Migrating vom PC to Mac

[Luis]

Hi there. I transfered a project from my Windows machine to my new MBP m4 and Icarus VST3 format in the project, it says plugin not found. I re-installed the plugin and nothing. I'm using Ableton 12.3. I tried another project and it says the same thing. Any idea? Thanks.

[Markus Krause]

PC and Mac are different platforms and got a completely different architecture.
Migrating a song to a another computer with a different architecture is very risky as there are many things that can go wrong.

What can cause issues?
- A plugin is missing and not installed
- A plugin is not available on one platform (e.g. there is no Mac version)
- A plugin is not available on the new platform in the right CPU architecture (e.g. no M1 native version exists)
- The plugins have different version numbers
- A plugin is not available as a format on a platform (e.g. AudioUnits)
- The DAW uses different file formats on the platforms
- The plugins have a different plugin-ID and the DAW can't handle it
- The DAW dropped support for a format on a platform (e.g. Cubase on M1)

What can you do as a workaround?
- Finish the song on your old platform
- Dump the affected audio track before you migrate
- Try another plugin format (e.g. VST2)
- Save the patch and midi data of the affected track separately and then load it on the new platform manually
- Use a different DAW