Two Fold Question, How to Download the Latest Version Compatible and "Engine I/O Device has Changed"

I have not used my keyboard or Ardour for a half a year, with so much busyness elsewhere, away from my computer.

Tonight, attempting to play some music, I was not able to get my keyboard to make sound through Ardour, Version 8 (Downloaded last April).

Upon opening Ardour 8, I was met with: “Engine I/O device has changed since you last opened this session.”

I’d found the above reference and the notice that the latest version of Ardour would fix the problem expressed on that thread.

I’m on a MacG5 Tower (2010) running OS 10.12.6. I downloaded Ardour as it currently stands on the download page, but despite it saying there that it will run on my computer OS (Download page says: “Compatible with macOS El Capitan (10.11) or later versions,” it won’t install on my computer.

I’d love to be able to have access to the latest possible version that would work on my mac (which is a prior version than that available on the download page) and fix whatever I/O engine seems to be ailing me.

The message about the Engine I/O device is not an error. It’s telling you that you’re using a different audio interface than you were the last time you worked on this session, which is basically a heads-up that some things related to routing may not work the way they did before (e.g. moving from a 16 channel device to a stereo one obviously means that the input routing must be different).

What happens when you try to install the latest version?

Okay. I’ll have to see what I can do to check with the routing. I wouldn’t have changed anything, but, maybe something was not powered on right to be recognized by the OS.

Here is a screen grab of what I see when I attempt to install the latest version of Ardour:

Screen Shot 2025-01-02 at 9.19.24 PM

And then, too, the application is greyed out, noting it’s not compatible, as seen here:

Screen Shot 2025-01-02 at 9.23.37 PM

The latest version of Ardour is version 8.10 and it ought to work as far back as macOS 10.11 (El Capitan).