All 3rd Party VST 3 plugins today refuse to load? How to I force a VST3 rescan?

Windows 10.0.19044 is my build

This morning Cubase wanted to scan all VST2 plugins. 15 minutes laterā€¦

Ok so your win ver is slightly more updated than mine. Iā€™ll try to avoid win updates for a while (although windows has its own mind)

The last thing I want is the same issue on my C11.5ā€¦ I would absolutely be screwed if it did!

Hope it fixes itself or we get a patch of some sort soon!

and no issue so far this morning after that with all VST3 plugins operational.

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Same thing here. Iā€™ve been at it for more than 48 hours. It is such a pain with Cubase. First, it takes forever and tons of nerve breaking hours on forae and everywhere looking for help since all DAW upgrades just happen in minutes or seconds, but with Cubase, thatā€™s an experience you only wish to have just once in a lifetime. Still after taking days and sometimes weeks to finally have the upgrade to install, all sorts of things happen when you start the program.

This is a lost-case company. Iā€™ve been with them since 1998. I do use another software since 5 years instead. But I keep on giving them money for free on upgrades even though itā€™s a more painful experience than anything you would imagine in the 21st century.

Iā€™d love to know why Cubase 12 freezes on vst3 initializing, without giving the option (like in previous versions) to skip potential problematic plugins not compatible with the program. This is just nonsense.

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Stick my neck out here and say something negative about Steinberg-I know thatā€™s frowned on but I share your experiences; Iā€™ve spent, w/o exaggeration, hundreds of hours tinkering with software issues, linked to the DAW experience. I believe itā€™s the rush to market phenomena where moves made by a competitor or Microsoft or Apple, drive Steinberg to innovate. However, the new innovations are not beta tested. We the consumer become the beta testing audience hence the need to forbear on upgrades. Steinberg works against that with pricing though as skipping a paid upgrade makes the next upgrade much more expensive.
Finally all issues boil down Yamaha corporate managers who have no concern for musicians struggling with their poorly built and sloppily designed products. Especially out of luck is the home enthusiast who does not access to technical assistance. As long as Elton John and other celebrities can be seen with Yamaha products, management is happy.

Ok. This was what was causing my issue. Fixed :+1:

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Hello
I just re-installed the whole PC (Windows/Cubase/Waves/Nexus) and have same issue.

The projects wonā€™t load Nexus VST III and/or Waves plugins which are in VST 3 folder.

Does anybody solved this issue?

You should try updating Waves. The Waves Shell I have listed under VST3 is 13.4. You have 13.0. You could also try the Verify License and Refresh License procedures from Waves Support:

Not sure about Nexus: Iā€™m not familiar with it, but maybe check to see if thereā€™s an update.

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SOLVED

In the meantime, i brought back Windows to ā€œzero-stateā€ , reinstalled Cubase, Waves, Slate and Nexus and everything works.

It seems that has to do with million ā€œrestributablesā€ in the system, I donā€™t see any other reason.

Hey @mart! Did your VST3 problem mysteriously go away on its own, or did you find a fix?

Hi Mlineb,

I decided to take the plunge and moved to Windows 11. and also updated to Nuendo 12.0.30. I had been worried about moving to Windows 11 as Windows 10 ā€˜hadā€™ been great - but I guess that ship had sailed so ā€¦

The intermittent VST3 plugins not loading hasnā€™t hit me the past week of use since, but yes as you say, its more throwing updates at the wall that has helped and mysterious fix ( so far). I counted the issue to be caused by something in the windows or windows defender side of things and my hope was that Windows 11 would give a fresh OS files that might make a fix. I will keep the thread posted.

Windows 11 seems snappier than 10 and fairly solid - at least on my machine and hardware.

WaveShell was the culprit for me! Thank you for suggesting it might be the problem. When in doubt, remove WaveShell from the plugin folders!

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Thank you!!! As soon as I removed the vst2 path all is working well, after weeks of troubleshooting. I was about one hour away from moving to Logic.

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The way iĀ“m doing is by using simbolink links.
I ve installed an application called link shell extentions. It lives on the windows explorer. I right click my F:\Acustica Audio\VST3 plugins , select ā€œpick link sourceā€ then i create a folder inside c:\programFiles\Commonfiles\VST3\Acustica Audio and right click that folder and ā€œDrop as linkā€
Cubase sees all installed Acustica plugins.

Link for the app i use if anyone wants.
https://schinagl.priv.at/nt/hardlinkshellext/linkshellextension.html

simbolink links become dead or unreadable and they have a little arrow on the folder, your going in have to install them maually. Cubse donā€™t like the dead link in vst3 folder, links are good as long as the installation files are still there. So if your folder vst3 has and arrow and you canā€™t click on it, thats becuase the original installer is moved or deleted.

installers that install quick cmd donā€™t work when the installer files are deleted or moved. the install becomes dead and the link is missing so it ruins the whole vst3folder. Removing the dead vst3folder will fix and will go back to normal.

the folder will have a arrow of missing link.

sorry i was thinking of a installer type.

Afer 4 months nothing died on my side and i still have them all working with simbolinksā€¦

Same experience. Iā€™ve been hounded by ā€˜The Cubase Communityā€™ (not on here) twice for daring to say Cubase isnā€™t stable and asking about an alternative. I donā€™t think these Cubase ā€˜fanaticsā€™ are helping at all, begging constantly for another paid update on Club Cubase and accepting anything they are given. I canā€™t give Steinberg anymore money, Iā€™m absolutely shocked that 2 of the finest groups of engineers in the world the Germans and/or the Japanese produce this thing. Any discussion of ā€˜a quicker workflowā€™ is ridiculous. My work flow since I bought Cubase 11 and 12 has been slow, awkward, anger inducing and often grinds to a complete halt. I dread learning a new software but itā€™s got to happen, either Ableton or Bitwig.

Nothing to see here, move along sir, your problems are due to your underperforming PC (or Mac? :scream:), Sound Card, Hard Drive, optical/firewire lead, cooling system, graphics card, electricity supplier, cat/dog, and or wife or husband.

I will have you know that Cubase is 100% bug-free. :roll_eyes:

I think you may be on to something here, if tangentially.

Iā€™ve long believed Nicola Tesla was a far better charlatan and huckster than actual scientist, and I have always had my doubts about alternating current as the best source of electricity to power my DAW. All the out of phase AC oscillations canā€™t be helping Cubaseā€™s stability any either, and itā€™s pretty obvious any system built to run on both 120V/60 Hz as well as 240V/50Hz is probably doomed from the start.

Anyway, FR here: Steinberg can you please include a preference for running Cubase on a rectified direct current computer, how hard can that be?

Thank you

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