Hello Native Instruments Team and fellow users,
I would like to bring attention to an ongoing issue that has been affecting many users for nearly two years without resolution: frequent kernel panics when using Kontakt 8 and other NI effects such as Raum and Battery on newer Apple Silicon machines (after M1). Unfortunately, this remains a significant frustration for customers who have invested thousands of dollars into both Mac hardware and Native Instruments products, only to encounter system crashes when using these tools.
From my testing, this problem appears specifically related to the newer display scaling architecture on newer Macs. The issue does not occur on M1 or Intel-based Macs, which use a different scaling system.
To give a concrete example:
- My setup is a Mac Studio M2 Max connected via HDMI 2.1 to a Samsung 57” G9 monitor.
- With Logic Pro, I can run plugins from other vendors without issue. However, as soon as I load Kontakt 8, Battery, or many other NI plugins, the system kernel panics and reboots.
- As an experiment, I forced the monitor to use HDMI 1.4 instead of HDMI 2.1. This removed HiDPI scaling options and limited me to a lower resolution (3840x1080, non-HiDPI). While the visual quality suffered, the result was telling: after over 10 hours of stress testing exclusively with Native Instruments plugins, I did not experience a single crash.
This strongly suggests that NI plugins are not fully compatible with the newer HiDPI scaling methods used by macOS on Macs after M1. I can’t be certain this is the long-term solution or that it will work across all systems, but it’s a lead worth investigating.
I encourage both the NI team and other users to replicate this test and confirm the behavior.
I truly hope this information helps move us toward a solution. Many of us rely on Native Instruments daily, and resolving this issue would restore confidence and improve the experience for the professional community.
Best regards,
Martin
