The problem is it still scans things on the black list, and it attempts to initiate the plugin to check that it works, which is what results in umpteen popups that require dismissing. I experience this same issue. I have a number of vsts that I do not use in Dorico, but apparently Dorico still insists on initiating the vst2 variant. It does indeed slow down startup. I have to have those vsts on my home computer because sometimes I bring my work ilok dongle home, but most of the time it lives at work. It is indeed frustrating, and the only way around this is to install those particular vsts in a special folder all their own that is not the default file path. We should be able to genuinely blacklist specific things that we donāt want Dorico to use, but I was told when I made inquiries that this problem stems from the fact that this portion of the scanning code actually comes from cubase.
Ok, Iām back, and I do apologize for smack-talking a bit but itās because Iām extremely disappointed at the money Iāve sunk into products that deliberately waste my time.
Romanos is leading the way in the conversation so Iāll try not to rehash.
Iāve used many programs that scan plugins, including Steinbergās own Nuendo 13, which, after an intial scan of my thousands of plugins, moves all non-functioning and erroneous plugins to a black list, meaning the program will no longer attempt to āscan them in a way that expects them to workā - thereby meaning the program wonāt present me an error message that requires me to click āOKā to proceed next time I launch Nuendo.
Dorico 5 has a black list in preferences and I have hundreds of plugins in that list, but the program still presents the error messages to me on every launch.
Software I own which does an initial scan through my large libraries of plugins but then does not bother me with error dialogues the next time I launch the program are:
Nuendo 13
Ableton Live 11 Suite
Native Instruments Komplete Kontrol
FL Studio
Davinci Pro video editing software
Adobe Audition
Guitar Pro 8
Musescore 4
etc.
the Cockos Reaper DAW is kind of annoying about its scans, but Reaper (and many of the programs above) allow a user to ācancelā the scan for plugins and just move on to using the software. Dorico 5 does not allow this.
Reaper has a strong redeeming factor, however, in that users can completely disable āscan for plugins on startupā in the program preferences, which already beats Dorico by 10,000 points.
But even if Reaper didnāt do that, Reaper also allows users to clear out all of the directories that Reaper looks for plugins for so that if any of the file directories cause annoying hang-ups and error messages galore, the user can simply tell Reaper to stop looking in that folder. In Dorico 5, I am forbidden by Dorico itself to select and then press the trash can delete button to remove 3 of the 4 default file directories. So what this means is that the only way to get Dorico to stop doing this would be to open those 3 forced folders and manually clean up the thousands of plugins I have contained in them, which would then force me to re-scan all of my plugin folders in all of the programs mentioned above
Finally, Reaper also beats Dorico on this topic yet again in that Reaper can be launched in a āSafe Modeā that completely disables / disregards / does not scan for any plugins from any directories and simply launches the program in a clean state, so if someone like me is amidst troubleshooting this issue but doesnāt yet have time to get to the root of it, they can simply launch Reaper in a mode that wonāt be ruined by the problematic plugins / directories.
Reaper is just one open-source, free to use, $80 for a personal license application as an example for how this sort of issue can be handled properly in multiple different ways, most of which would require writing about a block of code to simply allow a user to delete all VST plugin folders, or, even simpler, tick a box that says "Toggle this off to tell Dorico to stop scanning for plugins
Like itās seriously like a couple hours of one programmerās day, and it works fine in another product from the exact same company (Nuendo) but, while some elements of my individual issue may be isolated to my gear, set up, storage, computer, OS, etc., Iāve seen many people have this same exact issue and they all find it to be an incessant unacceptable user-hostile waste of their time from a UX perspective and so what I mean by Dorico / Steinberg falling behind is that a glaring, blatant issue has existed that they know about for months and they are not prioritizing it while at the same time they charge $500 for notation software while some of their competitors are charging nothing for comparable features and the ability to put a stop to this issue happening in their free software. I just donāt get why thereās no company-wide urgency. A new company to the scene would panic until a hotfix for this issue was pushed out.
Ok. This makes sense. I suppose the majority of Dorico users do not have thousands of plug-ins ā I, as a sound engineer, find myself having too many plug-ins, but I donāt think they exceed a hundredā¦ but I understand you have the right to own thousands of them if it pleases you. This would explain why this is not a priority in Doricoās backlog.
As you say, if Nuendo has a neat way to deal with this issue, itās fair to ask the Team to do the same as a feature request. Theyāre here to bring us the best tool possible, as they proved again this week, so I was quite embarrassed when I read that they could make this on purpose. But thatās disappointment speaking 
I wonder, because the VSTAudioEngine uses the same mechanism as Cubase /Nuendo and it shall not rescan everything on every launch. It keeps a cache file and only new plugs shall get scanned. Maybe there is a bug somewhere, I will investigate tomorrow.
Yeah, so here is how Reaper handles options regarding VST plugins:
Ulf, writing on the forum on a Sunday, before 9 amā¦ That is how high the standard for customer support is on the forum 
So my plan for a workaround was to simply remove all of the VST2 Plug-in Paths from Dorico preferences. I am able to remove one of the 4 default VST plug-in Paths, but as you can see in the screenshot, when I click the other 3 directories, youāll see the trash can is greyed-out, meaning I cannot tell Dorico to stop scanning in these folders.
These are standard / default folders that other professional audio programs also look for plugins in. The difference between those other plugins and Dorico is that, once completing an initial scan, presenting the user with many error dialogue boxes for any of their incompatible / broken plugins in those folders, the other programs will inform itself to not attempt to re-scan and re-activate those failing plugins, which means the user wonāt see anymore dialogue boxes for their plugins. Itās a very standard way to handle the many many plugins that most audio producers, engineers, composers, orchestrators tend to collect over time in their careers.
So this is what I meant with my frustration when I was complaining that Dorico āforces meā to keep these 3 folders, which in turn forces me to have to click through about 5 minutes of error messages from the roughly 100 of my broken plugins that cause issues every time any program attempts to āInitializeā them. So thatās why this is such a terrible problem to have in the software: there are easy fixes that Dorico could implement that would allow users like myself from having to wait 5 minutes every time they open Dorico. Iām trying to make up for my frustration by being precise and constructive and show examples but as a new user Iām only allowed to post 1 screenshot per post. I had many more helpful screenshots than this, but this is all I can post for now
The more you post and read, the more your trust level will rise and the limitations will vanish.
Also, quick update that I stand corrected on Nuendo/Cubase not having this issue:
Nuendo is having the same problem, as Ulf had previously said in this thread, I think. Nuendo 13 is still scanning all of the problematic plugins and presenting me with the same set of error messages all over again every time I launch the program, just like how Dorico is, so yes, I see what Ulf meant now, that this happens across the Steinberg software suite, it seems. I could spend a work day cleaning and organizing my plugins folders, but that would likely break associations with project files in other software utilizing plugins that work in those programs even if Steinberg products wonāt recognize or utilize them. So as a matter a principle I just think one of the simple fixes Iāve shown or described above could save users like myself 1-30 minutes on each launch of Steinberg software.
What you also have to take into account, the Steinberg VSTscanner not only looks for new plug-ins, but it also loads them in and does some very basic tests with it, thatās what we call the VST sentinel. If a plug-in fails such test or even crashes immediately during initialization, then the scanner puts the plug-in on the black list.
I could not find any hint that Reaper or other DAW does something similar. I might be wrong, butā¦
That seems like such an unnecessary processing burden though. Why not simply āseeā that the plugin is there, and then only initiate (and potentially blacklist and show an error message) if the user calls for the plugin and it is faulty? But if the user doesnāt call for the plugin, then thereās no need to rescan or initiate it anyway.
In any event, itās weird that you can blacklist something and Dorico still tries to scan and open & test it upon every startup.
While I can support my various forum colleaguesā suggestions to make Dorico better, I do not see Daniel and the Dorico team sitting in planning meetings saying, āNo, we wouldnāt want to do that simple fix; weād rather deliberately waste Connorās time.ā
I can support suggestions to make Dorico better, but without questioning the Development Teamās intent in not prioritizing some suggestions over others.
The scanner can only do some very basic tests and is not able to find all ābadā plug-ins during the scan phase. But what does happen if it gets loaded, it crashes, and it crashes the whole application, and by that time it is too late, that application is in an undefined state, so you canāt make a snapshot any more or save the project. Therefore we built this sentinel.
Of course, Apple has this sandboxing technology (running each plug-in in an own process), but they still keep it secret and only available to Logic.
Iāve read through the conversation and hoping Iāve missed the solution to this. I am trialing Dorico right now and running into the same issue - I need to wait for each of, and then close, dialogue boxes for around 10 plugins. My first instinct was to check the VST plugin settings in Preferences, but alas, only VST2 plugins are available to block?
I suppose the reasonable solution is to just go and uninstall those plugins, butā¦ This is the first time Iāve ever had to do that. In Cubase/Reaper, once a plugin fails to scan, you have to manually choose to scan that plugin again, meaning weāre free to just let our drives fill up with trials of old plugins without having to go and uninstall them after choosing not to buy. Luckily for me, uninstalling all of those old trials didnāt take longer than a few minutes, but I can sympathize with the frustration of waiting for and seeing all of these dialogue boxes popping up for the second, and third times opening Dorico.
Welcome to the forum, @earussell. Could you do Help > Create Diagnostic Report and attach the resulting zip file here? My colleague @Ulf may be able to spot which plug-in or plug-ins are causing the whole set to be rescanned on each start.
The diagnostic report also does not tell me which plug-ins show such dialogues during loading.
So yes, the alternatives are, always clicking away those dialogues or uninstalling the corresponding plug-in.
I already brought this frustration forward to the author of the VST scanners and he is working on a solution that users can put plug-ins on the blacklist by hand, but it is a side task for him, I canāt tell when he will have such new version.
Any update on this?
I guess this issue still happens. I moved from Finale to Dorico, and is a waste of time the vst3 scanā¦
Welcome to the forum @andreu.gallen .
Unfortunately no update on this topic.