ableton.com/hc/en-us/artic ... eset-Live-

gave that a shot as well, same result. All of the plugins in the deleted pack still show up in the VST3 folder in Ableton.

Actually it looks like I have found a solution. I essentially toggled back and forth between ableton's "VST3 plug-in system folder" , and the "VST3 plugin custom folder". Eventually landing on the VST3 plug-in systems folder, when it was noticed the deleted plugins no longer appeared. I had this location selected before and they still did appear, quite strange.

They also appeared when I had the custom folder selected... My custom folder being "C:\Program files\Common files\VST3"; which if I'm not mistaken happens to be the same location ableton's VST3 plug-in system folder directs to?

I'm a bit confused as to how or why exactly this fixed the problem, but I am very excited it has done so.

Thanks for letting us know how you solved it.

On Mac, the rescan with the alt key works for VSTs, for AU you must restart your computer after you delete them from the Library path.

I had the same issue here to do with a plugin that had been removed per the documentation but still showed in Ableton. After trying various rescan and the solution below I happened on the solution. Turn off all plugins (AU, VST2, VST3) Then reboot. Then turn back on. Worked for me on 12.2.5 on a MacBook Air M3 / Sequoia