GarageBand iOS 14 iPadOS14 SHARE issues - Audio Units fail to load so cannot Master a stereo pair.

I posted a relatively simple issue elsewhere, there were no answers. Here’s the damage I uncovered today, that the latest release of GarageBand forcing iOS14 iPadOS14 update, has caused:

IMPOSSIBLE to master a song now in garageband iOS because even though the song plays in its ENTIRETY when inside garageband, now that is no longer a guarantee it will permit a lossless WAV stereo pair to be output via the ‘share’ option.

This is just the third problem I have uncovered, in an extremely troubling and stressful week of trying to employ more or less, the same workflow with the same songs, that worked fine for me, 3 weeks ago, in iOS 13 / iPad OS 13, and with the 2019 release of GarageBand.

First, I couldn’t load hardly any 3rd party Plugins, Audio Unit V3 apps. I tried to get help got none. Then, as I worked my way through trying to fix that, I saw advice that crashes I was now also suffering constantly, with songs that were fine in the previous GB version, with iOS13, could be fixed by hitting the ‘reset’ in the main ‘settings’ part of iOS.

Ok, I thought, I am desperate enough to try this. In the 5 years of using GB, it’s never been necessary, but fine, I will do this reset thing...

So, the crashing stops happening pretty much instantly. Then the next thing is twofold:

ONE - all the 3rd party plugin icons, turn into the ‘generic’ amber one with what looks like a set of white curved brackets emitting from a central dot. IE their symbol now is the same as Apple’s own plugin icons.

TWO - files of songs I produced a stereo pair of, are all GREYED OUT when inside GarageBand. If you go and look at the self-same files in the ‘files’ app, they are fine, you can play them and do what you want. But in GB, inside it, they are all greyed out.

TO sum up, here’s how the sabotage of the latest Oct 2020 release of GarageBand iOS14 is shaping up so far:

• the FILES storage and referencing, has gone to pot, patently files that are present and correct, such as icons for third party plugins, GB has no idea are recognisable. This is likely some internal difference between the way GB looks at files, and the actual ‘files’ app looks at files, seeing as the files app works fine. In practice, this means I cannot play a finished stereo pair - a mastered song - directly from inside GB. There will be other ramifications, but I have no clue what they might be, because of the other issues that are going to stop me ever doing a song of any complexity inGB iOS.
• the SHARE function is broken now. The symptom I observe, is I have a song that with much trouble, I finally get to use some plugins for inside GB, and when I go to output a stereo pair from it, to ‘master’ in another song (that’s just how I do it), the progress bar moves slowly along, as expected when there’s some plugins, then suddenly, jumps BACKWARD a fraction, halting completely at that point! It never budges from there, and in a few seconds, tells me an audio unit has been dropped, and do I want to carry on with it disabled, or cancel my stereo pair output? Neither is any use of course. This suggests, given I am using songs that 3 weeks ago worked, that something in iOS14, has gobbled up memory (RAM of 4Gb in my ipad Pro 2), or of course the new version of GB has.
• there is no other point, because I can’t get any further.

So, time to just use another DAW?

I am of course using the option of WAV at the highest possible quality, just like I always have. No change there, and why would I do it at a lower quality? I am using 24-bit, again as I always have, why would I lower the quality?

That’s it, any answers that help get around whatever this is, are gratefully received.

I have put out 3 singles on this method of working, using GB on my ipad Pro 2 512 Gb, and been very happy doing this, even though some of it is laborious and repetitive. I don’t care. It works, and I love the software.

But now, how does this get fixed? I have a horrible feeling, that memory has been gobbled up by some change either to iOS14 running in the background, and/or the latest GarageBand, having expanded the amount of RAM it needs while running.

It’s a bit depressing and a bit bleak. I have spent over a grand on the ipad, specifically to run GB iOS, and then a couple of hundred on the plugins.

I will leave it there. The only thing I have not done - and this, like the ‘reset’ I felt forced into, will have a lot of unknowns attached - is deleting GarageBand, and reinstalling it.

Any DAW can allow a couple of guitar tracks and a drum track, and a keyboard on top. I could do that, back in 1997 to 16-bit standard on my Roland box.

First do no harm, would be my advice to Apple. I really miss being able to put songs together on my ipad Pro, but hey, if that’s the result that stands, I am not in a position to do a darn thing about it.

Good luck, stay safe, and be equal everyone.