I yesterday had the issue, that my latest plugin sporadically had an off-by-one, that made it read random stuff outside the buffer and thus it produced loud noise. Fortunately, my guitar amp wasn’t connected at that point, otherwise I’d probably need a new one.
Anyway, to avoid plugins going bonkers to kill any hardware, what do you think about mod-host limiting anything at a threshold of - let’s say - +12 dbfs, just for safety?
Of course, that doesn’t replace proper plugin testing.
I just discovered this exact issue with one of the Rakarrak plugins - it emits a horrific white noise blast at about +40db when you open any patch with it in. I’ve deleted it from the board, obviously (will update this post with the name of the plugin later, so everyone else can avoid it too )