Hi Jonathan,

This certainly is a frustrating situation that affects many of our users. When Finale runs into a conflict with certain VST/AU plug-ins it can cause a conflict when launching the program. It looks like you have been in contact with one of our agents about the issue and have been discussing the options available. Personally, I recommend creating an alias for the /Library/Audio/Plug-ins/Components folder on your desktop, that way you can easily access that folder to move plug-ins out easier when launching Finale.

To be clear, I realize that this is by no means ideal; however, given the current limitations it will help you get the program to launch. This issue has been officially documented and our development team has tickets recorded to work on improving not only the relationship between VST/AU plug-ins and Finale, but also to give Finale better tools to manage those plug-in conflicts.

I hope this information helps!

Golly! Waves is incompatible with anything? Oh dear! Time to panic!

ok, I'm kidding. There are many applications that have issues with Waves. It depends on the library, application, license manager and many other variables. It doesn't help that you've listed none of these. The only thing I am able to figure out is that you are on a Mac — and only because of Lawson's reply.

Plenty of long threads on this over at MOTUnation.com. 

Quote: ok, I'm kidding. There are many applications that have issues with Waves. 

Like what? Do tell...The only other app I know of that is downright incompatible with Waves is Novation's Automap.

Quote: It depends on the library, application, license manager and many other variables. It doesn't help that you've listed none of these.

I own every major DAW on the market. Flagship versions of all of them. They work inside VI's like Maschine, Arturias Spark, Native Instruments NKS middleware, 32 Lives, and Bluecat's Patchwork. Control surfaces read Waves stuff. HUI, Eucon, NKS, Nectar...they call have ZERO problems with Waves. Even Avid (of all people) got Waves to work in Sibelius. How does that help? How does the library, application or license manager have anything to do with this? Kindly explain please.

The crash report specifically identifies the Waves Shell as the culprit. When I humored MM and removed it, it named UAD. At that point I said f * * * it and went back to version 2014.5 to play the waiting game. 

Quote: Plenty of long threads on this over at MOTUnation.com. 

Which long threads at MOTUnation address Wave and UAD plugs crashing Finale v25? Can you post the link? I'll take a look. I didn't see anything about Finale 25 over there.

No.  

At motunation, you read about Waves problems with Digital Performer. We do discuss Finale and other notation products but why would we discuss plugins with Finale over there?

I had an issue with Waves V9 plugs causing an initiation crash in Finale v25.2 on OS X 10.11.6

I went through the whole workflow detailed in several support topics like replacing the scripts or then removing all AU plugs and adding them back in one by one to see which caused the crash (which I also found an easier way to do otherwise I would still be adding the more than 300 plugins I have on my system).

It turned out that the issue was some kind of a conflict between the existing Finale 2011 installation on my machine and Finale v25.2

I dragged the Finale 2011 files onto my desktop and voila - Finale came alive even with the Waves plugs that were causing a crash minutes before. 

So although Waves are ridiculous with the WUP and the $$ they are asking for to keep using their plugins it turned out that it wasn't a WAVES problem. 

BTW - I also use the UAD suite and there was never an issue. 

Update:

Issue seems to have been fixed as of v25.4. Tried it again today, everything installed and files open properly.