The only issue I still had was with Serato Sample.
#DECAPITATOR VST FAILED TO LOAD UPDATE#
I did look under Preferences within Live and noticed that I did not have "Use VST Plug-In System Folders" selected! I honestly don't know if I ever have? I did update to version 10 recently, so maybe it defaulted back to that being unselected? Regardless, when I turned that ON and Rescanned the plugins, all of the Waves plugins now loaded fine! I was afraid this wouldn't work, since they apparently are all installed under Macintosh HD -> Applications -> Waves (as this is where it made me install.), but alas, no worries at all. however, that is the installed format on both of my Macs - and they have always worked just fine: I came across an article on Ableton's site saying that Waves plugins are NOT supported in the AU format. I am on a Mac, so was to understand that is preferable (as long as I'm not collaborating w/ PC folk)? In regards to the possibility of having used AU plugins - most of them are. So, I have made some progress since reviewing your responses and doing a bit of research. Thanks for the replies and sorry for the delayed response on my end (didn't realize I needed to subscribe to my own post in order to receive new post notifications.) You would think that this would be a common issue and/or easily rectified, but I can't seem to find any solutions. Further, on Serato Sample, I have to re-load the samples I had chosen (not to mention their key, the same slice settings, etc.) which is impossible.
![decapitator vst failed to load decapitator vst failed to load](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/sd3xh9upEnLLkbkTpyUMjL.jpg)
#DECAPITATOR VST FAILED TO LOAD PATCH#
I know that I could just re-load the plugins in question, but patch selections / presets are lost if I do this.
![decapitator vst failed to load decapitator vst failed to load](https://www.soundtoys.com/wp-content/uploads/350PS-Transformer-and-Tube.jpg)
which leads me to my question - is there ANY way to relocated the plugins without losing my settings? The pop-up box reporting the missing plugins does NOT give the option to locate these "missing" plugins. I think that the issue is the plugins have a different file directory path than they did on my desktop, so Live is not finding them. I tried to Re-Scan plugins from within Ableton Live before even opening a project, to see if that would update things, but no luck. Some Waves plugins, Serato Sample, etc etc. Unfortunately, I went to open a project created a few months ago - on my desktop - and upon loading the project, it says "The VST Plugin Could Not Be Found" next to a list of a few plugins that ARE on my laptop. I put every plugin / software application onto the laptop that was originally on my iMac desktop - so I figured there would be no issues.
![decapitator vst failed to load decapitator vst failed to load](https://splice-res.cloudinary.com/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto,w_auto/t_plugin_detail/v1392655872/production/plugin_descriptions/screenshot/331.jpg)
I have historically created all of my Live projects on my iMac, however, I recently got a newer Macbook, so I've been creating solely on that. I've tried searching on this topic without much luck, so figured I'd start a new post in hopes that someone might be able to help.