need help removing plug-ins[SOLVED]

Audacity Help Forum macOS
1

hello. OSX 10.8.3. whenever i open any version of audacity, presently 2.0.3, i get a window asking to validate isotope vinyl plug-in, then auto-tune plug in. as far as i knew, i removed these trial plug ins from my computer. does anyone know how to find & remove or disable them so audacity doesn’t keep asking for them? i’ve looked everywhere on my HD trying to find them to remove…

2

Apart from the “Plugins” folder where Audacity is installed, Audacity will be looking in

~/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/VST
/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/VST

if they are VST plug-ins.

If they are Audio Units, Audacity will be looking in

~/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/Components
/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/Components

Note that the user library (the first in each pair of links) is hidden from Lion onwards so you will need to type ~/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/VST and ~/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/Components into Finder at Go > Go to Folder in order to access those folders.


Gale

3

thanks for the tips…following those paths, my vst folder is empty, and components only has “A52Codec.component” in it. anywhere else i should look?

4

I keep a folder with all old downloads in it /Installers-Keys-Settings and sometimes Audacity will find stuff in there that I had not intended. Also, OS-X has a /Users/Downloads folder that can trap tools and filters.

Koz

5

my downloads folder is empty as i have it directed to my desktop, just so it doesn’t stay bloated with stuff like that. i delete everything after im done with it…could there be some preference with audacity that remembers me having those plug ins at one time, and is just a ghost somewhere?

6

Did you try “spotlighting” the name of the plugins? If you hover over a hit, the system will give you the path.

You can try resetting Audacity.

http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/faq.html

Scroll down to Installation and Plugins.

There is also a method using the latest Audacity installer. It may volunteer to erase any trace of the old Audacity and you can say yes.

Koz

7

nothing has worked yet…as for the installer, i just drag and drop the folder to ‘applications’. theres no installer dialog for me to interact with.

8

There is nowhere else Audacity loads plug-ins from except for the VST_PATH environment variable. It is not likely that exists unless you created it yourself.

Did you search in both the system library and your user library for both VST and Audio Units?

@Koz, as the FAQ says:
http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/faq_installation_and_plug_ins.html#reset

only the Windows installer has the ability to reset Audacity preferences.

I doubt resetting Audacity Preferences will help. If defjamblaster wants to, quit Audacity then in FInder, Go > Go to Folder and type

 ~/Library/Application Support/audacity/

Note that there may be a file in that folder “plugins.cfg” which is a list of VST plug-ins for Audacity to load. I would very much doubt Audacity would show Izotope and AutoTune validation messages if you had successfully removed those plug-ins from the directories I mentioned, but by all means delete plugins.cfg.

If you want to continue to reset Preferences, also delete audacity.cfg.

Note that if you have used Audacity 1.2 at any time in the past, you must instead open audacity.cfg in TextEdit, delete all the content and replace it with just this:

NewPrefsInitialized=1

If defjamblaster wants to turn off all Audio Unit and VST support in Audacity you can stop the plug-in nag messages that way. To do that, Audacity > Preferences, choose “Effects” on the left, remove the checkmark for “Audio Unit” and “VST” under “Enable Effects” then click OK.


Gale

9

I would very much doubt Audacity would show Izotope and AutoTune validation messages if you had successfully removed those plug-ins from the directories I mentioned

I agree, and i’m trying to figure that part out right now…

Did you search in both the system library and your user library for both VST and Audio Units?

no, i didnt realize those were two different sets of data. i just tried the system library, and found a few things still labeled as vinyl, and deleted them. didn’t see any auto tune yet…

…and that seems to have done the trick! it opened without asking for either of those plug-ins, so now maybe they are truly gone. i’ll have to remember to search both areas in the future when i have problems. i’ll report back if something goes wrong again, thanks to all who helped.