I save my songs with my external instruments in VST connections connected properly. When I open it up again
they are all disconntected what gives with this?
All your connected external instruments have VST plugin support ?
No.
So, i think you can’t load a project with all the settings you did earlier to the external instrument (i mean every knob at its position will not remain). For instance, i have Virus TI2 & whenever i load a project, which i was working earlier & had a virus synth loaded to it, will automatically load every knob of the synth at its previous state where i had set earlier. Its because Virus TI2 has a feature that is called “Total Recall”. If your external instrument equipped with such a feature then it should work perfect & get loaded to its previous state. But if its not equipped with “Total Recall” you gotta save that patch or if it can’t save the patch then you need to write down the perfect positions for each knob !
Hope i was judging your issue right 
These are not plugins. They are vintage sound modules. I think the problem arises when I change the master word clock and then open the project with the externatl instruments which is at a different sample rate.