Autoscanning VST plugins?

[Techno.Jon]

Hello all,
Is it possible to direct MPT to a directory and have it autoscan the vst plugins inside?  I recently reorganized my VST folder into the "Plugins" folder (in hopes that MPT would pick them up, this has worked before) but it simply refuses to and also cleared my plugins.cache!  I really don't want to have to add them all back by hand.  Is there any way to do this?

[jmkz]

OpenMPT doesn't implement VST auto scanning, but the way I do is search in my VST plugins folder for *.dll files and drag&drop into OpenMPT.

[Saga Musix]

OpenMPT's installer does kind of auto-scanning if you tell it to do so. Other than that, there is no auto-scanning behaviour implemented in the application itself.

[Techno.Jon]

This was actually after I just installed the new version, and I told it to autoscan, but it just cleared the plugin.cache.  I'll try that thing with drag'n'drop though, didn't even think of that!

[Saga Musix]

The installer doesn't clear the plugin cache. However, it only searches for VST plugins in the default plugin path found in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\VST\VSTPluginsPath, and if that path doesn't exist, it will look in Program Files\Steinberg\Vst Plugins.

[Techno.Jon]

Does it check in subfolders?  I have that directory set up, but the plugs are organized into folders.  And I don't know if it was a glitch or what, but it did, in fact, clear the plugin cache.  I have no clue why.  I may have been a file permissions error or something, idk.

So, in theory, could I back up my ini files and retry the installation to see if it finds the plugs?

[Rakib]

No it doesnt not check the subfolders.

[Saga Musix]

No it doesnt not check the subfolders.

Nonsense, of course it does. Everyone organises their plugins into folders, this feature wouldn't make sense without sub folder scanning.

The installer only adds new plugins, so there's not really a need to back up the file. Are you really sure that the path specified in the registry is 100% correct and doesn't contain any typos?

[Techno.Jon]

Yes, I used it to point Audacity to the right place.  I'm gonna try clearing the whole plugin list from the ini and plugin.cache, back up the ini (just in case), and reinstall, should that work?

[Saga Musix]

In theory it should (at least for me it did). Let us know if it doesn't.

[Techno.Jon]

No luck.  I'm gonna try changing the folder and see if that works, just for the hell of it.

[Rakib]

Hmm havent work for me, have to set up all the plugins manually. I can try again.

[Techno.Jon]

Still nothing!  Is it possible to batch-edit the config somehow, since all this doesn't seem to be working?

[Saga Musix]

I just tried this again - I specified my plugin path in the registry and ran the installer - it detected all plugins in that path (all my plugins are in sub folders, so much about that)... Did you verify that there the [VST Plugins] section in your mptrack.ini is really empty after the installation finished?

[Techno.Jon]

Yes.  It is empty, save for the MIDI I/O thing that comes prepackaged.  I'm sorry this is causing so much trouble; if I have to I'll just try and add everything manually.  And I have been checking "search for plugins" (or whatever it's called) on every install, just in case that ever pops up :-P