Plug-in won't load — DAW troubleshooting

Most reports of "Hardwave plug-in won't load" turn out to be a stale plug-in cache in the DAW. The fixes below are ranked by how often they resolve the issue. Try them in order — most users are sorted within the first two steps.

1. Force a plug-in rescan in your DAW

When Hardwave Suite installs an update, the new plug-in binary lands on disk — but your DAW may still be working from a cached copy of the previous version's metadata. The two get out of sync, and the DAW shows "wrapper error", "failed to load", or simply doesn't see the plug-in.

FL Studio. Options → Manage plugins → click Find more plugins at the top right. Wait for the scan to complete, then try loading the plug-in again.

Ableton Live. Preferences → Plug-Ins → toggle Use VST3 Plug-In Custom Folder off and back on, or click Rescan.

Studio One. Studio One → Options → Locations → VST Plug-Ins → click Reset Blocklist, then close and reopen Studio One.

Bitwig Studio. Settings → Locations → Plug-In Locations → Reload.

Logic Pro (macOS). Logic Pro → Preferences → Plug-In Manager → select the plug-in → click Reset & Rescan Selection.

Reaper. Options → Preferences → Plug-ins → VST → click Re-scan (or Clear cache and re-scan).

Cubase / Nuendo. Studio → VST Plug-in Manager → settings cog → Reactivate Hidden Plug-ins and Update Plug-in Information.

2. Clear the plug-in cache

If a rescan doesn't pick up the change, the cache itself may be corrupted. Each DAW stores its plug-in cache in a different location. Close the DAW first.

FL Studio: delete the Cache folder inside %APPDATA%\Image-Line\FL Studio \Settings\Plugin database\. FL rebuilds it on next start.

Ableton Live: delete %APPDATA%\Ableton\Live \Preferences\Plug-Ins.cfg (Windows) or ~/Library/Preferences/Ableton/Live /Plug-Ins.cfg (macOS).

Studio One: delete %APPDATA%\PreSonus\Studio One \PluginCache.bin.

Bitwig: delete %LOCALAPPDATA%\Bitwig Studio\plugins-cache.json (or the macOS / Linux equivalent under ~/Library / ~/.bitwigstudio).

Open the DAW, let it rebuild the cache, and try loading the plug-in.

3. Check the Hardwave crash log

Every Hardwave plug-in writes a detailed crash report if it panics during load or operation. The reports live in:

`` Windows: %APPDATA%\hardwave\-crash.log macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/hardwave/-crash.log Linux: ~/.local/share/hardwave/-crash.log ``

Replace with analyser, loudlab, wettboi, kickforge, pumpcontrol, or wideboi.

If the file exists, the plug-in's own code panicked. The full backtrace is in the file — paste it into our #bugs Discord channel or email it to support@hardwavestudios.com and we'll tell you exactly what's wrong (often we can ship a fix the same day).

If the file doesn't exist, the plug-in's code never ran — the failure is host-side, before our code is reached. That's almost always the cache problem covered in steps 1 and 2.

4. Roll back to the previous version

If the rescan and cache clear don't fix it, you can manually install the previous version while we investigate. Every Hardwave plug-in's release history is on GitHub:

• [hardwave-analyser-vst/releases](https://github.com/Dishairano/hardwave-analyser-vst/releases)
• [hardwave-loudlab-vst/releases](https://github.com/Dishairano/hardwave-loudlab-vst/releases)
• [hardwave-wettboi-vst/releases](https://github.com/Dishairano/hardwave-wettboi-vst/releases)
• [hardwave-kickforge-vst/releases](https://github.com/Dishairano/hardwave-kickforge-vst/releases)
• [hardwave-pumpcontrol-vst/releases](https://github.com/Dishairano/hardwave-pumpcontrol-vst/releases)
• [hardwave-wideboi-vst/releases](https://github.com/Dishairano/hardwave-wideboi-vst/releases)

Download the previous version's windows-x64.zip or macos-universal.zip, extract it, and replace the .vst3 and .clap files in your system plug-in folder (C:\Program Files\Common Files\VST3\ on Windows, ~/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/VST3/ on macOS).

5. Still stuck?

Drop a message in [#bugs on our Discord](https://discord.gg/hardwave) with:

1. The exact error text or a screenshot.
2. Which DAW + version (e.g. "FL Studio 21.2 Producer Edition").
3. Your operating system + version.
4. The Hardwave Suite version (Suite → Settings → About).
5. The contents of the crash log file from step 3 (if it exists).

Or email support@hardwavestudios.com with the same info. Most reports are resolved within 24 hours.