I’ve got a new M4 Pro MacBook Pro 14“ (12 cores, 24GB, 1TB; MacOS 15.1.1) a few days ago. It’s a nice upgrade from my M1 MacBook Pro 13“, but unfortunately, it crashes a lot. I’ve had at least 5 kernel panics in the last couple of days, and additionally it told me it wasn’t shut down correctly after 2 or 3 normal reboots. That’s more crashes than I’ve had in the last decade or so.
The tools I’ve played around with so far: Live 12, lots of m4l devices (mostly by Fors), NI (Reaktor, Massive X, FX), Arturia (FX, Pigments) and a few smaller tools like IK-M‘s clipper or PSP Vintage Warmer.
Installed and potentially running in the background, presumably mostly copy protection stuff: NI, Arturia, iLok, Elektron Overbridge, Steinberg, Softube, Plugin Alliance, Universal Audio, Waves.
Yes, I’m aware that not everything is officially supported yet, but that’s life as an early adopter, I guess. I haven’t connected any external gear like Push or a display yet, it’s all standalone.
I haven’t kept detailed tabs from the start, but the crashes happened only when working in Live and trying to load a plugin. The machine freezes for a few seconds and then reboots. It might be a coincidence, but it seems to happen with NI software in particular. The machine crashed at least twice while trying to load Reaktor and once with Freak.
Apparently, I’m not alone. There are numerous reports of crashes with these new machines, mostly gaming/Metal related. It seems to affect M4 Pro or M4 Max devices.
Now I’m curious to hear any audio related experiences. Any other early M4 adopters here willing to share how it’s going so far? I’d like to avoid reinstalling the OS from scratch or sending back the machine altogether. Thanks.
M4 Pro crashes
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- KVRian
- 544 posts since 1 Jan, 2021
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- KVRAF
- 2382 posts since 23 Sep, 2004 from Kocmoc
https://github.com/puma/puma/issues/3551
https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/issues/20890
Also Strawberry crashes whole OS. What did they do?
https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/issues/20890
Also Strawberry crashes whole OS. What did they do?
Soft Knees - Live 12, Diva, Omnisphere, Slate Digital VSX, TDR, Kush Audio, U-He, PA, Valhalla, Fuse, Pulsar AUDIO, NI, OekSound etc. on Win11Pro R7950X & RME AiO Pro
https://www.youtube.com/@softknees/videos Music & Demoscene
https://www.youtube.com/@softknees/videos Music & Demoscene
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- KVRian
- Topic Starter
- 544 posts since 1 Jan, 2021
Yeah, lots of reports like this floating around. Interestingly, it’s M4 Pro or Max machines, again.legendCNCD wrote: Sun Dec 01, 2024 1:24 pm https://github.com/puma/puma/issues/3551
https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/issues/20890
Also Strawberry crashes whole OS. What did they do?
Userland apps really shouldn’t be able to crash the whole system. But apparently it’s not that easy to release new CPUs and a new OS, and expect it being rock solid. Then again, as an early M1 adopter it was amazing to see how flawless the transition was. It looks like they haven’t gotten it quite right this time.
BTW, I’ve stopped using Native Instruments plugins for now and haven’t had an OS crash since. It’s early days, it might be a coincidence while I’m poking around in the dark yada yada, but the machine hasn’t crashed in over 30 hours. Hooray! Hopefully others can chime in, as those machines find their way into studios.
Live 12 crashes a lot, though. Usually when loading VST3 plugins, but I had at least one m4l related crash (loading Opal) as well.