SplineEQ shows a black screen in Live 11 on OSX Catalina

[lyoshazebra]

Hey there!
Not sure if that's the right place to post this, but I just decided to check the EQ out and it just shows the black screen when added. I'm talking about the AU version of a free SplineEQ on OSX Catalina in Live 11. Anyone knows if thats fixeable?

Thanks!

[A_SN]

I've heard of such problems on Catalina and what can I say? Everything on macOS breaks every two years while Windows still runs programs from the 1990s just fine. At least 90% of the emails I get about problems are about macOS. I think it's time to stop supporting macOS. I honestly don't see why users still bother with this platform given that it makes you jump through hoops just to open many programs you download and makes you unable to use programs you bought unless they're constantly updated, and it's probably only going to get worse with the new CPU architecture.

So to be specific the solution to this problem is: use Windows, it just works.

[Neon Breath]

That is one of the most rude answer I’ve read from a developper. Wow.

Why do you still sell broken macOs software and collect money then? I think you are right, it’s about time to stop supporting macOS if you cannot update correctly your products like mostly all the other devs do.

[A_SN]

How quick you are to turn on me, Neon Breath, don't you think you're overreacting? I've always told it like it is like a real person in real life would and never hid behind a mask of professionalism because I'm just a guy in an apartment, maybe that makes me more "rude", and my previous message was my honest sentiment about dealing with Apple and how screwed the situation is. I didn't mean to be rude towards OP and I'm not sure why you interpreted it that way, my frustration (and seething contempt) is towards Apple, but yes I've recently started seriously considering announcing this. I'm not sure how this should be handled, I haven't yet made any decision because I've been thinking about what to do for a few months and nothing I can think of is really satisfactory, maybe I should start with a disclaimer that I have no plans to fix macOS support, I don't even know how something that worked fine for a decade is supposed to be fixed by me.

And I really think you should all stop using macOS, I have no idea why you people keep buying a platform that is more and more proprietary and goes out of its way to break everything you need every couple of years, not to mention making both developers and users jump through more and more hoops to run anything while Windows allows you to run anything that hasn't been updated in 20 years run perfectly fine. Whatever you have now that won't be updated anymore is highly likely to not work on macOS within a very few years, I don't know why this is considered acceptable, there are lots of very dependable products that you won't be able to use anymore, doesn't this worry you as a Mac user? As for other devs they crawl through broken glass if Apple makes them (probably because they think they'd go out of business otherwise), and they do their very best (not me though) to make sure you don't have to worry about it. Apple breaks their programs for no reason (Windows doesn't do that) with a new OS update and they scramble to fix it before you even think of updating. Apple tells them to send them any new build they have to "notarise" it and wait a few hours to get the result before they can release it lest they prevent users from opening it with a dishonest warning about malware, not only do they do it but they also pay $99/year for the privilege. When Apple tells them they have a new programming language they learn it, when Apple releases a new CPU architecture they buy the machine and develop for it, when Apple says they're dropping OpenGL/CL they drop it and learn Apple's proprietary API (and again literally none of this applies to Windows so this isn't normal). I tried jumping through the hoops and that's no way to live, I don't want to abandon Mac users but I also didn't sign up for a lifetime of jumping however high Apple tells me to. I think all developers should probably pull the rug on Apple, and the most sensible way to do it is probably to just not adapt, and if it breaks everything it breaks everything and macOS will be thought of as a derelict platform. Too much of any developer's time is spent dealing with primadonna Apple's nonsense, and to be totally honest with you in 2021 I've found a better way to make money unrelated to programming than to deal with this nonsense, so my intention from now on is to go back to programming what I actually want to and not get bug reports from Mac users anymore. Should I start with a disclaimer on my website? Probably.

To be specific about SplineEQ I might update it one day (a rewrite is an option, but nothing truly exciting feature-wise), but I don't see how it will fix the problems Apple invents. The way I see it macOS is a doomed platform and whatever anyone does to adapt to the worsening ways of dealing with it won't change it. I'm currently working on a rewrite of Spiral as a standalone program, I currently plan for it to have a Windows version and a WebAssembly version (so it can run in a web browser, although that limits the choices of sound inputs), no Mac version, although maybe I could let someone else maintain Mac builds for me. Both the Windows version and the web version will have a chance at running fine for decades without me worrying about it, whereas a Mac version will be doomed in so many ways, for one thing it will stop working as soon as Apple drops x86 emulation on their new platform, which is just a few years away.

Btw as for "collecting money", wtf do you think happens, I get emails with bug reports, then I have to issue refunds for people I "collected money" from. For instance a few days ago a Mac user couldn't save sound files with Photosounder no matter which way he tried, so I refunded him. You make it sound like I cynically run away with the money like a cackling villain. If you get such problems with anyone's programs you can always get a refund, it's really no big deal. So far I think I got 3 or 4 reports of this black window problem, I'm not sure why I got so few, but that's macOS for you, things break randomly sometimes. Twelve years of dealing with random macOS crap, it ate a big chunk of my time and energy while it was smooth sailing all the way on Windows, I can't say I'll miss it. Anyway I guess I should update my website to reflect the situation.

In conclusion: use Windows, and please take it easy I don't need drama.

Edit: I've added warnings on the buy pages for SplineEQ and Spiral. As for Photosounder I'll still maintain the Mac version for now.

[Neon Breath]

Good thing that you updated your website. I understand what you mean, not fun, time consuming, etc, but at the end it’s the developer’s responsibility to keep updating their products and keep them up to date, not the customers to switch to Windows. That’s why I thought your previous response was rude. Cause guess what, no matter how many times you tell people to stop using macOS, well it won’t happen so I don’t see the point bringing that argument.

Professionally, I have to use both Windows and OSX for different jobs and tasks and I can tell you -as a user- that Windows is far, very far away from being perfect for many reasons I won’t get into here. So you personally might hate developing on it, still they are strong points why people use it outside your world. I use OSX since around 25 years and I personally never had majors issue with updates, as the developers at some point or another keep their software up to date. So…

Anyway, good luck and I hope you keep having fun and success in your software development.

[A_SN]

Thanks! It's always better if developers keep supporting a platform for as long as possible, but also some of them might not want to support the same thing forever as things change.

[thresholdpeople]

Yeah, it's a damn shame it's like that. There are issues with both OSes and hardware that can run them as far as I'm concerned. I think the audio drivers work better on macs than Windows.. ASIO is pretty wild west, and not using ASIO, or being doomed to ASIO4ALL is no great solution.

I recently switched over to a mac after a long long time of using windows, this is before the newest processors came out.

I initially bought a windows laptop, and it had awful DPC latency, which seems to be a plague on windows laptops. I wasn't able to run two audio tracks -- playing back pre-recorded wav files without dropouts! Upon investigation is seemed like russian roulette whether a laptop might have the same issue or not. Seems that the way the brand of laptop manufacturer codes the motherboard and BIOS integration can cause this. I had a dell, but I found posts of nearly every large manufacturer having similar issues. And in fact the dell was supposed to have already fixed this issue a few months prior to me purchasing it, and no dice, still didn't work well .. Like the previous generation of thinkpads might not have the issue but the current did, just a big guessing game with lots of wasted time testing things out. Macs had other complaints other there of TB3 drivers not working well, but I think by the time I got mine that had been solved.

A windows machine comes with more bloat wear, and unfortunately it seems like the success of apple over the last decade or so has pushed windows OSes to get generally worse trying to appeal in similar ways to mass markets. For me, basically, I think both suck kinda bad, and it's really the lesser of both evils. And that depends on a bunch of different factors.

And yeah apple's practice of easily locking out developers and users based on new updates is bullshit for sure. And they got caught throttling CPU artificially in phones as a means to get people to upgrade to latest generations.. but here I am still typing this on my mac, and running software on it.

Sorry for the ramble, it kind of seems to me that generally things are becoming harder and worse with all these platforms. As a musician I'm pessimistic about both. Though I do feel your pain as a developer. And FWIW I didn't find your response rude in the least. I think it's a fair stance to take- not all the onus should be on you. Though yeah, a warning on your site is prolly the right way to go.

Also, unfortunately SplineEQ doesn't work for me either with Catalina and Ableton 11, but it does work in Reaper, so that actually seems like an Ableton thing??

[A_SN]

Sorry for the ramble, it kind of seems to me that generally things are becoming harder and worse with all these platforms. As a musician I'm pessimistic about both. Though I do feel your pain as a developer. And FWIW I didn't find your response rude in the least. I think it's a fair stance to take- not all the onus should be on you. Though yeah, a warning on your site is prolly the right way to go.

Also, unfortunately SplineEQ doesn't work for me either with Catalina and Ableton 11, but it does work in Reaper, so that actually seems like an Ableton thing??

I also have issues with sound randomly skipping on the whole system on Windows, even though I changed motherboards, I find it amazing that after all these years we still can't get something so basic right. But other than audio driver issues Windows has the permissiveness and lack of forced software obsolescence I need, and I think more users should start to appreciate that as the software landscape changes less dramatically over the decades and old and non-updated software remains valuable.

As for the Ableton problem yes this is rather perplexing, I don't know what they changed to break something that used to work fine for such a long time.

[chroma]

Don't know if it helps, but I got Spiral working on the latest M1 macbook pro + monterey (which I was happy about, i've always loved spiral) + live 11. Live 11 still has some weird issues with spiral even on my old mac (worked fine in live 10, but it's not the only one - the old Alchemy has the same issue) but at least i can use it.

I did have to codesign it to use it, or you just get the error about not being able to open it.
To do that, install the free Xcode (which iirc is free but large), find the component, go to e.g. /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/Components/Spiral.component/Contents/MacOS and do 'codesign -s - Spiral' (all those dashes are important), "-s -" applies an 'ad hoc' signature that will only work on the same mac it's codesigned on but allowed me to continue using it.

[A_SN]

Don't know if it helps, but I got Spiral working on the latest M1 macbook pro + monterey (which I was happy about, i've always loved spiral) + live 11. Live 11 still has some weird issues with spiral even on my old mac (worked fine in live 10, but it's not the only one - the old Alchemy has the same issue) but at least i can use it.

I did have to codesign it to use it, or you just get the error about not being able to open it.
To do that, install the free Xcode (which iirc is free but large), find the component, go to e.g. /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/Components/Spiral.component/Contents/MacOS and do 'codesign -s - Spiral' (all those dashes are important), "-s -" applies an 'ad hoc' signature that will only work on the same mac it's codesigned on but allowed me to continue using it.

Good to know, nice workaround!

[kidslow]

So I take it from this thread that we shouldn't expect any future updates for Mac of the Photosounder products?

[A_SN]

So I take it from this thread that we shouldn't expect any future updates for Mac of the Photosounder products?

I'll keep making new Mac builds of Photosounder for now but hopefully in the future it will all be WebAssembly+WebGPU, at least this will work well on every platform and for every OS update. I don't think Apple nor most people realise what a very suitable alternative to making native programs this combination is about to become (WebGPU isn't really there yet, but it will be soon enough). As web technologies progress and match the feature set of native app development we're ruining out of reasons to jump through all of Apple's hoops and Apple won't be able to dictate what we can or can't do or how we must do things anymore.

As for my rewrite of Spiral (which I started and works on a basic level but is in hiatus while I work on remaking Photosounder's core algorithms) the plan was always to make it a standalone program for Windows and the web, no point in making a macOS build when the web version would offer a smoother setup.

[kidslow]

Thanks for the follow-up. WebGPU sounds intriguing. I don't envy small developers trying to keep pace with Apple's forced changes. My suspicion is that this jump to ARM is the last major one for at least another 5 years. Silicon is a major step change but then should not be so contentious while the developer community catches up. It reminds me a lot of the move from PPC to X86, but you're right to think Apple will come up with some new obstacle for developers in the future. It's part of their business model to force upgrades.

To answer your question why would anyone use a Mac, the thing is that they just look better and interact with the user better than any other OS. I've been using computers for 40+ years and I'm equally proficient on any of Windows, Mac or Linux. My day-to-day is a Mac because it's just a nicer experience for the eye and the brain, even if you factor in all the problems that Apple introduces that cascade down the line to developers and lead to abandoned software. Give Apple some credit because over half of the recent problems they've laid on developers pre-dating M1 are related to tightening the security of the operating system at the expense of convenience for the user and developer. Not apologizing for them, but forcing developers to sign their builds and locking down access to the OS is responsible business practice in today's day and age.

[A_SN]

I disagree about signing, but remember it's not only signing, there's also notarising (which means sending every build to Apple and waiting a few hours for them to send back the notarised build that we can then release. I sign Photosounder but don't notarise it that's why the Gatekeeper warning remains) and how we have to pay for it. A lot of it has to do with Apple trying to make us use its derelict app store, their whole idea is trying to make their desktop follow their phones, so downloading a .dmg from a third party website is something that to them is barely tolerable. It's the phonification of the desktop experience which leads to macOS being less and less a serious platform suitable for more advanced users (for instance most free open source apps are unsigned so you have to deal with restrictions on it, and let's not mention unupdated software that becomes quickly unusable). And like I said there's also the rest of the walled garden aspect to their moves, they abandoned open standards like OpenGL (granted this one is long in the tooth but they didn't even bother to keep it up to date despite still being widely used) and OpenCL in favour of a closed and proprietary API that you can't use elsewhere, same thing with languages, first they forced us to use Objective-C (which no one even knew) now we're supposed to drop it in favour of Swift, which no one knew before either and can't be used anywhere else. They try to make it difficult to make programs that work on both macOS and Windows, perhaps hoping we make more macOS exclusives. In fact macOS is now the ProTools of operating systems: they force closed proprietary technologies and change them on a whim and insist on making developers pay them when no one else requires that. ProTools wasn't worth bothering with and now macOS isn't worth bothering with mostly now that I can nearly do anything I need on the web and still reach macOS users with fewer hassles.

Now compare with developing for Windows, Linux or the web, I don't have to sign or notarise anything nor pay a yearly fee, I don't have to use anything proprietary, I can keep doing everything in C (with a little bit of added JavaScript for the web), users aren't treated like children who shouldn't be allowed to run a build they downloaded from GitHub, and that's normal, Apple is the odd one out. And they're trying to cripple the web experience too by refusing to implement in Safari new standards that Google, Microsoft and Mozilla are adopting, always using safety as an excuse when the real reason is they're control freaks and they don't like that new web technologies means they're losing control over the experience and won't be able to keep funnelling users and developers to their app store. I don't think they fully realise how all their restrictions spur developers into moving their native programs onto the web. But ultimately that's a good development, I believe the desktop experience of the future is using programs relying on web technologies that work the same and with the same performance regardless of your OS or CPU architecture and that will keep on working for decades with no more forced obsolescence. So when I say I'll stop making native macOS builds in favour of web apps, that's a good thing, I'm just embracing what will be normal and perhaps even expected in the 2030s. It's even quite likely that I'll end up using WebGPU for native desktop Windows builds.