ACE-Step UI: [Gradio] Failed to connect to http://127.0.0.1:42003: Error: SyntaxError: Unexpected token '<',…

ACE-Step UI crashes on Mac M1 when attempting to generate music

Description

The ACE-Step server on port 42003 fails consistently when attempting to generate music.
The process gets killed (exit code 9) and the Gradio client receives HTML error responses
instead of valid JSON.

Steps to reproduce

1. Install ACE-Step UI via Pinokio on Mac M1 (16GB RAM)
2. Open http://localhost:3000
3. Fill in a prompt (e.g., "Dark trap beat with 808s")
4. Click "Create"
5. Watch the process crash

Expected behavior

Music generation should complete successfully

Actual behavior

Error: "[Gradio] Failed to connect to http://127.0.0.1:42003:
Error: SyntaxError: Unexpected token '<', "<!DOCTYPE "... is not valid JSON"
Process exits with code 9 (Killed)

Environment

• Mac M1 (16GB unified memory)
• Pinokio 8.0.0
• ACE-Step Turbo
• macOS 26.2 (Tahoe)

Additional context

The error appears to be related to PyTorch/MPS compatibility.
See logs attached in system report.