There is a thread on the DUC which is causing some concern for Pro Tools users running macOS Sierra 10.12 who when they upgrade their iOS device to iOS 13, causes problems with Pro Tools, throwing up an AAE Error -7058. There isn’t a definite fix yet but there are solutions that are working for most who try them, which Avid has now confirmed in a statement.

UPDATE: Avid Issue Statement Regarding iOS13 and macOS Sierra

In response to this article Avid has sent us this statement, which confirms the problem and supports our advice…

“As we continue to work towards full compatibility with Apple’s iOS 13, we wanted to alert you to an issue we’ve uncovered with iOS 13 devices connected to Mac computers running macOS Sierra (10.12). If you connect your iOS 13 device to your Mac running macOS Sierra, certain plugins may become deactivated.

If you have upgraded your iPhone or iPad to iOS 13 and are running macOS Sierra on your Pro Tools computer, please be advised to not connect your iPhone or iPad to your Mac until we have resolved this issue. Alternatively, you may choose to upgrade your macOS to High Sierra (10.13) or later to avoid the issue.

Thank you for your patience as we are working closely with Apple to address this issue with urgency. For the latest updates and information please visit the Knowledgebase.”

The thread on the DUC was started by Richard Spooner, back on September 21st, who posted…

“OS 10.12.6 , PT 2019.6.0. Suddenly on booting up a session I had a AAE 7058 unauthorised plugin error. So I trashed prefs. Now I have a few plug-ins that won't load because "they aren't valid 64bit" ? They have worked fine up to this point. The only thing that's changed is I upgraded my iPhone to iSO13. When I plugged it into my Mac I had a message come up saying that to connect my iPhone. A bit of software had to download, which it did. Surely not connected? Any ideas? I've trashed prefs (made it worse) and ran first Aid on the boot drive.”

On the trashing Preferences, Pete Gates, the maker of the excellent free PT Prefs app responded…

“Trashing prefs can make things worse in one case - plugins are cached and not verified by Pro Tools to speed start-up. When you trash prefs that plugin cache is (optionally) cleared so Pro Tools does a deep scan of all plugins and that can seem to create a problem if there are problematic plugins - the underlying problem was already there, you just couldn't see it.”

Use Time Machine To Roll Back

After a suggestion from ‘mirovaz’ who suggested using Apple’s Time Machine to roll back to before the problem started, as it had worked for him, Richard, who started the thread, posted…

“So I never got to the bottom of this problem. Had too much work on so used Time Machine to roll back to before I plugged in my phone and I’m up and running again. Told Avid support and they closed my case. To be fair though the Mac Pro / Chrome problem happened so they probably moved onto that.”

But what if you haven’t got Time Machine set up? Firstly, why not? We recommend Time Machine as part of a backup strategy for Mac users, but obviously that isn’t going to help you resolve this issue. This second solution should work for you…

Update to macOS High Sierra

The second solution that has worked for most people is to upgrade your macOS. The suggestion in the thread is to go to macOS High Sierra. ‘hugoleitao’ reported…

“Just a brief update on my research for a fix, surprisingly I was contacted by Avid without opening a case, I'm now providing them with all info related to this issue. This fixed the problem:

I was running a very stable Mac OS 10.12.6 Sierra and Pro Tools 2019.5 Ultimate, S3 and Dock. I just cloned my 10.12.6 with CCC and upgraded to Mac Os 10.13.6, now everything is working as it should. I hope this helps. If you are running Mac OS 10.12.6 Sierra do not plug your iOS 13.1 device on your computer!!”

Our Advice

Currently, the advice for macOS Sierra users running Pro Tools is NOT to upgrade your iOS devices to iOS13. If you have done it and you are having issues with plugins with Pro Tools then the advice currently is to take one of these 2 options…

1. If you have Time Machine set up protecting your Mac boot drive then use Time Machine to roll back to before you updated to iOS13.

2. If you don’t have Time Machine set up then the advice is to upgrade to macOS High Sierra.

Obviously this is a live issue and as we get more information we will update this article.