I actually used to work for Presonus. I switched to Studio One after many years of using various flavors of Cubase/Nuendo. When I made the switch S1 was still at V2. It worked well for me for a long time. I still have a lot of Presonus hardware.

Due to health issues, I had to step away from the game for a while. Now that I'm past that, I decided to jump back in. I just installed the latest version of Studio One Pro: 6.6.2.100548. Installation and activation went fine. Plugin scanner saw all my 3rd party plugins no problem.

But here's the problem....and it's pretty damn big one for me. I spent a long time organizing a VST folder tree with various folder & subfolders oragnized by type and my workflow preferences. When the pugin browser is set to FOLDER view, Some of my personal folders are NOT showing up. And worse still, the folders that ARE visible are missing many of the individual plugins that ARE in those folders. Not good. Now, I'm not a noob. The proper VST locations have been selected in "options". If they had not been NONE of my personal folders would be visible.

And it has absolutely nothing to do with any plugins being blacklisted. I know this because the really strange thing about this nonsense is that, when I switch to VENDOR view, ALL of my 3rd party plugins are accessible in their respective companies' folders. This is NOT an acceptable workaround as it's EXTREMELY disruptive to my established work flow to be forced to search through VENDOR folders to find plugins I need for sessions.

And it's DEFINITELY an S1 issue. I also use Plogue Bidule as both a standalone host and VST plugin. Bidule sees my folders and plugins EXACTLY as I have them organized. It sees ALL my folders, subfolders and ALL of my plugins are right there where they should be. So opening Bidule in S1 is a possible workaround but it an extra layer of BS I shouldn't have to deal with.

I don't recall this behavior in previous versions of S1. Do I need to roll back to an earlier verion just to access my plugins or has someone else experienced this issues and resolved it? VERY frustrating!!

I purchased the upgrade to 6 as soon as it was released. I leap frogged from 4 to 6. This wasn't an issue in any version of 4 and I don't recall it being a problem in 6.0 or 6.1 but I'm not sure as I was getting sick at that point. Also I can't really be sure as this was not an upgrade from a previous version. This is a clean install....fresh SSD, OS, plugins etc.

I can see maybe some plugins not showing perhaps due to VST2/3 conflicts. But that doesn't explain why some enitire folders are missing or why the problem isn't replicated in Bidule which sees and displays all folders, subfolders, VST2 & VST3 plugins properly.

Soooo.....I did some digging and....It would seem that the problem was stemming from duplicate ID's. Apparently S1 can't handle having both a VST2 instance AND a VST3 instance of the same plugin without screwing up my VST2 folder system. This REALLY sucks. Bidule and other hosts don't lose their minds over this. But apparently, I'm going to have to go thru my plugin cache with a fine-toothed comb and eliminate ALL VST3 plugins that also have VST2 instances installed JUST so I can use Studio One in the way that best suits my workflow....as I have for years.

VST3 plugins are ridiculously hard to organize in any way that suits my flow. That, of course, is Steinberg's fault. That being said, Studio One's inability to handle co-existing instances VST2/VST3 plugins without making a big mess of my, once orderly, file structure of the lies squarely with Presonus. If even a simple standalone host like Bidule can handle it......there's no excuse for Studio One not to be able to handle plugins in a more sensible manner.

Ok....did some more digging.....Well that was only a partial fix. After deleting all VST3 duplicates of VST2 plugins, (which...BTW...I should NOT have had to do!), and after adding EACH and EVERY one of my folders & subfolders manually to VST plugin paths in "options", the folders are all now visible. But nearly half of my VST2 plugins are not showing up in their folders. This JUST a Studio One problem. Every other host I've tried sees ALL of my VST2 plugins exactly where they live. Cubase? No problem. Reaper? No problem. Bidule? No problem. Even crappy little VSTHost & SaviHost have no problem seeing and instantiating ALL of my plugins.

I've invested a LOT of my time AND money in Presonus. I'd really hate to have to switch to another DAW now but having to open another host inside my main DAW JUST so I can access my plugins is simply not a viable workaround.

 

The problem you speak of exists in previous Studio One versions also. After installing Studio One it does the initial plugin scan which is very "slow".. because that's the one that builds the plugin database. Some of the plugins you've updated might not be appearing in the folder you put them in.. but appear on their own in the root of the folder tree.. or don't appear at all. It could be because the plugin database does not get rebuilt when Studio One is launched. It adds new entries to the list.. but it doesn't remove every old entry. You are correct, it would have nothing to do with the "reset blocklist", or "scan at startup". The plugin database can only be rebuilt manually. I personally use the sort by "Vendor" for my plugins. But I have success using this method when a plugin doesn't appear in the browser because a previous installation of the same plugin is conflicting with it.

0. Launch Studio One. Click the "Studio One" tab at the top, and go into:

Options > Locations > VST Plug-Ins.. and make sure "Scan at startup" is checked.

1. Go to the folder: C:\Users\"your username"\AppData\Roaming\PreSonus\Studio One #\x64

2. Drag the file named "Plugins-en" onto your desktop. It will serve as a backup if you want to revert for any reason.

3. Run Studio One, and it should begin scanning/rebuilding the new "Plugins-en" file.

 

Last edited: Aug 14, 2024

Cool! Thanks!! That's more useful advice than I got on either the Presonus forums or even from Support.