Troubleshooting

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 the installer is Authenticode-signed, and Windows runs it without a security prompt. To confirm what you downloaded, right-click the .exe → Properties → Digital Signatures: it reads Pavel Burylichev, with a timestamp.

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 That is the entire fix, and it is worth doing rather than forcing the old one open — the old build is superseded.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.clap and /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.vst3 and C:\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.settings and PluginScanner.log from %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 track goes silent when I insert Phaseburn One

Nothing is broken, and the track is one cable away. Inserted on an audio track, Phaseburn One plays its own voice and nothing else, so the track’s audio stops reaching your mix until you decide what happens to it. It does arrive — on AUDIO IN in the patch bay — but none of it reaches the output until you patch it onward, so a fresh insert sounds like a mute.

To hear the track, give it a way through. Cable AUDIO IN into an effect and on to MASTER, and the track plays through the filter, the delay or whatever you patched, with no note held. Or turn the DRY/WET knob at the top of the Mixer’s AUDIO IN strip toward DRY: that blends the track’s own audio back in beside what Phaseburn One makes of it, and fully at DRY you hear the track alone. Audio from outside (Chapter 5 — Mixer & Patchbay) covers both.

Your host’s bypass button depends on the format. In the VST3 and the CLAP it passes the track through untouched and in time. Under the AU, bypass silences Phaseburn One — in Logic, AUDIO IN is the side-chained track, which already plays on its own channel strip.

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 the cog menu in the top-right corner and check that Audio Output, under AUDIO DEVICE, is the interface you are listening to. A change there applies at once, so you can try one output after another without relaunching. There is no sample rate to match: the standalone runs at the output device’s own rate, and follows it when you change it in the system’s audio settings. If a note in the cog menu’s left column, above Save current, says your interface is not connected or cannot open, the system default is playing in its place, and the sound moves back to your interface as soon as it can open. An interface you plug in while the app is running joins the Audio Output and Audio Input lists the next time you open the cog menu. If you want to play it from a controller, pick the MIDI input in the same cog menu; the standalone does not guess. The interface itself never needs a working audio device — every control stays live while you sort the output.

If it plays but AUDIO IN stays silent, check three things. The cog menu’s Audio Input names your device. If the note in the cog menu’s left column says the input is not connected, plug it back in. If it reads “The saved input is connected but did not open, so AUDIO IN is silent. It is retried and opens on its own once it can.”, the note does not say why, so check the causes in this order: an input set to a different sample rate from the output stays closed, so set the input to the output’s rate in Audio MIDI Setup (macOS) or the Sound control panel (Windows); another application may be holding the device, so quit it; and microphone access may be off, which the next check covers. For the first two you do not need to reselect anything: the input is retried and opens by itself once the cause is gone. The operating system lets the app listen: on macOS, the Microphone list in the privacy settings of System Settings (System Preferences on macOS 12 and earlier) has Phaseburn ONE allowed — macOS calls every audio input a microphone — and after allowing it, quit and reopen the app; on Windows, the Microphone page of the privacy settings has Let desktop apps access your microphone on (Windows 10 words it Allow desktop apps to access your microphone). Then give AUDIO IN a way out: it reaches the output only through a cable you patch onward, or through the DRY/WET knob on its Mixer strip.

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.

• “Could not reach phaseburn.music” — the request found no way through to the license server; it gives up within about ten seconds rather than hanging. Check that this machine is online, then try again, or take the offline route in the next point.
• No internet on that machine — the activation panel shows a machine code. Type it into /license from any other device, download the .pblicense file 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. Copy the line at the top of the same popup into your message: it names the version, the build and the format you are running.

My presets are gone after updating

Your user banks, favorites, saved LFO Editor shapes and license are untouched by an update. The factory banks are the exception: they ship inside the build, so a new build brings its own 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.