Unrecognised plugins in MuLab 9/10 that load in MuLab 8

[Calum]

Apologies if this has been asked already, but I am curious as to why so many of the plugins I used in MuLab 8 can no longer be accessed in MuLab 9 or 10. All the (mainly VST2 but there are a few VST3) plugins in the screenshot below can be loaded and appear to be quite stable in MuLab 8 on my M4 Mac but they are unrecognised in MuLab 9 and 10.

Screenshot 2026-01-02 at 13.32.47.png

This is not a feature request and I am not asking for a fix but I am curious to know what factors have caused this change in MuLab's plugin scanning behaviour. I'm also wondering if there is a setting I can change to make the plugin scanner less picky?

[MuTools]

Try rescanning one of them, then share (here or via email) the detailed log file for that scan.

[Calum]

Here are screenshots of the log files when rescanning a synth and an effect:

Screenshot 2026-01-02 at 14.04.51.png

Screenshot 2026-01-02 at 14.05.08.png

[MuTools]

Well, looks like the log file gives the reason:
The MacOS function CFBundleLoadExecutable failed.
Looks like these plugins are outdated to your current MacOS / system.

[Calum]

That was my suspicion but thanks for confirming. Luckily these plugins appear to run without issue hosted in MuLab 8 in the same MacOS/system. I suppose that’s Apple trying to make things difficult again for the sake of progress!!

[MuTools]

Yes i'm afraid it's another round of MacOS compat nagging. Just curious: In which version of MuLab 9 are you using these plugins? Are you using M9 in Rosetta mode?

[Michael L]

Download the latest Aalto and TB versions (free now). They open in M10

[Calum]

Yes i'm afraid it's another round of MacOS compat nagging. Just curious: In which version of MuLab 9 are you using these plugins? Are you using M9 in Rosetta mode?

Ah, now I get it. I didn’t have MuLab running in Rosetta mode. So if I turn on Rosetta mode in MuLab 9 and 10 all the plugins are now recognised. Hopefully I can now transition all my old projects to MuLab 10 and use the Rosetta switch to decide between plugin compatibility and processing power. This is a lightbulb moment for me and I’m glad I asked. Thank you!!

All this talk about Rosetta is giving me flashbacks to 2005 when the original Rosetta mode was introduced to transition from PowerPC to Intel. That wasn’t fun either! I believe Rosetta 2 will be dropped with the introduction of MacOS 27. I will be in no hurry to upgrade when that happens!

[Calum]

Download the latest Aalto and TB versions (free now). They open in M10

I only have the Computer Music magazine version of Aalto and I don’t need the full version for these old projects. I’ll check out the latest TB plugins for silicon compatibility though as I would like to continue to use them. Thanks!

[Calum]

Download the latest Aalto and TB versions (free now). They open in M10

I only have the Computer Music magazine version of Aalto and I don’t need the full version for these old projects. I’ll check out the latest TB plugins for silicon compatibility though as I would like to continue to use them. Thanks!

I just checked and (unless I found the wrong download link) it looks like the legacy TB plugins are not silicon native. They still require Rosetta to run.