Deleted VST and VST3 Folders on Mac, Now Ableton Keeps Freezing When I try to save

[deprime2014]

Hi all

I'm running Live 11 on a 2020 M1 Macbook Pro and Sonoma 14.1.1. Because I only use the Audio Units versions of plugins, I decided to delete my VST and VST3 folders (the VST3 folder was taking up like 11GB). But because I was making space for something I was about to install, I cleared the trash immediately. I know this is all pretty reckless. But we're past that.

Since then, Ableton has been crashing almost every time I save a project. What I mean is that I get the spinning wheel, which only spins when I move my cursor, and then I right click the Ableton icon in the dock, and it says "Application not responding," so I force quit it. I'm inclined to believe it's the missing VST/3 versions of my plugins that's causing this freezing upon attempting to save, but it happened even when I only had Vital open, which I don't have the VST file for. I thought maybe the buffer size was the problem, so I increased it, but then Ableton froze again as I closed out of preferences.

Would reading Ableton crash logs be helpful even though it's really just freezing (followed by me force quitting?) Or if not, is there any other way to get an idea of what's going on? Any advice is hugely appreciated. Ableton seems to be slower/choppier in literally every way now.

[H20nly]

Try this:

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

[Machinesworking]

Have to ask, did you delete the contents of the folder or the VST folder themselves? Live should be fine with you deleting all the VST plugins in the VST foider, Live will not be fine with you deleting the VST folder itself, it's a system folder and should not be deleted.

[deprime2014]

Have to ask, did you delete the contents of the folder or the VST folder themselves? Live should be fine with you deleting all the VST plugins in the VST foider, Live will not be fine with you deleting the VST folder itself, it's a system folder and should not be deleted.

I deleted the folder -_- didn't realize it was a system folder

[deprime2014]

Try this:

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

Thank you for this, I'm going to wait until Ableton replies to my support ticket just in case they need something from this, but I will if they can't help

[Machinesworking]

Have to ask, did you delete the contents of the folder or the VST folder themselves? Live should be fine with you deleting all the VST plugins in the VST foider, Live will not be fine with you deleting the VST folder itself, it's a system folder and should not be deleted.

I deleted the folder -_- didn't realize it was a system folder

You might have to reinstall Mac OS, that's what your issue is, and it's not on Ableton at all.
Time Machine? you using it?

[deprime2014]

Have to ask, did you delete the contents of the folder or the VST folder themselves? Live should be fine with you deleting all the VST plugins in the VST foider, Live will not be fine with you deleting the VST folder itself, it's a system folder and should not be deleted.

I deleted the folder -_- didn't realize it was a system folder

You might have to reinstall Mac OS, that's what your issue is, and it's not on Ableton at all.
Time Machine? you using it?

Reinstall MacOS because of the VST folder thing? It made a new folder once I reinstalled a few of the plugins.

[Machinesworking]

I deleted the folder -_- didn't realize it was a system folder

You might have to reinstall Mac OS, that's what your issue is, and it's not on Ableton at all.
Time Machine? you using it?

Reinstall MacOS because of the VST folder thing? It made a new folder once I reinstalled a few of the plugins.

Oh cool, that's great that it did. Do the same with VST3, then test your setup again. The other thing is to delete Ableton preferences in user/Library/Preferences I just put them on the desktop usually in case it doesn't help or causes more problems. Preference files are created by Live, so if one of the preference setting is stuck thinking there is no VST3 folder etc. it can get corrupted.

[deprime2014]

You might have to reinstall Mac OS, that's what your issue is, and it's not on Ableton at all.
Time Machine? you using it?

Reinstall MacOS because of the VST folder thing? It made a new folder once I reinstalled a few of the plugins.

Oh cool, that's great that it did. Do the same with VST3, then test your setup again. The other thing is to delete Ableton preferences in user/Library/Preferences I just put them on the desktop usually in case it doesn't help or causes more problems. Preference files are created by Live, so if one of the preference setting is stuck thinking there is no VST3 folder etc. it can get corrupted.

Okay, thank you for this. I did this, but I think it might still be the OS? Because since I made the post, I've been experiencing input lag in Ableton (and to a lesser extent, my computer in general). For example, when highlighting a MIDI note or playing a note on my controller, the sound of the note plays about half a second after the input is registered. When playing back a clip, the playhead is completely misaligned with what is actually playing at any given moment, and starting/stopping playback is similarly delayed.

[Machinesworking]

Okay, thank you for this. I did this, but I think it might still be the OS? Because since I made the post, I've been experiencing input lag in Ableton (and to a lesser extent, my computer in general). For example, when highlighting a MIDI note or playing a note on my controller, the sound of the note plays about half a second after the input is registered. When playing back a clip, the playhead is completely misaligned with what is actually playing at any given moment, and starting/stopping playback is similarly delayed.

Yeah that's a whole new issue, what's your audio interface? Check for the latest drivers, same with all third party plugins. I'm on Sonoma and it's working fine here, have you installed the latest updates to Sonoma? Earlier versions of Sonoma and a few plugins caused some glitches etc.

One other check, since you deleted system folders in the Audio folder etc. What I do is create three folders in the Audio/Plugins folder: VST Disabled, AU Disabled, and VST3 Disabled. You can then pull all of your plugins out of their regular folders into these, and Live will not see them, so you can determine fairly quickly if it's a plugin issue or not.