Audio Unit Crashes in Sonoma 14.4.1 – Resolved by 14.5 Update?

Last week, Apple announced the release of Sonoma 14.5.

https://www.macrumors.com/2024/05/13/apple-releases-macos-sonoma-14-5

This is welcome news to some of my Audio Support clients who have recently purchased Macs running Sonoma 14.4.1 and want to use pro-audio plug-ins in Garageband and Logic Pro.

Sonoma 14.4.1 contained bugs which caused Kontakt 7 and Spitfire Audio plug-ins to crash.

This is despite problems with Audio Units in Sonoma being recognised by Apple and apparently resolved in the release notes for 14.4.1:

There have been reports of compatibility issues with PACE products in macOS 14.4, including the iLok License Manager, connected to Apple silicon Macs running macOS 14.4. The problem specifically impacts plugins from various manufacturers that are safeguarded by PACE/iLok, including those made by Universal Audio, when used with host DAWs such as Logic Pro. Apple’s release notes for macOS 14.4.1 say the update provides a fix for cases in which “copy protected Audio Unit plug-ins designed for professional music apps may not open or pass validation.”

https://www.macrumors.com/2024/03/26/update-your-mac-macos-14-4-1-included-bug-fixes/

However, problems with plug-ins definitely remained in 14.4.1. I can personally confirm seeing crashes with Spitfire Audio and Kontakt, but there may be others.

I’m not personally running Sonoma on my studio Mac, but I have alerted some of my clients who may be affected. I will update this page with news once we know if the 14.5 release resolves these issues.