Everything here is a real report, not a hypothetical. If your problem is not on this page, contact us — and if it turns out to be common, it ends up here.
The installer will not open
On macOS the package is signed with an Apple Developer ID and notarized, so it opens with a plain double-click and nothing stands in the way.
On Windows, SmartScreen may show a blue “Windows protected your PC” notice. Click More info, check the publisher reads Pavel Burylichev, then Run anyway. The installer is genuinely signed; SmartScreen builds reputation per certificate, and ours is new.
macOS says the package cannot be opened
If macOS refuses — “can’t be opened because Apple cannot check it for malicious software”, “Phaseburn One is damaged and can’t be opened”, or a Security entry in System Settings — you are holding a build from before 18 August 2026, when the macOS installer was still unsigned.
There is nothing wrong with your Mac and nothing to configure. The catch is that the signed
build went out as a silent replacement: same version, same phaseburn-one-0.1.0-macos.pkg
filename, so a copy in your Downloads folder looks identical to the current one. Download it
again from the download page and open the new copy. That is the entire fix, and
it is worth doing rather than forcing the old one open — the old build is superseded.
My DAW cannot see the plug-in
By far the most common report, and it has several distinct causes. Work down the list — they are ordered by how often each one turns out to be the answer.
1. The host has not rescanned. Most hosts scan at launch; most also have a rescan button in their plug-in preferences. Quit the DAW before installing and let it scan on the next launch.
2. The host does not load the format you installed. Phaseburn One ships as VST3, CLAP and
AU plug-ins (AU on macOS only) and a standalone app. If your host is VST3-only and you unticked
VST3, there is nothing for it to find — and Logic and GarageBand load only the AU. The AU is
an instrument, so look for it in the channel strip’s instrument slot, not the Audio FX menu.
Re-run the installer and tick every plug-in format — that is the default, and it costs nothing.
One AU note: after installing the AU, macOS rescans Audio Units when the host starts, so if
Logic or GarageBand was open during the install, quit and reopen it before looking again. If it
still does not appear, force the rescan: quit the host, run killall -9 AudioComponentRegistrar
in Terminal, and reopen it — macOS rebuilds the component registry on that next launch. You can
also verify the AU itself from Terminal with auval -v aumu Pb01 Phsb.
3. The plug-in is not where the host looks. The installer puts it in the folders every host scans by default:
- macOS —
/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/VST3/Phaseburn ONE.vst3,/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/CLAP/Phaseburn ONE.clapand/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/Components/Phaseburn ONE.component(the AU). If you chose “Install for me only”, the same files are under~/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/instead. Hosts scan both. - Windows —
C:\Program Files\Common Files\VST3\Phaseburn ONE.vst3andC:\Program Files\Common Files\CLAP\Phaseburn ONE.clap.
Both folders are editable during setup, so if you or a studio template moved them, point your host’s plug-in path at wherever they went.
4. You are on Windows and installed a build up to 0.1.x. Those builds installed one level
deeper, into a Phaseburn Music subfolder inside each of the folders above. Both format
specifications say hosts should scan such subfolders, but not every host reliably does — Nuendo
and Studio One both missed it. Newer installers write to the top level and remove the old nested
copy for you, so installing the current build is the fix. If you would rather do it by hand,
delete the Phaseburn Music folders inside Common Files\VST3 and Common Files\CLAP and
reinstall.
5. The host found it, failed to load it once, and blacklisted it. This is the one that looks most like “not found” and is not. Hosts cache a failed scan so a crashing plug-in cannot take the session down with it — and they keep that verdict even after the cause is fixed. Clear the cache and rescan:
- Studio One — quit, then delete
PluginBlacklist.settingsandPluginScanner.logfrom%APPDATA%\PreSonus\Studio One <version>\x64\. They are regenerated on the next launch. - Cubase / Nuendo — Studio → Plug-in Manager, check the blocklist, and reactivate Phaseburn One if it is listed.
- Ableton Live, Bitwig, Reaper, FL Studio — each keeps its own plug-in database; a full rescan (rather than an incremental one) is usually enough.
On Windows the usual reason for that first failed load is a missing WebView2 runtime, which the plug-in’s interface needs. The installer installs it when it is absent, so if this machine got its copy some other way — a bundle carried over from another machine, or an older build placed by hand — run the installer once and the runtime comes with it.
6. 64-bit only. There is no 32-bit build. A 32-bit host will not see it, and that is not something a rescan will fix.
The standalone will not start, or makes no sound
The standalone is an application, not a plug-in — it never goes in a plug-in folder, and a DAW
scanning for plug-ins should never find an .exe or .app there. It lives in /Applications on
macOS and C:\Program Files\Phaseburn Music\Phaseburn ONE\ on Windows, with a Start-menu entry.
If it opens but is silent, it is almost always the audio device. Open its audio settings and check the output device is the one you are listening to, and that the sample rate matches what the device is actually running at. If you want to play it from a controller, pick the MIDI input in the header’s MIDI menu — the DIN-socket button in the top-right corner; the standalone does not guess. The interface itself never needs a working audio device — every control stays live while you sort the output.
It crashed when a preset dialog opened (Windows)
Windows builds up to 0.1.x could crash the moment the preset import or export file dialog
opened — the standalone quit, or the plug-in took the host DAW down with it, with exit code
0xc0000409. It often looked like a resize crash or a 1:1 crash, because it fired on the
first frame after any dialog appeared. Installing the current build is the fix; an update never
touches your user banks or license.
Activation will not take
Click the logo in the corner of the plug-in, paste your key, click Activate. That needs an internet connection once, for a couple of seconds. After that the license is verified on the machine itself, fully offline, and it survives updates.
- No internet on that machine — the activation panel shows a machine code. Type it into
/license from any other device, download the
.pblicensefile it gives you, and drop that onto the activation panel. - Moving to a new machine — one license covers three machines at once. Free a slot yourself at /license: see your activated machines, rename them, or deactivate one. Reinstalling on the same machine never costs a slot.
- Logic or GarageBand asks to activate when other hosts are already activated — expected, once. Both run the AU inside Apple’s sandbox, which keeps its own copy of the license file. Activate there once; it reads the same machine identity, so it does not use another machine slot.
- Lost the key — re-send it from /license using the address you bought with.
If activation still fails with a key you know is good, contact us rather than retrying — repeated attempts will not change the outcome.
My presets are gone after updating
Your user banks, favorites and license are untouched by an update. The factory banks are the exception: they ship inside the build and are curated through the beta, so a new build brings a new factory library and replaces the old one.
If you built something on top of a factory preset, save it into a USER bank — or export it — and it will survive every future update. The factory banks (Chapter 9 — Presets & Banks) has the details.