"The VST2 plugin could not be found" - Troubleshooting and Tips for macOS Users.

Pleasssseeee someone help! I am dumbfounded as to how this is happening in 2025. I figured this discussion can be used for anyone who knows of tips or tricks to resolve the current situation for mac users.
For a brief context of my situation, I had a 2017 iMac for years and just switched over to the new M4 iMac. On Ableton Live I previously used all VST2 plugins for Kontact, Reakter, Massive, Maschine, and many other Native Instruments plugins. After re-downloading everything to Ableton, I only have the VST3 versions and AU versions. Well everything should be fine right? VST2 to VST3 migration shouldn't cause any preset information or automation information to be lost right?? Of course the developers would have considered the huge community of mac users who spend quite a bit of their money on Native Instrument products right??? It's 2025 right??????
Ok sorry that's a bit excessive. It's just really frustrating opening every project to "The VST2 plugin could not be found". It makes me really scared to think I wouldn't be able to get all of my saved work back :(
So someone please help!!! I found the following on another help discussion:
"If you have older projects on macOS that you created using VST2 plugins they will likely not work on a M1 based mac at all. The VST2 plugin instance needs to be deleted and replaced with the VST3 version of the plugin and any automation needs to be remapped or re-recorded. Of course many people want to know what preset or sound was loaded so launching your DAW in Rosetta mode allows you to reload VST2 versions, backup your settings and switch it all out so when you open in native Apple Silicon mode, things should now be updated with VST3 versions and no longer throw those "migration" or missing plugin errors."
Do I really have to re write all of my automation? Is that really the only solution right now? I understand opening it in Rosetta mode, but can someone go into more detail on how to reload VST2 versions, how to backup your settings, and how to "switch it all out"?
Any help would be truly appreciated! And if anyone knows if and when NI is going to fix this issue, please let me know as well! (If this is actually a mac issue not a NI issue, I will apologize to NI and go pop off on an Apple forum lol)
Comments
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the issue you may be facing is likely the chipset that the Vst was created under…
for example if your a 2017 imac was likely running a intel chipset, thus your VST's required for the M-series chipset is different… but as you know, Rosetta mode can assist in that area… the issue is that your hostDAW would need to be running in rosetta mode,
the issue as it often is… is whether a DAW and the corresponding VST's all work together in Rosetta, whats more is you face the possibility of random crashes with Rosetta,
transitioning to silicon based mac's & holding onto old intel based plugins is always going to be problematic when stability is concerned
i dont know how things work with the m4mac's
but heres a video you might find useful
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This is an Ableton issue, not a Native Instruments one.
There is an "auto replace" functionality available for the automatic migration from vst2 to vst3, but Ableton haven't implemented that feature yet.
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Agreed with @Sunborn. Ableton is the issue here as it does NOT support plugin migration.
All you can do is manually handguide all these old sessions to their new counterparts with VST3.
Know that you will need to know the exact patches and all the other minutia to recreate each session.
Pro Tip: This is where homework comes in handy. Moving from a 2017-era machine - 8 years into the future does require just a tiny bit of pre-prep and study before pulling the trigger.
VP
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