Reaper 6.32, 6.33 Windows do not find VST3 Bundles

I saw a similar thread, but thought I’d add this one - one of my SW users found that the VST3s were not found in Reaper 6.32 WinOS when packaged in their bundles (folders). They were found when you extracted the internal .vst3 and placed that into the folder.

I tested with the sample projects in SDK3.7.2 with the same result; I manually copied the bundles into the /Program Files/Common Files/VST3 as I always do. None of the sample plugins would appear until I pulled out the inner .vst3 files and planted them into the folder. This has worked in the past, so not sure what happened.

I am currently telling users that this is a Reaper issue as it happens with the Steinberg SDK samples as well, but was concerned when their latest release 6.33 did not catch it either.

Just placing this here in case anyone else finds it happening to them. If something has changed with the bundle behavior, please let me/us know. I did see the post at Log In - Steinberg Developer Help but nothing has changed that I can tell, from previous versions of the SDK. And, I’ve never had an issue with the bundle paradigm in Windows - it has always worked.

Apologies if I am missing something obvious…

Will

2 Likes

December 24, 2021.
Reaper 6.43 still doesn’t support VST3 bundles on
Windows (no problem on Linux). Reaper
is able to see the VST3 bundle through the link in the VST3 folder, however,
when I move the helloworldWithVSTGUI.vst3 bundle to the VST3 folder, Reaper doesn’t see the bundle. If I add the path to Common
Files/VST3/ helloworldWithVSTGUI.vst3/ Contents/x86_64-win
Reaper is able to see the plug-in.

I have informed the dev of Reaper… let´s see

It was confirmed that it should work…
maybe you have somewhere else an another helloworldWithVSTGUI.vst3 file ?

from Reaper Dev:

it’s possible under certain instances the new default path may not be added to an existing installation (we’ll fix this to make sure it is automatically done in the future), can the user confirm that the correct path is listed in REAPER’s path list?"

Yes, the correct path is listed. Please see the screenshot:


“Clean and rescan” doesn’t help. Other helloworldWithVSTGUI.vst3 files are absent. I’ve just tested the latest version of Reaper (6.46) on Windows 10 and the problem persists.
I found two methods to overcome the problem:

  1. Reaper can see the bundle when I add the following path to Reaper:
    Common Files/VST3/helloworldWithVSTGUI.vst3/Contents/x86_64-win
  2. Reaper can see the bundle when I make the link to the bundle and put it to Common Files/VST3
    Both methods are not convenient to users.
    I believe that Reaper will fix the problem in future, however, I use audio plug-ins myself and I believe that single-file audio plug-ins without installers are much more convenient than “bundles” with installers. I hope that the next version of VST3SDK will return to the single-file solution.

I do not think we will return by default to single file (you could already configure to get single file with cmake) . Folder (bundle) provides more advantages.
Reaper has to fix this parsing on Windows.