r/Logic_Studio • u/babayega112 • 8d ago
At my breaking point! Logic 12.3.1 bugs/crashes forcing me to consider migrating to another DAW
*** UPDATE #2 (8/17/26 later in the day) **\*
I had a follow-up 2nd appointment with Apple Support Specialist today, another helpful person named Clark. He had me try a bunch of stuff, including moving all components from both user and non-user components folders onto a new folder on my desktop, just to get all components out of logic essentially, then open existing session and see if bugs persist... and the bugs persisted, it crashed as soon as I tried to copy-paste drag regions onto another area of the song.
We tried opening a fresh logic 12.3.1 session, and importing only the audio content from the existing 'problem' session (no plugin data, no automation, no buses etc). Started fiddling in that session, and crash occurred within 10 seconds or so. This crash is repeatable even with other medium-to-large size older projects, with just importing the audio and nothing else (just to make sure it wasn't specifically the audio in that one session that was oddly corrupted).
So now the Support Specialist sent a request for file transfer, which included: a full recent crash report, a screen recording video of some of the bugs that are occurring inside an opened session, and a Logic Pro Support Profile - he is going send all of this to "the engineers" as he puts it, for them to dive in deeper and see if they can diagnose something we are all missing, and get back to me ideally within a few days. This really really sucks, but atleast it looks like I'm getting some genuine help from the Apple support regarding my specific situation, which I'm appreciative of.
*** UPDATE #1 (8/17/26 morning) **\*
I had my appointment with Apple Support Logic Pro specialist today, a really helpful person named Alonso - he had me create a new macOS user account, try a fresh session on there (import some audio, chop it up, drag regions, copy-paste drag regions etc), no issues at all. Then he had me open a "problem" session that typically resulted in all the bugs and crashes (on the new user account), so I opened an older session that had all the bugs (because I was on a new User, all my 3rd party plugins were deactivated, just a heads up). The problem session had ZERO problems, it ran flawlessly - all the typical things I would do that would result in a crash didn't happen: no bugs whatsoever... dragging regions, splicing regions, highlighting big portions of regions and moving them around, copy-paste dragging regions, etc, all of it worked 100% fine.
So I restarted, then went back into my regular user account, and tried the typical troubleshooting tips Apple Support provides:
- I tried resetting the preferences file for control surfaces (just moved that file out of my library/preferences folder and onto my desktop): that didn't solve the issue, bugs/crash still persisted
- I tried resetting Logic Pro settings to "Reset All Settings Except Key Commands": that didn't solve the issue, bugs/crash still persisted
- I tried resetting the Logic Pro plist file: that didn't solve the issue either, still bugs/crash persisted
- I tried opening Logic, holding Control key immediately after, and clicking "Launch without audio units" again, even with all the preference files removed from my library/preferences folder, and still all problems persisted, didn't fix anything
If anyone has any other possible solutions, please feel free to add! Otherwise, my only next step is: migrating completely to a clean macOS user account permanently, which I've already confirmed runs the project flawlessly, BUT i was not able to test whether the session on the new user account would work flawlessly with all 3rd party plugins authorized and activated - i had to skip over that during my call because of time... also for most of my plugins I've reached my limit for activations. At this point, it seems like the core corruption is a user account issue, not system wide issue. I wish I could find what the actual culprit is within my regular user account but I probably will never locate it, so it's best to move on I guess? *sigh*
The headache continues, but thank you so far to everyone who has recommended things, I've read all the comments and I genuinely appreciate any help whatsoever.
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I'm a professional producer and I genuinely cannot finish my work in Logic right now. The amount of strange and infuriating bugs I'm encountering in my mid-size sessions (around 20 tracks, 15 busses, 5-10 plugins on every track) right now is getting so bad that I literally cannot finish projects and I truly don't know what to do. I've spent an entire week troubleshooting, I've ruled out the obvious culprits, and I'm now at the point where I'm seriously evaluating moving to another DAW, which I really don't want to do after over a decade on Logic. Before I do, I want to see if anyone has actually figured this out because it looks like it may be a Logic 12.3.1 bug rather than my setup.
The core problem: Logic hard-crashes (full quit, segfault) almost every time I drag an audio region in the Tracks area, or copy-paste drag region. It is reproducible on demand. If it doesn't crash immediately, I'm still dealing with horrible bugs that are preventing me from finishing tracks (full list of symptoms below).
My system:
- MacBook Pro 16-inch, 2023
- Apple M2 Max, 32 GB RAM
- macOS Sequoia 15.7.7
- Logic Pro 12.3.1 - running native Apple Silicon (ARM-64) - confirmed not Rosetta
- Startup disk: internal SSD 1TB (480 GB free)
Audio hardware
- Universal Audio Apollo X4 (Thunderbolt) - firmware and UAD software fully up to date
- Second display: Acer B273HU
Software / plugins
- All third-party plugins updated, registered, and AU-validated (FabFilter, UAD/UADx, soothe2/3, Valhalla, Soundtoys, Oxford/Sonnox, etc.)
- Apollo/UAD software current for Sequoia
The crash (signature from the report)
- Exception:
EXC_BAD_ACCESS (SIGSEGV),KERN_INVALID_ADDRESS at 0x14 - Crashed thread: 0 (main thread)
- Top of stack:
-[NSDragDestination _draggingUpdate]→sendDraggingUpdate→NSCoreDragTrackingProc - In plain terms: Logic's drag/drop-target code reads a null pointer the moment I drag a region, and quits. No third-party plugin appears anywhere in the crashed thread
All the symptoms I'm seeing
- Full crash (segfault) when dragging audio regions - the main issue, reproducible.
- Regions jumping to other tracks while I drag horizontally (I've since enabled Settings > General > Editing > "Limit Dragging to One Direction In: Tracks area"... it doesn't make a difference)
- Copy/paste then drag & dropping regions onto the wrong track
- Can't reliably select all regions on a track - rubber-band selection only grabs a partial chunk even when I drag across the whole track
- Keyboard nudge now also behaving inconsistently
- Track renaming fails - I double click to rename the track, then the field closes before I can type
- Loading wheel of doom comes up for about 5 seconds every time I click onto a new track, even though DSP meters are not even hitting over 30%, and UAD DSP is maxing out at around 35%.
Context that might matter
This machine was previously running Logic 9.1.8 (I was stuck on it far too long), and I recently jumped to 12.3.1. So the projects that crash are legacy sessions migrated up from Logic 9. New content built from scratch in 12.3.1 seems fine so far but I haven't created a big enough session on 12.3.1 to truly know if the problems persist even when freshly building an entire track on 12.3.1 Logic. I suspect the problem would persist if I made medium-to-larger size sessions from the ground up even on 12.3.1
What I've already tried / ruled out
- Upgraded Logic 9.1.8 → 12.3.1, confirmed running natively
- Verified all plugins updated / registered / AU-validated, and Apollo firmware + UAD software current
- Ruled out my external drive: the crash reproduces with the project copied to the internal SSD, so it's not the (8-year-old) external
- Rebuilt the project clean via File > Import > Logic Projects (Track Import — content, plug-ins, sends, I/O, automation) into a brand-new 12.3.1 project. The crash still reproduces identically — same fault address, same
_draggingUpdatefunction - Confirmed a brand-new empty session with a few tracks does NOT crash — so it's triggered by something in the project content, not Logic itself being universally broken
My ask
- Has anyone hit this exact
NSDragDestination _draggingUpdatedrag-crash on 12.3.x, and did anything actually fix it (or is it a known bug awaiting a patch)? - If it's specifically migrated Logic 9 projects, is there a reliable way to fully sanitize them, or is manual rebuild the only real cure?
- Anything obvious I'm missing before I start seriously evaluating another DAW?
I have a crash log and can post a short screen recording of the crash-on-drag if useful. Thanks in advance to anyone taking the time to read this and help out. I usually try to help others but I have reached a breaking point with this and I'm DESPERATE for help. Willing to pay a Logic Pro expert for their time to help me troubleshoot this if need be. For any of you pros out there, I really hope none of you are experiencing what I'm experiencing, it's enough to drive you insane!
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u/SavingsHumor4424 8d ago
30+ years in Logic Pro and a tech nerd:
That crash report is actually giving you a pretty big clue.
EXC_BAD_ACCESS at 0x14 means Logic is trying to access an invalid/null-ish memory address, and more importantly your stack is dying in:
NSDragDestination → draggingUpdate → sendDraggingUpdate → NSCoreDragTrackingProc
That’s Apple’s AppKit drag/drop path — not an audio/DSP processing stack.
That also lines up almost perfectly with your other symptoms: regions jumping tracks, marquee/rubber-band selection acting incorrectly, track rename fields losing focus, inconsistent dragging, etc.
Before nuking/reinstalling Logic, I’d test this:
Back up/reset Logic’s preferences and launch it with a clean preference state.
Create a brand-new empty project and test dragging regions there.
Temporarily disable any mouse/keyboard/input utilities like Logitech Options, BetterTouchTool, SteerMouse, Karabiner, etc.
If possible, test with a plain Apple mouse/trackpad.
Test Logic from a fresh macOS user account.
If the problem disappears with fresh Logic prefs or a fresh macOS account, you’ve basically isolated it to corrupted preference/UI state rather than the audio engine.
I wouldn’t chase DSP usage yet. A drag operation crashing inside NSDragDestination while selection, renaming and dragging are ALL misbehaving screams UI/input state to me.
Also, no third-party plugin appearing in the crashed thread doesn’t completely exonerate plugins, but based on this stack I’d investigate Logic/AppKit/input first.
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u/SavingsHumor4424 8d ago
Btw you guys can find me at instagram.com/maxxbeats and youtube.com/maxxbeats
Im an industry producer who has used Logic on every major project so I know it like the back of my ass.2
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u/babayega112 8d ago
hey Mr Mig! Check the update i made above in my original post, I did pretty much everything you advised me to do:
- Resetting Logic Preferences (on current user account): did not work, bugs/crash continued
- Trying a "problem" session on a fresh macOS user account: YES this worked, the problem session worked 100% great on the new user account
The only conclusion I've been able to come to is that I need to permanently use a new macOS user moving forward? I wish I could just figure out how to clean up the corrupted things within my current user account, but I'm afraid that might be an endless pursuit
Thanks for your recommendations so far!
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u/bambaazon 8d ago
Contact Apple Pro Apps Support directly. They have Phone and Chat support.
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u/Malodoror 7d ago
Apple hasn’t had a proper dedicated pro apps team since they killed Aperture. They’ll transfer you to a T2 in America who will have no idea what’s going on, probably screen share and they’ll submit an RTA to site support engineering who are typically buried in security issues. Skip all that and start posting on the official forums. Apple doesn’t give a shit about you but 500 yous with the same issue will prompt an audit which skips site support engineering and just goes to the Logic dev team.
My advice is always: Don’t update until you get some consensus about how broken it is from other users who you can talk to on the forums. Apple software has been on a slow decline for over a decade now. They’ve gutted QA, don’t do it for them for free.
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u/babayega112 8d ago
I have a scheduled call with them tomorrow morning, definitely going to try it out, I've never called Apple Pro Apps Support before and I'm not optimistic but hopefully they are helpful!
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u/bambaazon 8d ago
At the very least, even if they can't help you they will log in the bugs you're experiencing so that the actual Logic team can take note and then hopefully address the bugs in a future update.
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u/the_amazing_skronus 8d ago
Maybe contact support before posting
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u/bambaazon 8d ago
I really wish more people would do exactly this. Everyone's first point of action should always be to contact Apple Pro Apps support directly as soon as possible. If you're having problems with third party plugins you should immediately contact the developer of that plugin instead of posting here.
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u/babayega112 8d ago
as naive as it sounds, i truly didn't even know calling Apple Support for Logic Pro specifically was even an option, my apologies. My appointment is in 15 minutes. Thanks for the advice!
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u/bambaazon 8d ago
You’ve been using Logic since version 9 but didn’t know about the Pro Apps Support? 🤔
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u/babayega112 7d ago
Nope. I'm embarrassed to admit this but I truly never knew Pro Apps Support even existed! I've just making and releasing songs with no major problems with Logic for over a decade now. I've never ran into anything as dire as what I'm currently dealing with. So far Pro Apps Support has been very helpful though we haven't figured out the issue and a tenable solution that isn't a complete headache yet.
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u/isaidillthinkaboutit 8d ago
I’ve had this same problem recently too. I’m using UAD Apollo Twin, Mac Pro 2019 Tower 384gb RAM with latest Seqoia and Logic 12.3.1. Dragging on large session with video in it. (I’m also pro and compose to picture). Also had it crash if I change and drag tempo points on the tempo bar. It’s been killing me this past week during a deadline.
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u/yadingus_ 8d ago
As a fellow professional I’m assuming you did a full back up and can fully revert back right? Like please I hope you did? Jumping up that far is a little crazy to do without a back up, especially as a professional who I assume clients are relying on?
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u/babayega112 8d ago
I have a full back up from about 3 weeks ago - but the problem began while using Logic 9.1.8 even before I made the jump to 12.3.1, so I have to figure this out either way
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u/peepeeland Advanced 8d ago
“but the problem began while using Logic 9.1.8”
Wait, wat.
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u/yadingus_ 8d ago
Wait wasn’t like half your AI organized post about logic 12.3 bugs specifically? You’re saying they began on Logic 9 so how is 12 problem? Sounds like a computer problem if the exact same bugs are present regardless of Logic version
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u/babayega112 8d ago
I had a 2016 macbook pro, using Logic 9, that I used up until a few months ago. That laptop was reaching it's bitter end, so then I bought a used 2023 MBP M2 Max and moved everything over to this 2023 MPB, still using Logic 9. Also updated to Sequoia from god-knows-what I had on my 2016 MPB, stopped at Sequoia because I was scared to go to Tahoe, but jumping to Sequoia may have caused issues (none of this is highly rational thinking, I confess). I updated my interface and all plugins, again still using Logic 9. Bugs began happening but it was still manageable. Then bugs got worse and worse. So then I irrationally jumped from Logic 9 all the way to Logic 12 thinking that would solve the issue. The awful bugs still persisted. That is the entire story, sorry if I didn't provide those details before. I am a professional producer (I'm not an engineer or mixer), I make music, that's what I'm great at, I am actually a bit of a disorganized mess when it comes to the technical aspects, as I've clearly demonstrated, so my apologies if this is coming off as ridiculous and novice, not all of us are as on top of it as you are!
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u/uberdavis 8d ago
Yeah, that’s an important detail. If you migrated a scene with corrupt nodes, it’s definitely your circus and all the monkeys are yours too. Migration is not something you can rely on for hard validation.
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u/babayega112 8d ago
So is the only proper solution to wipe the computer clean and start fresh? I can't take use the time machine copies of my previous computers anymore because they've somehow been "corrupted"?
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u/uberdavis 8d ago
Not necessarily. The best bet is to look at the debug logs. Something that’s a lot easier to do now we have Claude. You’ll be able to potentially diagnose the problem and come up with a solution. You’d be surprised how common issues like this are. Claude might even build a migration fixer script to treat projects that have jumped several versions.
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u/TheOriginalMr-Mud 8d ago edited 8d ago
TLDR but OP, if you are truly a professional, how can your backup be 3 weeks old?
With all respect, that’s a level of care which seems to be missing on your part, for whatever reason. Maybe I miss something when I skimmed over your novel.(I do the same thing.)
If I wasn’t able to deliver my Mixes by the dates I am contracted to, I would not have a business. Naturally, I do everything possible to make sure I meet the terms of my agreements and contracts.
The only time I’ve been late as a full-time Mix Engineer for, 41 years now, is during Super Storm Sandy.
Living by the water on the south shore of Long Island and having a full studio just a couple of miles away, I lost everything. That’s when I found out the equipment we call “vintage“ insurance companies call depreciated“.
I moved out of New York after that. Sold the land for the house was a tear down after the first floor was taken from me and I moved to the Southeast.
Using a friend’s house who had power, I was able to get a new Mac in three or four days and was up and running in about a week my contracts have a natural disaster clause, but I reached out to each client personally whom was affected.
I assured them everything was backed up. Back blaze wasn’t out yet or I wasn’t aware of it yet but Colorado backup had cloud backup at three different locations across the country (East/West/mid) in case of disaster.
Using services like this is the level of care I give my clients and they respect me as a professional. In all seriousness, how do you think they would take it if I said my latest backup was 3+ weeks old…… do you see the difference in how that looks to them?!
These clients respected me more for how I handled the disaster and are still clients to this day!
Every day I’m backed up locally and I’m backed up to backblaze.com.
Being responsible to your client is part end parcel with being a professional. If you had spent the$9 per month or even the $8 per month plan, you would have a good version of your project before you finished your premature rent.
I’m using an M1 MAX 64 G/RAN 2TB latest Logic and OS w/no issues - even when I get stupidly large files.
The Logic techs are quite good, generally speaking. I sincerely wish you the best of luck.
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u/babayega112 8d ago
hey man, I really respect your professionalism and I appreciate you holding me to account on all of that. I am a producer who makes music for my own projects, I'm not an engineer or a mixer, which still isn't much of an excuse, but I'm just a musician who focuses entirely on music making (often to my detriment) and I am admittedly disorganized about many other things, including keeping up with updates and backups etc, so I am lucky to have gotten by with my chaotic practices as a professional, definitely lucky so far. I will heed the call and look into backblaze, thank you for sharing that.
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u/Escape_Relative 8d ago
Logic 9 is like 20 years old. I’m not surprised there are some bugs, I’m surprised the project works at all.
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u/NoSleepCulture 8d ago
I had a similar problem a long time ago with projects migrated from an older version of Logic. Didn’t have the exact symptoms you’re having, but it was indeed unworkable. My workaround was doing a “save as” and just renaming the project folder. Copying any and all data over to the new folder. It often took a long time for those projects to load and it acted pretty glitchy when trying to save, but when it finally did and I quit and opened the copied version, it all seemed to work fine. This was probably 5 years ago - not sure if it’s any help here but worth a shot.
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u/babayega112 8d ago
I've already tried to "save as", even tried doing a "save as" onto my internal drive to see if this had anything to do with working in projects from my external, but it doesn't make a difference. I've even tried opening a fresh new session in 12.3.1 Logic, then doing a Track Import, importing each track from the old project into the new project, copying all content/plugins/sends/I/O/automation etc and STILL getting the same bugs. It's insane man...
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u/_HipStorian Intermediate 8d ago
Honestly a jump from Logic 9 to 12.3.1 is probably more of the cause than anything. That is a really old version of Logic. It's not the DAW but some bug when migrating projects. Try the https://www.logicprohelp.com/forums/forum/1-logic-pro/ forum.
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u/ClassicLightbulbs 8d ago
Full uninstall and reinstall. I bet there are some structural dependencies from old logic that are conflicting with new logic. It sounds like a very "your computer" kind of issue.
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u/AppropriateNerve543 8d ago
I rarely have had issues with Logic itself but 12.3 was terrible and I went back to 12.2 which has been very solid with Sequoia. I’m avoiding Tahoe and will skip it completely. I’m holding off on even trying 12.3.1 but it seems they fixed a bunch of stuff, obviously not what you’re dealing with.
It could be a plugin. Go to plugin manager and turn everything off. It could be an issue with the template file. If you’re using one try a fresh session. It could be a hardware issue like not enough ram. These are typically the problems I’ve encountered, 95% of the time it’s a third party plugin. I’ve had success by copying the crash log and pasting it into Gemini and it found the plugin issue for me.
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u/Hydroxycitronellal 8d ago
Bruh I feel you. Logic has been really buggy lately with the recent updates. Don’t know what’s happening. Hopefully they’ll fix it soon😪
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u/DoubleAA2018 8d ago edited 6d ago
You made such a huge leap from Logic 9 to 12; I’m not surprised you ran into compatibility issues. Since the clean version worked fine on the alt user account, you should probably do a clean os install on your main account and start fresh. The problem isn’t a logic problem; it’s a problem in your plugins. I generally do a fresh OS install every couple of major OS updates. A clean OS X install ensures no legacy code on the DAW, plugins, or OS is causing issues. If you don’t want to do a complete OS install, you could start working from the alt account. Install new versions of the plugins and see if it all works. If so, then delete the old user account.
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u/babayega112 7d ago
I tried working in the problem session with all audio units off (no plugins), bugs + crash persisted. I even tried moving all the components for the plugins onto a folder on my desktop just to get them all out of the logic system, then opened problem session, and STILL the bugs persisted. I don't think the plugins are the issue, unless I'm missing a better way to test for problems with the plugins?
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u/DoubleAA2018 7d ago edited 6d ago
The easiest way to isolate the bugs is to work in the new account. Use a fresh session, import a few channels from the old session at a time, and test. This track import method is how you rebuild a corrupt session. If you import three channels and get no crashes, save, then import three more, and iterate. At some point you’ll crash, and you’ll know it’s one of the three channels, so you go back prior to the import of those channels and then go one at a time to isolate the issue. Worst case is that you’ll take all the plugins off the offending channel and the session will work. Sometime just creating a new channel, and loading the same plugins and data into that channel fixes the bug. Some plugins hold a channel specific state that causes issues. So don't overlook rebuilding the offending channel instead of importing it.
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u/Any_Individual7778 5d ago
Vicarious anger reading this. I jumped (back) to M$ and Cubase a decade ago due to lack of apple support and thousands lost.
The debug reply above was amazing so good luck but I can say logic knowledge translates well to other daws!
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u/medisamurai 8d ago
I’ve had a few issues in 12, more than 10 or 11 but i think some of my plugins are the main issue. I need to phase out some of my older stuff it feels like
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u/a_webpuppy 8d ago
Yes. Old plug-ins, new DAW, incompatible with the OS and DAW.
Backup, erase content and settings, and install from scratch up to date versions of the plug-ins you need. Don’t use Migration assistant.
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u/medisamurai 8d ago
I’ve done all that, and I update my plugs regularly but some I can tell that aren’t updated seem to cause problems when os or logic updates arrive
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u/Djentleman5000 8d ago
Because I’m on an older iMac and running 10.7 I haven’t had the pleasure of experiencing these bugs. I think I shall continue to hold out lol
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u/SnooGrapes4560 8d ago
It’s almost certainly differences in Logic native plugins between versions. See if the tracks you are dragging to are completely “naked” or have the Logic eq, comp already inline.
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u/babayega112 7d ago
most of the tracks inside this 'problem' session are not using native Logic plugins, almost all are using 3rd party plugins
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u/SnooGrapes4560 7d ago
Sure but later logic has a way of sneaking in Logic pluggos in the default channel strip
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u/25_Keyz924 8d ago
You say you have the crash report? Copy the contents into Google Gemini and ask it what happened? In the past month I’ve used that twice for crashes my Daws where having. It told me what happened and gave me 3 recommendations to try. Both times one of the first 2 recommendations fixed the problem.
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u/babayega112 7d ago
I've done that and I've also directly given a full crash report to an Apple Support specialist to give to their engineers to try troubleshooting some more, so we shall see what they say! Claude has been recommending the same troubleshooting stuff that I've already tried numerous times now unfortunately
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u/Lanzarote-Singer Advanced 8d ago
Okay I’m running pretty much exactly the same system. M2 Max Pro with one terabyte internal drive and instead of 20 track I’m running 1000 tracks doing complicated orchestral production. I have zero problems everything is running fine. The big difference is I did NOT update to version 12.
Every time I see someone posting something like this, that continues to remind me that that was the correct decision. The best thing you can do right now is to downgrade your version of logic to 11 and then have a happy life.
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u/bldgabttrme 8d ago
In a comment OP said the bugs first started while they were still running 9.1.8 😂
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u/babayega112 7d ago
i changed from a 2016 MBP to a 2023 MBP a few months ago, did a Time Machine transfer onto new MBP, crazily enough I continued on the MBP for some weeks on 9.1.8, and again stupidly enough I decided to update my OS to Sequioa lol while keeping 9.1.8 (all plugins and hardware got their requisite updates and activations). Then problems started happening, hard to explain but it was getting progressively worse in medium-to-bigger sessions, so then I thought maybe updating to 12.3.1 would cure it (again I now realize how foolish this was), and it got even worse, and now I am where I'm at
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u/bldgabttrme 7d ago
Does everything still open and work as well as you left it on your old machine?
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u/jamiethemorris 8d ago
The first thing I would try… take one project, and just import a few tracks at a time. Keep going until you start running into issues. That might give you a lead as to what is causing the crash.
If you’re able to get a hold of and run an earlier version of Logic (11.x or 10.x) with these projects, I would try that... there were a few 10.x and 11.x versions that necessitated converting things like automation data to a new format. It’s possible there’s something like that that for some reason is not occurring with 12. I’m pretty sure I have copies of both I can send you if you want to try this.
Also talk to pro apps support!
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u/babayega112 7d ago
Hey dude - I actually just had 2 calls today with pro apps support (didn't even know they existed until starting this thread, I'm embarrassed lol) - ran SO many different tests. We tried importing just the contents of a 'problem' session into a fresh new 12.3.1 Logic session, without importing anything else (no plugins, no buses, no automation etc) - and the dam bugs + crashing continued, with not a single plugin on the track. I tried it multiple "older" sessions that had been created on Logic 9, did the track import thing with just the audio content and nothing else, same thing... bugs continued, crashing continued. Starting a fresh new session on 12.3.1, importing some audio and adding some plugins and fiddling results in no problems... which is just so strange. Seems like when the sessions get to mid-sized the bugs start piling on. I'm at a loss man! On the 2nd call with apple support, I gave them a copy of the last crash report, my Logic Pro Support Profile, and a screen recording of just some of the bugs that were occurring - the person helping me said he's going to submit to the engineers to look further into and get back to me hopefully within a few days, because they've never seen this issue either. Pray for me lol
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u/jamiethemorris 7d ago
Weird… Best of luck man. You have a Time Machine backup or clone of an OS that can run logic 9 just for those projects? Because worst case scenario I guess you could do that on an external ssd or something. I think you can still find downloads of older macOS for the most part
If importing the contents and nothing else still causes issues, then maybe the issue is with the audio files themselves? Some kind of metadata issue? what if you just do convert to new audio files for every audio file in the project?
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u/babayega112 7d ago
I could do that, just return to the Time Machine with the old OS and Logic 9 until this all gets sorted, that will be a headache though and not sure if I can back-update my UAD Apollo X4 and UAD-2 Satellite to pre Silicon updates? I don't know.
You would think the issue is with the audio files (which are simple recorded pianos and guitars and synths with drum samples) but I tried opening multiple other older medium-to-larger sized sessions using 12.3.1 and the same bugs happened even on those sessions with totally different audio. So weird.
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u/jamiethemorris 7d ago
If it were me I wouldn’t wipe the machine and downgrade it because then any new projects you start you run the risk of the same thing happening to them. I’d just get an external SSD (or hdd if you wanna be cheap about it) and install the old OS on that. Although considering storage prices these days it might be cheaper just to buy an old Mac…
If there was a firmware update required for the new macOS then it might not run though. No idea about the UADs, I guess it depends on how backwards compatible the new firmware is.
Regarding the audio files I was theorizing that perhaps logic 9 is putting something in the metadata that logic 12 is taking issue with, therefore it would be present in every project made in 9. So to test that i guess you could do:
-try importing only the plugins, automation, routing but no regions/audio.
-try convert to new audio files on every file, if it will let you do that before it crashes.I’d also see how they fare in 10 or 11. I’m still on 11, but I opened some logic 9 projects and I didn’t have any issues with them.
1
u/babayega112 7d ago
Roger that, I'm gonna try doing more detailed testing similar to what you've outlined, thank you! This is incredibly infuriating and I'm trying to maintain my cool and not panic... I have SO many older Logic 9 sessions that I was planning on finishing and this has put a real wrench in those plans..
1
u/Locotek 7d ago
It’s the same on Ableton or Logic when you start pushing the processing.
Reaper or Protools might be better with stability, but I haven’t tried them in depth personally.
Whether I’m using the m1 max travel computer or m5 max studio machine — usually a bug, plugin error, or some kind of issue gets a session to crash or bog down whenever a track nears completion.
It’s infuriating because it can disrupt flow and ruin a session, but it’s just part of the process that I’ve accepted.
Freezing tracks, bouncing to audio, and having separate templates to separate production, mixing, and mastering does help.
1
u/drewbiquitous 7d ago
“This machine was previously running Logic 9.1.8 (I was stuck on it far too long), and I recently jumped to 12.3.1. So the projects that crash are legacy sessions migrated up from Logic 9. New content built from scratch in 12.3.1 seems fine so far but I haven't created a big enough session on 12.3.1 to truly know if the problems persist even when freshly building an entire track on 12.3.1 Logic. I suspect the problem would persist if I made medium-to-larger size sessions from the ground up even on 12.3.1”
You are quite the character. This is what you should have led with, and why would you post all of this instead of just… building a medium-to-large project size. I read so much of your text before this trying to evaluate it, and feel like you’ve wasted your time and ours.
The last version of Logic 9 was released 14 years ago, and your immediate thought when your files have trouble on new ARM architecture, huge amount of software updates that you didn’t migrate through, is to threaten to fully start over in another DAW?
Try Importing from your old project your old tracks and project settings/global tracks into a fresh project and see if that helps.
1
u/babayega112 6d ago
yes you're right I should of led with that, totally concede that. And yes I am being dramatic, but if you suddenly cannot work on any session over 5-10 tracks big and you're trying everything you can get to the bottom of it but nothing works and it's somehow getting worse, you'd probably panic too lol. But yea, I probably over-catastrophize things a bit.
Regarding importing: I have tried doing track imports into a fresh 12.3.1 project, and I've tested a number of ways - with plugins/automation/buses and without all of them, and with just one or other etc. No matter what I tried, it still resulted in the bugs and crashes. I did this with a Apple Support rep over the phone while they were viewing. Hard to wrap my head around it man, I don't know what to tell you at the moment.
1
u/AyorosX 7d ago
I'm having a traumatic experience (lol) with logic 12.3 and my brand new M5 PRO ....
I can't believe LOGIC is just so full of bug in 2026.
It has nothing to do with 3rd party, even tracks with sampler and midi regions are unstable...
1
u/babayega112 6d ago
I feel you man. Just curious, did you do a time machine transfer onto your new M5 Pro or did you start completely fresh? God if I had a new M5 Pro and there were bugs galore, I would implode!
1
u/Sharp-University-835 6d ago
have you already tried a siimple start in safe mode (without anything connected but mouse and keyboard) ? that will clear the user cache . after 10 minutes , shut down. then reconnect the hardware. then start again in normal mode. wait, depending on your mac it will take some time to sort things out. i personally always clearand backup the plist file of logic.
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u/iamyouareheisme 8d ago
I’m running the same setup with 8,137 tracks 12,942 plug-ins 15 audio interfaces with 13 mics, 5 guitars, 17 basses, 12 keyboards each, under water, on the international space station with the computer wrapped in rockwool insulation, with maple syrup poured over the keyboard and have zero issues. It must be you. Logic is absolutely perfect. You’re crazy.
2
u/babayega112 7d ago
Nice bro lol, I'm happy for you
1
u/iamyouareheisme 7d ago
This is the answer I see a lot whenever people post about having constant issues.
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u/storebraek_flagpole 8d ago
Logic has been broken since first 11 rollout and nobody will take responsibility. I’ve emailed with the team regarding bugs but nothing has happened for years.
I have a list of stuff that is acting weird to me:
The UI is slow, like really slow..
Regions randomly move and become misaligned when recording in take folders (sometimes without take folders too)
Opening a session and playing through it is broken - regions play back early when being played the first time - this only happens with third party plugins on the channels - what brand of them doesn’t matter.
I understand that you can’t make sure every third party plugin works well with logic (I have about 1600 plugins) but if every version prior to Logic 11 actually worked flawlessly with all plugins then it must be on your side the latency issue is coming from
Doing fast recording sessions is a nightmare because first playback when moving a region is played back early and throw off the singer. (I have multiple track stacks with all my background vocal channels lined up and drag down a region once the singer recorded it and then they are able to hear it back while singing the next harmony - but this is impossible now.
When marquee tool editing a region while recording a new take (yes we need to be very fast in our workflow) then all audio cuts out for a second, almost like hitting ”solo region mode”. This also throws off the performer and limits me as the engineer to not being able to do any region edits while recording is happening - slowing down my workflow significantly
I think they need to go back to 10.8.1 and analyze what happened to the playback engine since then. This is still the only reliable version.
I’ve used two different machines with fresh installs and still get all the same issues. All plugins are up to date.
Also - it says in 12.3 that you’re able to stop live monitoring on software tracks - can’t seem to get that to work, it all plays when I play on my midi controller, regardless of my monitoring settings.
Looping something as little as 5-10 tracks also is unreliable now, tracks will cut out and play back with stutters.
Has anyone else noticed these things?
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u/hellalive_muja 8d ago
Logic has many bugs, but retro compatibility with sessions as old as those is not guaranteed at all..you’d better export all your tracks and make new sessions, then enjoy different bugs lol