C74 Sandbox missing plugin?

Hey Joey(seen you on Lines :) welcome back to Max! :D), not sure what patch that is(you could link to patches or upload them here too and it’ll help folks get you a solution faster), but usually when you see a ‘VST~:can’t find plugin…’ error like that, it’s only because the person made the patch with that specific VST-plugin loaded within the vst~ object found within that same patch. i don’t know what ‘Diva’ does(maybe it’s this plugin: https://u-he.com/products/diva/), but if you place that plugin in your vst~ plugins folder on your system, the patch would load it into that vst~ object upon loadup(you should be able to double-click on the error message right there within the Max console, and Max will highlight the associated vst~ object to help you find it easily, if not and it’s still not easy to see, just use the search engine within the patcher, and do a search for “vst~”, it should highlight the object that way too - depending on the patch you might also need to be in ‘patching’ mode instead of ‘presentation’ mode - from there, if it isn’t visible already, you could create an “open” message attached to the vst~ object, then click the ”open” message to send it to the object, which will open up a file-dialog for you to load in some other vst~ of your choosing there(looks like Diva might be a synth instrument plugin of some kind?)).

but basically, it sounds like you have a patch made by a user which depends on a 3rd party plugin(patches which use a vst~ dependency like that tend to be a custom solution for a particular user, not likely any learning tool that Cycling74 created themselves - these can still be interesting to play with, but they might lead you down a distracting path if you want to learn more Max eventually). if you’re new to max, it’s probably better just to go into the vst~ helpfile, and play with it using the vst-instrument plugins you have on your system already(use the ‘open‘ message, load whatever you have in, and play around right there within the help-file; i learn alot myself by doing a ’save as’ on helpfiles, renaming it to something different to keep the original copy safe, and then going crazy in that saved-as file as a brainstorming/scratchwork area. this can teach you more about how to use Max as it can apply to the system-setup you already have and affords you a simpler way to go object-by-object with better focus(but that’s not to say a patch based around a vst~ plugin can’t be ridiculous fun, too… just don’t get too lost in it if you find it’s hard to get to know: eventually, it’s just going to make you jealous of the plugin developer, haha XD). hope it helps 🍻