KNIME 5.12.0 crashes on launch on macOS 26 (Tahoe 26.5.2) - CEF font rendering crash

Hi,

I’m experiencing an issue where KNIME 5.12.0 (and previously 5.4.3) crashes immediately on launch on macOS. The crash happens before the main window loads - no workflow involved. It has been working perfectly for a couple of years. I think the crash has started occurring since the most recent Tahoe update, but I can’t be 100% certain.

I used Claude to help me analyze the crash (and suggest some fixes, which I tried without success) - the details are below. I can’t verify the accuracy of its assessment but I’m posting in case its helpful:

Crash signature: The faulting thread (CrBrowserMain) and several others crash inside the embedded CEF framework's font rendering bridge (fontations_ffi), bundled via com.equo.chromium.cef.cocoa.macosx.aarch64_128.0.29 (CEF 128.0.0.0). This looks like a compatibility gap between this CEF build and macOS 26's font rendering stack - the same failure pattern has shown up in other CEF-based apps on Tahoe.

Already ruled out:

• Workspace and install-level Eclipse preferences reset - no effect

• macOS font cache reset + restart - no effect

• Corrupt font check via Font Book - no effect

• Upgrading from 5.4.3 → 5.12.0 - crash persists identically

Has anybody else observed anything similar? Any suggestions?

Thanks!