I have been using VSL Studio Solo Strings for over a year with Dorico Pro, including the current versions of both. This was on a MacBook Pro running Sequoia 15.6.1. Today I tried to open a score that I had worked on 4 days ago, but upon the launch of Vienna Ensemble, VE hangs before completing the connection. Apparently the problem is NOT in the project file, because this happens now with another score that uses VE.
I am at a total loss to understand why this happened. None of the files involved were modified since the last time I opened the score. Since I discovered this, I tried both reinstalling VE and upgrading the MacOS to Tahoe 26.5.1. The behaviour is unchanged - I can no longer use VE or successfully load any score that is configured to use it.
I should add that when this happens, VE as well as Dorico will hang when I try to quit them, in either order, and need to be Force Quit.
Ok, the problem seems to have been an iLok issue - reinstalling the licence manager corrected it. However, I now have a new problem: playback of ANYTHING in Dorico gradually distorts until the sound is completely unintelligible. This happens both with VE and with NotePerformer (5.0.1). Restarting Dorico restores normal sound - temporarily.
This did not happen even a half hour ago. The problem is not the Mac sound chip, as I can play previously made renderings via Apple Music, or indeed can stream anything, without distortion. The problem seems to be something amiss with the Dorico audio engine interface. I wonder if multiple force quittings of Dorico could have hosed my Dorico installation?
Edit: reinstalling Dorico did NOT fix the problem.
And apparently the reinstall of the iLok License Manager did NOT fix anything, because once again VE will not launch fully upon loading a score that is configured to use it. Starting the license manager app in standalone mode gives error 2001: Background Component Unavailable, which was also the case before reinstalling the license manager.
did you also search the forum for same or similar topics like for example this one?
Could you please send me one of your projects that won’t load any more? I would like to check some things on them. Please send to u dot stoermer at steinberg dot de
And also please do from the the Dorico menu Help > Create Diagnostic Report. The corresponding zip file also please send me.
Yes, and the topic you linked to reports a symptom that is very different from mine.
There’s nothing wrong with the projects. I’ve found the cause of the VE failures to connect - it IS (was) a license manager issue. I found that for some reason, the extension “PACE Anti-Piracy, Inc.” had somehow been turned off in the background apps list. Apparently when I reinstalled the iLok software the installation restarted the app, but on the next reboot it no longer was being started, and therefore the connections failed. Toggling the setting in System Settings appears to have fixed that issue - VE now connects consistently.
The distortion is a separate issue that appears to have been caused by the upgrade to Tahoe. In fact, after further research I found that MANY users who have upgraded to Tahoe are having similar issues with audio distortion. The standard “fix” is to kill coreaudiod. But it is only a temporary fix - obviously, since the daemon is automatically killed when the computer is rebooted and I’ve done several reboots since discovering the problem. (I’ve also tried killing coreaudiod without rebooting - you have to restart Dorico if you do that, but it has the same effect - it corrects the distortion for the moment - but the problem will come back sooner or later.)
Apparently the only “fix” is to downgrade the OS as this is a known MacOS Tahoe bug. I wish I had known this before upgrading - I did not find these reports in a quick search and assumed that at 26.5.1, all serious bugs in the new release would have been worked out by now. Downgrading MacOS is extremely risky and difficult - I tried to do it once and nearly hosed my system, because of my unusual setup where all user files are on an external disk.
Let this be a warning to all Mac users: do NOT upgrade to Tahoe unless you have to. You may have no issues, and then you may be stuck with a machine that is useless for audio playback.
I should add that what I wrote earlier that the distortion problem occurs ONLY when playing back within Dorico is NOT true. I’ve since experienced this when playing back previously rendered scores in Apple Music as well, although it appears to happen more quickly when playing back a rendering made under Tahoe. So far not when streaming audio on YouTube - but based on what other Tahoe users with the problem have reported, it seems likely that this will eventually happen as well.
Yes, I would not have believed that at subrelease .5.1, Apple had not already resolved a problem like this. Apparently it doesn’t affect everyone under Tahoe - but if you search for “MacOS audio distortion” you will find numerous reports where the problem happens in many different contexts. Given how aggressively Apple markets their stuff to composers and other musicians, this problem should be a priority item for them.
I have encountered audio distortion issue in earlier macOS versions as well, not only Tahoe. The issue happens when my Mac runs out of memory. The issue won’t be fixed even the memory usage goes down later, until I restart my Mac. I don’t see the issue anymore if I keep the memory usage lower than the hardware limit. Perhaps Tahoe amplifies the issue as it apparently consumes more memory.
Maybe, if the memory requirement is affected by whether the sound device is connected through a USB hub. That seems to be the focus of the issue, based on later testing I’ve done. It does NOT happen when using a pair of external speakers connected through the headphones jack - but I cannot play back anything through those speakers except at very low volume, because of my living situation - I have to use headphones when composing in Dorico. And it does not happen when the headphones are connected directly to the Mac (bypassing the hub) - but in that case I have no available ports for the network cable, which I need because my setup relies on static IP addresses and my router’s DHCP server cannot reserve an IP address for a specific device.
I spoke last night with an AppleCare rep, who recommended using Recovery mode to reinstall the new OS. Her theory is that an OS module that is needed to correctly identify my USB hub was not installed correctly the first time. I think it’s likelier that the Tahoe code that identifies external hardware has changed and this hub is now incompatible with the OS - but I’ll try Apple’s suggestion today.
It is unfortunate that the MacBook Pro has so few USB ports (3 on mine) and Apple does not make a USB hub that provides additional USB ports (their multi-port hub provides ports for an HDMI connection and a charging cable - I can’t tell if the charging cable port is USB-C - but that would still provide only one additional port while I need 5 in all).
Just a quick update: The reinstall had, basically, no effect - the problem persists, though I notice that sometimes it occurs when the headphones are plugged directly into the Mac as well. I cannot tell if this is a change, since I only tried the direct connection once before the reinstall.
I now have an appointment with an Apple-approved service tech at (unfortunately) Best Buy. This was after another call to Apple this morning. The Apple tech (a senior advisor) suspects the problem is with the headphones themselves - a very remote possibility IMO, considering that the sound was fine immediately before the upgrade and distorted immediately afterward.
The reason I keep posting these updates is not to reassure people that this problem is specific to my hardware configuration, just the opposite: similar audio degradation has been reported by several other users with different hardware/software setups. I think it’s reasonable to suspect that these problems are all due to some underlying bug in the Tahoe kernel, and that anyone who uses a Mac for composing should really avoid that upgrade if possible, at least until a fix for the underlying problem is available.