Ableton Forum

Yesterday, I uninstalled Cubase completely and installed Ableton 12.3. (Mac OS Sequioa)

In my plugin list, Spectralayers from Steinberg is still there, even though I deleted everything.
It's a VST3 plugin but I can't get rid of it. Oddly, in Reaper, Spectralayers is not there...

I have cleaned the cache of my SSD, even reinstalled Ableton, didn't help.
Any suggestions ?

Edit : I have made sure that all preferences, plugins and files from Steinberg and Spectralayers have been deleted. Still, Spectralayers continues to show up in the Ableton VST3 list and there's no way of removing it...

You installed Live after deleting Cubase? If yes, then that's really weird indeed.
If Live was already installed, then first try a deep plugin scan (in Live's Preferences > Plugins, hold ALT and click the Scan button). If that doesn't help, then thrash (you don't risk anything bad, but at first keep it as a backup somewhere, just in case) Live's preferences.cfg and restart Live.

Tried trashing the preferences, no go...

Checked just about any folder manually.
Searched the disk with FindAnyFile, no trace of anything related to Steinberg or Spectralayers.

Did a complete maintenance with Onyx as well, still no help…
Completely removed Ableton as well, with all preferences and support files, etc. No go…

Strangely, Spectralayers is not visible in Bitwig ; in Reaper, Steinberg Media Technologies folder is visible in the plugin list but no Spectralayers.

All very strange, tried everything. Beginning to think that only a clean install of Mac OS will be able to solve it…

ChristofR wrote: ↑

Sat Nov 29, 2025 11:30 am

Beginning to think that only a clean install of Mac OS will be able to solve it…

If it doesn't really hurt, I'd rather keep a ghost than swipe the whole house.

In all seriousness, re-installing the OS sounds like quite a radical move. Did you already search the forum? I'm pretty sure I've seen this problem happening to someone.

Doesn’t hurt, no. But I’m now so curious to find out what causes the problem…

Did you try Alt-clicking Rescan Plug-Ins in Settings?

Yep, tried everything, the usual troubleshooting tips don’t help…

Oops, didn't notice jur had already suggested that.

Maybe one of those helps you:

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

https://help.ableton.com/hc/en-us/artic ... s-Database

https://help.ableton.com/hc/en-us/artic ... -s-Library

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

Tried all of that already...

Some new information : I seem to have the same problem in Komplete Kontrol.

When scanning for plugins, it gives the same error message as Ableton ‘Spectralayers ARA. Spectralayers path could not be found’ and Spectralayers is also in Komplete Kontrol’s plugin list.

When scanning with FindAnyFile, no sign of anything from Steinberg or Spectralayers, even in hidden files so nothing to delete…
Really weird.

Have you tried re-installing Spectralayers and then uninstalling it again?

Yes, I have, but there’s no dedicated uninstaller for Spectralayers so you never know if it ‘s deleted completely, which obviously is not the case.

ChristofR wrote: ↑

Sun Nov 30, 2025 8:44 pm

Some new information : I seem to have the same problem in Komplete Kontrol.

That's making me wonder about something: komplete kontrol is kind of a plugins host, right? Is it possible that the problem's coming from here?
Like, komplete has Spectralayers "stuck" in its database, which in turn somehow makes Live think it's still here?

I installed Komplete Kontrol AFTER Ableton...

Does the plugin load?
It could be a registry issue.