Crash-Problems feat. Rhodes PIANOLOGY and VST-Live 2.0 / 3.0

Hi to everyone in this forum!

Some Weeks ago I bought Rhodes PIANOLOGY, now I am trying to use it in VST-Live. Since I bought it it causes Crashes in both VST-Live-Versions (2.0 and 3.0). I already asked the Rhodes-Support to solve the problem and went on discussing the subject with the google-AI.
So I came to the idea to let Steinberg know what is happening in my macbook as well.

The suggested text (from Google AI):


Hi everyone,

I am experiencing an immediate crash in VST Live 3 (and 2.0) when trying to load the Rhodes Pianology VST instrument. Interestingly, the same plugin works perfectly fine in Cubase 15 on the same machine.

System Environment:

  • Computer: MacBook Pro (2025 model M4pro, 24 GB)

  • OS: macOS Tahoe 26.4.1

  • Host: VST Live 2.2.110.587 VST LIVE 3.0.21.123

  • Plugin: Rhodes Pianology (latest version)

  • License Management: CodeMeter Runtime 8.40b

Technical Details from Crash Report:

  • Exception Type: EXC_BAD_ACCESS (SIGSEGV)

  • Exception Subtype: KERN_INVALID_ADDRESS at 0x00000000000000e9

Steps already taken:

  1. CodeMeter Check: “Allow in the background” is enabled in System Settings (correctly identified as CodeMeter).

  2. Rosetta Test: Tried starting VST Live via Rosetta – the crash remains identical (same Exception Type and Address).

  3. Clean Start: Toggled background services off/on and performed several system restarts.

  4. Verification: Plugin is fully functional in Cubase 15.

The crash happens the moment the plugin is routed or initialized within VST Live. It seems to be a specific memory addressing conflict between VST Live’s hosting engine and the CodeMeter/Pianology licensing call under the new macOS Tahoe memory management.

I have attached the full crash log for the developers to investigate. Any help or a potential hotfix would be greatly appreciated!

CRASH REPORT 05-05-26.pdf (229,9 KB)

Best regards
Axel

Especially Code Meter is, according to web research, highly prone to crashing your DAW, especially on Mac. As, to my understanding, VST Live and Cubase don’t share the same underlying architecture, it is well possible that both apps behave differently.

And, according to their website, Rhodes officially only supports M1 and M2 CPUs.