Mac mini M4: Logic Pro audio glitches, AUHostingService CPU

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Level 2

194 points

Mac mini M4: Logic Pro audio glitches, AUHostingService CPU

I have small projects - maybe 15 tracks, 5 or 6 which are plugins, the rest just audio. Working beautifully on my MacMini M2.

I just bought a pretty much top of the line MacMini M4 (64Gb RAM, etc) and migrated my M2. After reauthorizing the plugins that were migrated, I ran Logic Pro on that same project and discovered that (a) I could hear occasional glitching and (b) auditioning external audio from a synth caused even more crackling.

I'm using Dante, an I/O Buffer size of 128 and a Process Buffer Range of Medium (whatever that means) --- exactly the same as I was using on M2.

I ran Activity Monitor on a hunch that something was stealing cycles and discovered that AUHostingService was up around 80%. Given my understanding of what that service does and my current project use case, that percentage should surely be tiny.

Anyone have any idea what might be wrong? Should I just return the M4 and go back to my M2 (thankfully I haven't reset the M2 yet for resale)

Thanks in advance

(NB I found other topics describing similar issues but no real answers)

Mac mini (M4 Pro, 2024)

Posted on Jan 13, 2026 6:41 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

dhjdhj Author

Level 2

194 points

Jan 14, 2026 10:11 AM in response to yoyoBen

There was no error -- just glitching and an absurdly high CPU usage for that AU helper service.

Turns out the problem was due to an incorrect sample rate in the Project. It was set to 44.1k whereas my system and DANTE are all running at 48k

Unfortunately, that solution leaves me with a mystery. This same project was working perfectly on my M2 (and DANTE, etc were all at 48k). If the sample rate for the project was wrong on my M2, then I should have gotten similar glitching but I didn't. So then I'm left wondering how the sample rate got changed to 44.1k after a migration.

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Answer 2

yoyoBen

Level 4

3,421 points

Jan 14, 2026 4:20 AM in response to dhjdhj

You can look up which plugin causes this error with Utilties > Activity Monitor > Crash Reports

I rarely get these issues since:

• I've updated the MacOS from Sonoma to Sequoia,

• I've updated all plugins,

• I've manually removed all incompatible plugins from the component folder.

I only get this error when using plugins of a certain developer who won't update their plugins anymore. In this case using Rosetta Mode helps.

BTW, a fresh install of a new computer instead of migrating old software and plugins might help avoiding these errors too.

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