MuseScore 4 hangs on startup due to conflict with Elgato Virtual Audio Driver (CoreAudio HAL lock)

Issue type

Choose option...

Description with steps to reproduce

1.Install Elgato device/software.
2. Launch MuseScore 4.

Supporting files, videos and screenshots

Issue:
MuseScore 4 freezes and becomes unresponsive ("Application Not Responding") on the splash screen during startup.

Environment:
macOS (Apple Silicon) with Elgato capture card / Elgato Wave Link software installed.

Root Cause:
The MuseScore 4 audio engine hangs while scanning Elgato's virtual audio drivers (HAL plugins) during initialization. (MuseScore 3 works perfectly without this issue).

Request:
Please improve the CoreAudio device scanning logic to handle virtual audio drivers gracefully without deadlocking, or provide a command-line flag / preference option to bypass the full audio device scan on launch. As Intel-based applications (like MuseScore 3) are becoming obsolete, a native fix for MuseScore 4 is urgently needed for macOS creators.

In which versions of MuseScore Studio is this issue present?

Latest application version

Regression

I was unable to check

Operating system

macOS Tahoe 26.5.1

Additional context

Thread 0x16d9156 DispatchQueue "com.apple.main-thread"(1) Thread name "main" 11 samples (1-11) priority 46 (base 46) last ran 40.033s ago
<thread QoS user interactive (requested user interactive), process unclamped, jetsam priority 100 (requested 100, assertion 0), process memory limit 0MB, process received importance donation from distnoted [901], IO tier 0>
11 start + 6992 (dyld + 130560) [0x187a7be00] 1-11
11 main + 896 (mscore + 50744) [0x10039c638] 1-11
11 mu::app::GuiApp::setup() + 888 (mscore + 139692) [0x1003b21ac] 1-11
11 muse::GlobalModule::onPreInit(muse::IApplication::RunMode const&) + 120 (mscore + 37430900) [0x102742674] 1-11
11 muse::Settings::load() + 36 (mscore + 37143696) [0x1026fc490] 1-11
11 muse::Settings::readItems() const + 224 (mscore + 37141408) [0x1026fbba0] 1-11
11 semop + 8 (libsystem_kernel.dylib + 65036) [0x187e04e0c] 1-11
*11 ??? (kernel.release.t6041 + 24220) [0xfffffe000b739e9c] 1-11
*11 ??? (kernel.release.t6041 + 1923588) [0xfffffe000b909a04] 1-11
*11 ??? (kernel.release.t6041 + 7742628) [0xfffffe000be964a4] 1-11
*11 ??? (kernel.release.t6041 + 6826588) [0xfffffe000bdb6a5c] 1-11
*11 ??? (kernel.release.t6041 + 6334440) [0xfffffe000bd3e7e8] 1-11
*11 lck_mtx_sleep + 212 (kernel.release.t6041 + 481724) [0xfffffe000b7a99bc] 1-11
*11 ??? (kernel.release.t6041 + 590028) [0xfffffe000b7c40cc] 1-11
*11 ??? (kernel.release.t6041 + 595068) [0xfffffe000b7c547c] 1-11

Thread 0x16d919b Thread name "com.apple.NSEventThread" 11 samples (1-11) priority 46 (base 46) last ran 29.692s ago
<thread QoS user interactive (requested user interactive), process unclamped, jetsam priority 100 (requested 100, assertion 0), process memory limit 0MB, process received importance donation from distnoted [901], IO tier 0>
11 thread_start + 8 (libsystem_pthread.dylib + 7196) [0x187e34c1c] 1-11
11 _pthread_start + 136 (libsystem_pthread.dylib + 27736) [0x187e39c58] 1-11
11 _NSEventThread + 184 (AppKit + 1420412) [0x18c445c7c] 1-11
11 _CFRunLoopRunSpecificWithOptions + 532 (CoreFoundation + 1372612) [0x187fc81c4] 1-11
11 __CFRunLoopRun + 1188 (CoreFoundation + 510404) [0x187ef59c4] 1-11
11 __CFRunLoopServiceMachPort + 160 (CoreFoundation + 516312) [0x187ef70d8] 1-11
11 mach_msg + 24 (libsystem_kernel.dylib + 4032) [0x187df5fc0] 1-11
11 mach_msg_overwrite + 480 (libsystem_kernel.dylib + 39360) [0x187dfe9c0] 1-11
11 mach_msg2_trap + 8 (libsystem_kernel.dylib + 3124) [0x187df5c34] 1-11
*11 ??? (kernel.release.t6041 + 206244) [0xfffffe000b7665a4] 1-11

Checklist

• This report follows the guidelines for reporting bugs and issues
• I have verified that this issue has not been logged before, by searching the issue tracker for similar issues
• I have attached all requested files and information to this report
• I have attempted to identify the root problem as concisely as possible, and have used minimal reproducible examples where possible