Hi,

For some reason none of my VST soft synths will open any longer. VSTs no longer scan on opening Cakewalk and when I try to scan manually in preferences the "Scan VST Folder" button is greyed out. Any ideas for how to fix this? I've been trying to get a response from Cakewalk support for days and NOTHING!

Thanks,
Todd

Are you running SONAR 64 bit or 32 bit?
 
If the VstScan button in preferences is grayed out it means that SONAR cannot find the vst scanner. There are two possible reasons for this:
1. The scanner itself is missing. The installer typically puts it here:
C:\Program Files\Cakewalk\Shared Utilities\VstScan.exe
 
2. The path to the scanner is not found. It should be in the registry here:
HKCU\Software\Cakewalk Music Software\SONAR\Cakewalk VST X64\VSTScanPath
 
If the path in 2 is not found SONAR will not scan any vst's. To restore the path you can force personalization again.
To do that exit SONAR, then relaunch SONAR by clicking its shortcut in the start menu while holding down the shift key. This will launch SONAR and show the personalization dialog. Allow it to proceed and personalize.
This should restore the missing reg key to the VST scanner.
 
If that doesnt work try resinstalling SONAR and redo the personalization. Somehow something removed the path to the scanner on your system. Either a reg cleaner or a failed install possibly.

Thanks for your help. Just tried to redo the personalization method and that did not work. To re-install do I need to uninstall first?

Thanks

Did you get the personalization prompt?
You shouldn't need to uninstall. Where are you doing the scan from?
Please do it from SONAR's preferences | VST dialog.
Also check if VstScan.exe is found here: C:\Program Files\Cakewalk\Shared Utilities\VstScan.exe
 

I did get the personalization prompt but it seemed to have no effect. The "Scan VST Folder in Preferences is greyed out. Also I must have goofed something up because I can't find the shared utilities folder. Here is how I think I messed up: When I had an earlier problem opening a file in X1 I tried opening it in X3 on the same machine. This seemed to goof up a lot of things as some of my soft synths moved from the soft synth dialog to the FX dialog and, of course would no longer open. I tried uninstalling X3 and a copy of Sonar 6 I had on the same machine but this just seemed to bungle up things even more

I'll try the reinstall to try and sort everything out. Thanks for your help.

Todd

If you can't find C:\Program Files\Cakewalk\Shared Utilities\VstScan.exe thats the problem.
Reinstalling SONAR from command center should fix that.