REAPER isn't scanning correctly VST3 plug-ins

derita · 10-11-2021, 09:19 AM

Hi, this is my first post here.

First of all I have Win 10 64 bits, and when this whole thing started happening I was using REAPER 6.2x (don't remember exactly what version). Now I'm using 6.36 (the latest) and as you'll see the problem still persists.

I'm kind of frustrated as of Saturday (today's Monday) ALL of Melda Production's plug-ins stopped being recognized by REAPER. What causes this issue is that in the reaper-vstplugins64.ini file, the entries for Melda (and some others, but those I don't use nearly as often so I'm not too concerned about them) plugins are truncated. It should look something like
"Lagrange.vst3=00ECDE7288D9D601,337029258,Lagr ange (UrsaDSP)"
but instead it looks like this
"MCompressor.vst3=80F0445143B4D70"

Trying to solve my problem I read something about a vst shell .ini file, which I don't seem to have or find, but it maybe has something to do with REAPER versions, as those posts were in the REAPER 5.xx era. This is really weird as the plugins are located in
Program Files\Common Files\VST3\MeldaProduction\(subfolders for each category)\plugin.vst3
and I have others plugins in Common Files\VST3 that load perfectly and REAPER has no problem scanning.

I already tried:

- Running REAPER as admin
- Rescanning all the plugins after resetting the cache
- Uninstalling and reinstalling REAPER and Melda plug-ins
- Deleting Appdata\REAPER
- Installing REAPER 5.xx (which didn't recognize the plugins either) and then upgrading
- Uninstalling and installing Melda 13, 14 and 15
- Changing the order of the vst paths to put the x86 folders first
- Changing the path of the plugins

I probably did somthing else in the (a lot of) hours I already spent trying to fix this, but this is all I remember doing. The thing left I have read that worked, that I didn't already try, is reinstalling EVERYTHING (including Windows), which I can't do because I don't have the money to buy an external hard drive to make a back-up before formatting my PC.

Things that I recall doing between the plugins working on Wednesday and failing to load on Saturday are:

- Updating Purr-Data and Pd-L2ork
- Uninstalling the SINE player

I'm trying to be as thorough as possible with my issue, but any questions of my setup are more than welcome. I hope this is not a coconut png file case in which I have to reinstall some weird stuff to make this work. I'm super duper frustrated as Melda are some of my favorite plugins and I use them in all of my projects, some are for work and if I don't get them up and running I'd have to redo those projects almost from scratch.

Thanks so much for reading, and I hope you can help me!

-derita

Dr Bob · 10-11-2021, 04:10 PM

Close Reaper
rename the vstplugins64.ini file (as backup)
Start Reaper - it will create and re-build a new plugins .ini file and hopefully all will be well

dB

derita · 10-11-2021, 04:25 PM

Hi, thanks for answering!

Sadly, I have already done that, multiple times and tried deleting the file, deleting the folder, renaming things, still doesn't work. Thanks, though!

ivansc · 10-12-2021, 12:33 AM

I am probably mis-reading what you use as your Melda path, but IF you are including the " \plugin.vst3" part, that is likely to be your problem. Try removing that little bit of the location & see if it fixes the issue.

Don`t enter anything like that plugin.vst3 bit, unless it represents an actual sub-folder containing the plugin.

derita · 10-12-2021, 06:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ivansc

I am probably mis-reading what you use as your Melda path, but IF you are including the " \plugin.vst3" part, that is likely to be your problem. Try removing that little bit of the location & see if it fixes the issue.

Don`t enter anything like that plugin.vst3 bit, unless it represents an actual sub-folder containing the plugin.

That part with "\plugin.vst3" refers to the actual plugins that are not working. For example:

Program Files\Common Files\VST3\MeldaProduction\Reverb\MConvolutionEZ.v st3

I'm not changing any of the default settings (as you can't change those from the installer for vst3)
Thanks for the reply tho!

Daodan · 10-12-2021, 08:22 AM

Can you share your VST path list with us? Just copy all from field located in Prefs->Plug-ins->VST

derita · 10-12-2021, 08:32 AM

Yes ofc. I have REAPER as it comes from the installation, so everything's default now. I have made a backup of all my previous configs though, but REAPER is like if it was brand new on my PC.

C:\Program Files (x86)\VST\;C:\Program Files\Steinberg\VstPlugins;C:\Program Files\Common Files\VST3

I also tried just having "C:\Program Files\Common Files\VST3", didn't work. "C:\Program Files\Common Files\VST3\MeldaProduction", didn't work. "C:\Program Files\Common Files\VST3\MeldaProduction\Reverb" didn't work either. I tried reversing the order of x86 and x64 paths but didn't work

EDIT: I also tried downgrading all the way back to 4.xx and then back up to 6.36 (latest). Didn't work either. At this point I'm afraid I'm gonna have to reinstall Win 10 unu

Fabian · 10-12-2021, 09:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by derita

EDIT: I also tried downgrading all the way back to 4.xx and then back up to 6.36 (latest). Didn't work either. At this point I'm afraid I'm gonna have to reinstall Win 10 unu

Don't. I cannot imagine that this is the problem.

Are you talking about the paid Melda plugins? If so, is your license still valid?

You say you can see the files in C:\Program Files\Common Files\VST3, how do go there? Windows Explorer? Try to check that folder from within Reaper, for instance, through the Media explorer. Can Media explorer list the VST3's for you?

Here is a long shot:

Code:

C:\Program Files (x86)\VST\;C:\Program Files\Steinberg\VstPlugins;C:\Program Files\Common Files\VST3

Is there not a backslash too many in the first path? I cannot imagine that this would mess up things, but still...

derita · 10-12-2021, 10:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fabian

Are you talking about the paid Melda plugins? If so, is your license still valid?

I'm using the Free Bundle, as I've been for over two years without a problem.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fabian

You say you can see the files in C:\Program Files\Common Files\VST3, how do go there? Windows Explorer? Try to check that folder from within Reaper, for instance, through the Media explorer. Can Media explorer list the VST3's for you?

Yes, I use the Windows Explorer to check that, but REAPER finds the .vst3 with no problem. I can even import it as if it was an audio file on a track. The issue is in the scanning it seems.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fabian

Here is a long shot:

Code:

C:\Program Files (x86)\VST\;C:\Program Files\Steinberg\VstPlugins;C:\Program Files\Common Files\VST3

Is there not a backslash too many in the first path? I cannot imagine that this would mess up things, but still...

I tried those paths and it still doesn't find them.

I'm theorizing it has something to do with some REAPER register files that Windows isn't deleting when I uninstall the DAW, because I've uninstalled REAPER and the Melda plugins several times and the problem persists. I'll keep trying tho, thanks for helping!

DarkStar · 10-12-2021, 11:07 AM

Reaper does not use the Windows Registry.

I would suggest uninstalling the MeldaProduction plug-ins, reinstalling, but select the VST plug-ins only, and add that path to Reaper's plug-ins path list.

derita · 10-12-2021, 11:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DarkStar

Reaper does not use the Windows Registry.

I would suggest uninstalling the MeldaProduction plug-ins, reinstalling, but select the VST plug-ins only, and add that path to Reaper's plug-ins path list.

Thanks for the suggestion! I would want to keep the VST3 as those are what I use in my projects, but anyway I gave this a try. I didn't work tho :c

I'm trying by updating Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable but unsurprisingly this didn't resolve my issue.

Would there maybe exist another reaper ini or registry that tells REAPER not to scan correctly this files? Don't think it would matter tho, because I've reinstalled REAPER like a dozen times already. I don't know what else to do, I'm baffled at this point, nothing seems to work...

Fabian · 10-12-2021, 02:00 PM

Have you tried a portable install of Reaper? Install in a temporary folder, run it and add the C:\Program Files\Common Files\VST3 as the plugin folder and let it scan. See if that works.

derita · 10-12-2021, 02:53 PM

Yes I did that, I forgot to add it to the original post. :c Thank for the suggestion tho!

MetalSmurf · 10-12-2021, 04:06 PM

There is a program called "Dependency Walker", you can use it to find out if there are DLL files missing that would be necessary to load the plugin.

http://dependencywalker.com/

Load a plugin into this and see what you can find

derita · 10-16-2021, 05:30 AM

Hi! It's me again.

I tried using Dependencies (as Dependency Walker is kind of obsolete for Win 10 as its developement stopped around 2006), a new software that acts similarly to DW. For one, the GUI was kind of confusing and it was hard to found the files that were missing, there was like a couple thousand files in total. Maybe I'm just too dumb to use it.

After spending like an hour downloading dependencies manually without finding a hint to resolve the problem, and having spent more than twenty hours in total, I decided that it wasn't worth the time anymore. I took from my savings and bought an external HDD to make a backup and reinstalled Windows.

Yep.
That "fixed" it.

After 8500 pesos and almost twenty-four hours of work.
Reinstalling Windows.

I'm bittersweet about this. For one, I'm extremely relieved that I can make music again. And happy that I could solve it. But on the other hand this should have never happened!! How is a REAPER error like this even possible?? From one day to the other -boom- fifty plugins to the trashbin and the only solution is to reinstall the OS.

I hope no-one else has to suffer through this and painstakingly realize that this issue isn't fixable. I tried EVERYTHING. Nothing worked.

Thanks for trying to help. I'm... I'm just at a loss of words...

Dr Bob · 10-16-2021, 11:10 AM

To be fair, if this was a Reaper problem, I'm sure it would have appeared before. Sounds like there was some form of corruption in your Windows system (maybe due to a Windows update?_), or somehow parts of the filestore became protected (again, possibly an update?).

Too easy to blame Reaper as this was your "goto program" which failed due to the error on the system.

dB

derita · 10-17-2021, 11:35 AM

There were no major events between the plugins working and not, other than the two I specified in my first post.

I know the combination of factors is huge so it's difficult to find what happened, but other DAWs recognized the plugins perfectly. That's why I'm saying it has something to do with REAPER.

Anyway everything is working now. Thanks for trying to help!