macOS Sonoma remains stable, but a change reportedly related to AU plug-in validation in the recent 14.4 update can cause compatibility issues. With no significant reason to rush to upgrade, that means you should delay until plug-in developers have updates.
The issue appears to correlate to some (though not all) plug-ins using the widely-used iLok protection scheme from PACE. (auval is Apple’s own plug-in validation tool.) The issue here, as with many plug-in compatibility problems, is that most hosts will simply crash without explanation. Sometimes those crashes will occur when instantiating the problematic plug-in, but some hosts will hard crash just when scanning your plug-in folder, and depending on the host, the whole DAW may crash.
A general word of advice: if your DAW is crashing and you don’t know why, try disabling plug-ins via the host – many hosts have a shortcut on startup for doing this, or if you can launch and get into preferences, you can disable them there (or point them at a different folder). If all else fails, literally move your whole system plug-in folder out of its normal location to somewhere safe and try again. It’s a crude method, but it at least will narrow down the issue to “yeah, plug-ins.”
Here are some relevant reports – though LiquidSonics says for their part they’re not seeing this issue with their own software, but merely reporting it for their users. (And yeah, if your DAW is crashing, that means you’re unable to use their software even if they and the DAW vendor aren’t be at fault!)
Universal Audio’s statement:
As you may know, Apple recently released the macOS 14.4 Sonoma update. There have been reports of compatibility issues impacting plug‑ins from various manufacturers that are safeguarded by PACE / iLok with Audio Units host DAWs such as Logic Pro on Apple silicon Macs.
Consequently, if you utilize Audio Units on an Apple silicon computer, it is recommended to defer your update until more is known. We are contacting PACE and will update you after we find a resolution.
PACE / iLok Issue with macOS Sonoma 14.4 Update [Universal Audio]
And NeuralDSP
And all these plug-ins [VI-control forum]
And reports here and here (via Sonnox) …
I’ve heard from multiple readers, including @jagalot who says SSL plug-ins were causing him issues:
Sonoma 14.4 Compatibility Advisory Note [LiquidSonics]
Mac Users: Do Not Update to Sonoma 14.4 Yet [Synth and Software]
Metric Halo also recommended against upgrading, though they report their products have no issue.
Note, if you’re in a bind, you upgraded and can’t roll back, you could try forcing your host into Rosetta 2 mode, as some users seem to report that solves their issue. Choose Get Info on the application’s icon (cmd-I) and you’ll see a checkbox. Just don’t forget to switch it back again later. (Uh, yeah, I’ve done that! Erm, no I haven’t, definitely a friend did that. Yeah.)
Incidentally, I was over the weekend investigating not this but a different issue – I’m still on macOS Sonomar 14.2.1 which seems unaffected. But I found that swapping out Ableton Live 12 stable for the last beta version unexpectedly made all my iLok plug-ins fail, as well as the iLok License Manager. In my case, I downloaded iLok License Manager from the iLok site, ran the uninstaller (the uninstall tool is inside that download), rebooted, and reinstalled License Manager. That fixed the issue with all iLok plug-ins in Live. I don’t know that this fix helps with Sonoma 14.4, though, and I don’t have an explanation to why License Manager suddenly failed for me.
The only good news with iLok is, once you do fix the problem you typically fix all related plug-ins, so the annoyance factor is greater, but the fix is comprehensive.
Keep us posted; I’ll post an all-clear if we do hear more.
There is no reason to update to 14.4, meanwhile; its banner feature is new emojis.
I literally remember troubleshooting issues with PACE and Apple OS updates 25 year ago (!) in 1999 while I was in college. So, let’s check what the top Billboard single was in 1999 and… ha. It’s “Believe,” which is even the most prominent song ever to involve a plug-in. Perfect.
(Developers to PACE: “What am I supposed to do? Sit around and wait for you?“)
I would say the new shaking head emoji and broken chain cover the situation reasonably well, if you did update:
