In the user whitelist, just put the name of the VST (+ carriage returrn) withtout the path. It work !
Ex : Komplete Kontrol
I’m on Mac OS.
MacOs : Mojave 10.14.6
Dorico Pro 3 : 3.0.10.1051 (Oct 7 2019)
VSTAudioEngine3 : 3.0.10.132
Komplete 12
Komplete Kontrol : 2.2.1
Kontakt : 6.2.1
Kontakt 5 : 5.8.1
As mentioned earlier, I have already tried adding Kontakt to the whitelist - both via the text file and directly by copying information from the blacklist XML to the whitelist XML. No luck with that, unfortunately. As mentioned earlier, it does help in Cubase, where Kontakt is also blacklisted otherwise. Same procedure just seems to do nothing at all in Dorico, which is strange
Thing is, getting Kontakt to work in Cubase is not an issue for me, it is explicitly in Dorico that it does not seem to want to work. Odd.
But also in Cubase, Kontakt shall normally not get blacklisted. Neither should there be the need to explicitly whitelist it.
And once you have it properly working in Cubase, then it should be also no issue in Dorico.
That’s why we ask you to follow the instructions as given by the Native Instruments support, though it might be tedious to do so.
Also Mr Vstscanner thinks that your Kontakt installation is corrupted in some way.
And it is not a general problem, as you heard, there are so many other people with Kontakt installations without any issue.
Sorry, I did not mean to come across as annoyed, just wanted to clarify earlier steps. Written language is such an inadequate form of communication, even with the addition of emojis. 
I had some projects I needed to finalize first so, but I have now tried following the steps in the page you listed above (adding the step of also clearing the relevant folders in the VSTAudioEngine3_64 folder). Unfortunately, that did not help, Kontakt.dll remains blacklisted (and ‘un-whitelistable’) in Dorico, while whitelistning it in Cubase works in that application.
Thanks for all the help with this. I realize it is not a widespread, general problem. Not sure what is going on with my setup. I have no issues with Kontakt in any other applications (save for Cubase blacklisting it, where using the ‘Reactivate’ option alleviates the issue).
Well, in the new year we can have a look at “reactivating” plug-ins in Dorico. In theory it should be the same as in Cubase since Dorico’s audio engine is derived from Cubase, but we never had a particular focus on that feature, so might be that it is just easy. However, since we are all away from office you have to be patient. Happy holidays.
Workaround for MAC Users:
I solved the blacklisting of kontakt by disabling the System Integrity Protection
“System Integrity Protection (SIP) is a security feature of macOS originally introduced in OS X El Capitan designed to make it even more difficult for malware to access important system files, keeping them safe from unwanted modifications. In the early days of SIP, some developers ran into problems when the system would keep core functionality of their apps from working properly because those apps made changes to the way the operating system worked by editing the system files that SIP was now in place to protect.”
Keeping that in mind, do it at your own risk
Here’s how:
Click the Apple symbol in the Menu bar.
Click Restart…
Hold down Command-R to reboot into Recovery Mode.
Click Utilities.
Select Terminal.
Type csrutil disable.
Press Return or Enter on your keyboard.
Click the Apple symbol in the Menu bar.
Click Restart…
If you later want to start using SIP once again (and you really should), then follow these steps again, except this time you’ll enter csrutil enable in the Terminal instead.
p.s.
Make sure you’ve got rid of the “Vst2xPlugin Blacklist VSTAudioEngine3” file first
From Steinberg’s point of view, we strongly discourage people from going that path.
We recommend to push the plug-in vendors to solve the problem on the plug-in side.
Also the plug-ins need to be properly prepared for Apple’s System Integrity Protection, not only the DAWs.
Update:
I deleted the VSTAudioEngine 3 folder.
Doing so, my vst2xplugin blacklist as well as the vst2 whitelist have been deleted too…so there is nothing in there right now.
When I restarted Dorico, I found Kontakt 5 16out.vst available in the Vst instrument list in play mode, but when I try to load it, Dorico Freezes and I have to force quit…
by the way in my VST2 folder I have also Kontakt 5.vst and Kontakt 5 8out.vst…but they do not appear in the vst instrument list in Dorico…
I’ve enabled the System Integrity Protection back again, and Kontakt doesn’t get blacklisted anymore…
New Update:
I deleted again the VSTAudioEngine 3 folder after having enabled the System Integrity Protection…and I’m back to the starting point… Kontakt have been blacklisted again
HI everyone. On Windows here and having these same problems. I think I’ve tried every thing listed here (including deleting the files and running the scanner directly) and had no luck in getting Kontakt 5 off the blacklist. Amusingly I have had Kontakt working before in my ideal setup via Bidule but since Dorico 3 this has 80% of the time crashed every project reopened with it due to the issues in Steinberg Forums
Can probably hop around this by using Bidule and a loop back midi port but it’s all a bit silly for something that should just work!
Any new revelations on how to fix this? Any diagnostics I can help with?
The first thing to do is to provide the Dorico Diagnostics.zip file produced by doing Help > Create Diagnostic Report. The zip file will be saved to your desktop.
I had the same problem and deleted the black list file first and after that, reinstalled the full dorico3.1 program. After that kontakt showed up.
Thanks Daniel. Always impressed with how quick you and your team are to respond to things. I’ve got a diagnostics report zip and pinged you a link in a private message.
Hi Filip, when you run the vst2scanner “manually” on Kontakt, what is the output then? Does a little bit of xml code gets spit out, or just nothing?
If nothing then please type
echo %ERRORLEVEL%
and return, then a number should appear. What number is it?
Just running the vst2scanner manually does not fix anything, it just gives a hint of what might be wrong with Kontakt.
Also, what exact version of Kontakt do you have? I can’t get this info from the diagnostics.
Hi Ulf, probably not the answer you’re looking for but:
vst2xscanner -p "C:\Program Files\Native Instruments\VSTPlugins 64 bit\Kontakt 5.dll"
Leads to:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<vst2xplugin><path>C:\Program Files\Native Instruments\VSTPlugins 64 bit\Kontakt 5.dll</path><subCategory>Instrument</subCategory><cid>5653544E694F356B6F6E74616B742035</cid><editorCid>5653454E694F356B6F6E74616B742035</editorCid><name>Kontakt 5</name><vendor>Native Instruments GmbH</vendor><sdkVersion>VST 2.4</sdkVersion><vendorVersion>5.8.1.0</vendorVersion><latencySamples>0</latencySamples><canDoublePrecision>0</canDoublePrecision><audioInputBusCount>0</audioInputBusCount><audioOutputBusCount>59</audioOutputBusCount><mainAudioInputArr>0</mainAudioInputArr><mainAudioOutputArr>3</mainAudioOutputArr></vst2xplugin>
Which makes it seem like it runs fine.
%ERRORLEVEL% is 0
But yet Kontakt keeps on being added to the blacklist everytime Dorico boots up.
As visible above my Kontakt version is 5.8.1
Hope this leads to something that is helpful for other people as well. Happy to give you any other diagnostics / logs you need.
That is really strange. With that output Kontakt should never enter the blacklist. I really wonder what is going on.
Though it does not make sense, could you please check your C drive for any other (older) Kontakt installation?
And please do try again, stop Dorico and delete the blacklist plug-in info file:
C:/Users/filip/AppData/Roaming/Steinberg/VSTAudioEngine3_64/Vst2xPlugin Blacklist VSTAudioEngine3.xml
C:/Users/filip/AppData/Roaming/Steinberg/VSTAudioEngine3_64/Vst2xPlugin Infos VSTAudioEngine3.xml
Then start Dorico again, those files will get recreated again. Kontakt still on the blacklist?
As a software developer I appreciate the rabbit holes you’re going down to find this issue!
No other Kontakt installations as far as I can tell. All installing done through the Native Access installer which is how things get done now. It’s a download / update manager for all Native Instruments software. I’ve looked and can only find the one in the default “Program Files/Native Instruments” folder. Only doubling up is automatic 64bit vs 32bit folders but I’m only pointing to the 64bit one.
Kontakt still on the blacklist on first boot after deleting those files. “Kontakt 5 16out.dll” and “Kontakt 5.dll” both appear on the blacklist even though my whitelist only has “Kontakt 5” on it (probably as you automatically add that one to a search list if found).
Investigated further:
Tried deleting the whole VSTAudioEngine3_64. First boot, empty blacklist.
Then added “C:/Program Files/Native Instruments/VSTPlugins 64 bit” to the paths.
Rebooted Dorico. Blacklist contains “Kontakt 5 16out.dll”. Not placed anything on my whitelist (txt file) yet.
As I said to Daniel in the private message, Absynth and FM8 (also Native Instruments, same folder) load fine. Interestingly Battery 3, also NI, gets blacklisted. So some Native Instruments ones work, others don’t. Battery 3 and Kontakt are both samplers / sample managers but a VST should just be a VST regardless of what it does!
Yes, it is so strange. I also see no reason why Kontakt should get blacklisted. It’s only the vst2scanner that makes the decision to blacklist or not. I will ask the developer of the scanner for any clue. I’ll come back.
Mr. Vstscanner says it must have something to do with the environment. If you run it manually in a shell, it succeeds, but not if Dorico’s audio engine calls it. Do you happen to run Dorico not as normal user but as admin? Or do you have another idea what could be different?
Also, I just saw a mail from our support, and there seems to be more customers with a similar (if not same) problem also on Cubase: Native plug-ins get blacklisted after Windows update.
Might not help everyone, but there are reports that reinstalling the affected plug-ins may solve the problem. One needs to uninstall using the uninstaller from Native.
Maybe worth a try…