NSSound crashing when trying to load a system sound

Occasionally my Cocoa app crashes while trying to load a system sound. I've not been able to reproduce this myself, but a few users have sent me crash reports.

The stack trace is always the same (see below). The app opens a modal dialog, the user clicks OK, the sound is loaded and crashes:

[NSSound soundNamed:@"Hero"];

There are a few mentions of this issue on the web[1], but no resolutions. Please note that I'm loading the sound from the main thread and am not attempting to play it back. It crashes right away. Also, the sound file itself is not corrupted (I had one user email it to me and it matches the one I have installed).

Crash log excerpt:

Crashed Thread:  0  Dispatch queue: com.apple.main-thread

Exception Type:  EXC_BAD_ACCESS (SIGBUS)
Exception Codes: KERN_PROTECTION_FAILURE at 0x0000000009a0d204

VM Regions Near 0x9a0d204:
    shared memory          0000000009310000-0000000009511000 [ 2052K] r--/r-- SM=SHM  
--> MALLOC_TINY            0000000009a00000-0000000009c00000 [ 2048K] rw-/rwx SM=COW  
    MALLOC_LARGE           0000000009c00000-000000000bc9c000 [ 32.6M] rw-/rwx SM=PRV  

Application Specific Information:
objc[8625]: garbage collection is OFF
Performing @selector(ok:) from sender NSButton 0x236510

Thread 0 Crashed:: Dispatch queue: com.apple.main-thread
0   ???                             0x09a0d204 0 + 161534468
1   com.apple.audio.units.Components    0x7000ed9d AUHAL::AUHAL(ComponentInstanceRecord*, unsigned long, bool) + 775
2   com.apple.audio.units.Components    0x7002feff ComponentEntryPoint<DefaultOutputAU>::Dispatch(ComponentParameters*, DefaultOutputAU*) + 144
3   com.apple.CoreServices.CarbonCore   0x98487949 CallComponent + 223
4   com.apple.CoreServices.CarbonCore   0x98487992 CallComponentDispatch + 29
5   com.apple.CoreServices.CarbonCore   0x984f3b6c CallComponentOpen + 43
6   com.apple.CoreServices.CarbonCore   0x98486608 OpenAComponent + 426
7   com.apple.CoreServices.CarbonCore   0x98486688 OpenComponent + 24
8   com.apple.AppKit                0x9b810cd3 _initializeCA + 1115
9   com.apple.AppKit                0x9b811c23 -[NSSound _postInitialization] + 349
10  com.apple.AppKit                0x9b810609 -[NSSound initWithContentsOfURL:byReference:] + 263
11  com.apple.AppKit    开发者_JS百科            0x9b812767 +[NSSound _searchForSoundNamed:] + 1044
12  com.apple.AppKit                0x9b8122de +[NSSound soundNamed:] + 227

1: http://lists.apple.com/archives/Cocoa-dev/2007/Oct/msg01159.html

The resolutions (or rather workarounds) of the problem you mentionned were applied in Transmission changeset 3540: don't allow custom sounds and later in changeset 5577: supporting custom user sounds on Leopard.

Unfortunately, the backtraces don't match and your crash log is from Snow Leopard or Lion so these solutions probably don't apply for you. I would suggest you to file a bug report to Apple.