Logic Pro Core Audio crashing with new M3 Mac (IZotope Neutron 3.10.0 is likely culprit)

forestkelley

Specs: macOS 14.4 (23E214), MacBook Pro (14"), M3 Max, 36 GB RAM, 14 core (10 performance and 4 efficiency)

I think that IZotope Neutron 3.10.0 is crashing Logic and causing related issues. I uninstalled Neutron and reinstalled but the issue is still present.

I've had my M3 Mac for about two weeks. I was working on a project that I started a year ago on my previous MacBook (circa 2019) and all was well until the Core Audio started crashing repeatedly. This happened sometimes while working and almost every time I try to reopen this project. IZotope's Neutron is the most likely culprit but I'm not certain.

I did move groups of plug-ins out of the Components folder to temporarily disable them. With only iZotope plug-ins available, Logic crashes. The program opened fine with all except my iZotope suite. If I only remove iZotope Neutron related plugins, Logic opens fine. I tired a few combination of the various Neutron components and Logic crashes.   

I seem to be able to avoid crashes the most consistently if open Logic without Core Audio started (hold Controle > start Logic > say No at the prompt), go to project Settings and change the Sample Rate from 44.1 to 48 (yes, this keeps resetting), then start Core Audio. 

I did create a test project that uses plugins from each of the third-party developers that I have installed and a mix of 44.1 and 48 khz samples. I opened it a few times without issue which means this bug might be somewhat context dependent. The project sample rate holds at 48 in this case. I have also opened other older projects without issue. So I don't think my project file is corrupt, but it's possible that the issue is confined to the particulars of my current project.

Other observations:

• It's certainly likely that this is a plug-in issue (especially as this is a new computer and an updated OS) but I only have a few third-party plug-ins installed: iZotope, Valhalla, and Serum. I did receive the following error a few times: "An Audio Unit Plug-in reported a problem which might cause the system to become unstable. Please quite and restart Logic Pro." 
• I can always open a new project (with the exception noted below where my keyboards won't work) without any Core Audio issues (although, many of these times I disallowed Core Audio from starting when I opened the project, so I might be slightly overstating this point).
  
• The crashes started only after I decided to download all of the additional Logic samples. Prior, I didn't even have the essential sound library fully installed (I just kept pressing the "later" option). If I remember correctly, I think Logic began to crash shortly after I started initially downloading the library, so I had to force quit and restart the sample downloading process a few times. It's possible that this process or the additional samples aren't the source of the problem, but to attempt to avoid Logic crashing, I tried a few things including: allowing all the samples to complete downloading before using Logic, moving the sample folders outside of the Application Support folder temporarily (i.e., the Alchemy, EXS Factory, and Samples folders), reinstalling the entire sample library again. Sometimes Logic would work again for a little while after relocating the sample folders, but this was probably a matter of luck.
• I tried opening different/older saved versions of my project as well as different project alternatives and they all crash. 
  
• When Logic would periodically start, the project would very frequently be set to the wrong sample rate (44.1 rather than 48), causing the samples to playback slow and out of sync. This was an issue that I encountered in the past a few times with my old MacBook and so it was somewhat familiar. Other threads seem to think this gets reset by a few factors including external audio devices. I'm not sure if this is the primary culprit. I am using the Scarlett 212 interface. On my new MacBook, after the crashing started, the project sample rate resets to 44.1 about half the time (if the project actually opens without crashing). My project is largely based on 48 khz samples, but I am, admittedly, using a few 44.1 khz samples. I do suspect that the crashing has to do with the project or a plug-in not being able to handle something to do with the mixed sample rates. 
  
• I have had few good runs of Logic working for between 2 and 8 hours over the past few days, but it eventually starts to crash and once it does, it's a super pain the butt to get it to work again. I just keep trying various combinations of starting it with and without Core Audio at first, opening new projects prior to opening the project I'm trying to work on, relocating the sample library, and so on.   
• During a few of the crashes, my keyboards stopped working with Logic (bluetooth and the built-in keyboard). In a few instances, I couldn't even stop Logic from playing using my mouse even though I think it was responsive to my clicks. In one instance, I wasn't able to open a new project after restarting because the keyboard wouldn't work and so I couldn't specify the number tracks to open with. Oddly, this typically defaults to 1, but it was set to 0 and I couldn't change it. I even tried to copy and paste a number from another application, but no buttons seem to work with Logic, so it wouldn't paste. In these cases I restarted my computer.  
• Logic crashed once after I tried to freeze an instrument track.    
• This project is admittedly rather large with lots of samples, tracks, and plugins. Given the speed of my new computer, it takes a very long time to load the project. I'd say 3-5 minutes. Other projects load rather quickly.  
• I tried moving the project from my external solid state hard drive only my desktop and that didn't help.