1 Topic by GeometryGod (edited by GeometryGod 2023-11-24 18:41:10)

  • Registered: 2022-12-17
  • Posts: 63

Topic: How I fixed my UFX III M1 Max stutters / dropouts / glitches

After dealing with dropouts for nearly two months, I decided to do a clean install of Sonoma, and restore all of my data from a time machine backup. Part of my reason for doing a clean install of Sonoma is hearing how some M1 users seemingly had no issues with dropouts. I also noticed the "Macintosh HD-Data" portion of my drive in Disk Utility would not complete a first aid scan without reporting errors (even when booted into recovery mode). Once I saw this, I thought it might be possible that the dropouts were correlated (although this seemed like a long shot).

I'm happy to report that the dropouts seem to have been greatly reduced after the clean install. I do get occasional quick stutters when opening two audio programs, or switching between displays, etc... but none of these are intrusive at all. Before I used to get stutters at least once every 15-30 minutes just listening to audio, or making music.

I am left happy that my amazing UFX III interface is working now, but feeling disappointed that after several attempts at contacting customer support over nearly two months I didn't get a single reply. RME is widely renowned for their customer support, but that was not my experience here. I spent countless hours troubleshooting on my own, and also was in contact with Synthax who kindly helped give me some ideas of things to try. I am writing this to hopefully help someone who is struggling with this issue with dropouts - no guarantees, but it worked for me.


---

My Original Issue (Now Solved)

Issue:
-I am having dropouts, stutters, glitches using my UFX III
-I noticed these dropouts after installing Mac OS Sonoma

Specs:
-2021 MacBook Pro M1 Max
-Firmware v20
-Driver 4.09

Things I've tried:
-Restarted my laptop
-Disabled Mac from entering sleep mode
-Unplugged all other USB devices, plugging in only the UFX III with the USB C cable included in the box directly into my MacBook pro - dropouts, glitches, stutters still occur.
-Tried a second USB C cable - plugged directly in to my laptop, with no other usb devices connected - still dropouts.

When these dropouts/stutters occur, I am simply only running Spotify / YouTube, with no cpu intensive programs running alongside.

2 Reply by ax

  • ax
  • ADAT user
  • Offline
  • Registered: 2023-11-27
  • Posts: 12

Re: How I fixed my UFX III M1 Max stutters / dropouts / glitches

Hey!

Thank you for sharing your experience. I just got a brand new UFX III and I'm experiencing the same issues on my MacBook Pro M1 Pro.

Trying to understand why the clean install fixed your issue: what driver did you install after the clean install on macOS Sonoma? The kernel extension driver or the DriverKit driver? Or both?

I might have installed both when setting up the UFX III -- and I think that the issue might be linked to having both drivers. Would love to know which one is working without any issues with Sonoma.

Thanks!!!

3 Reply by ax

  • ax
  • ADAT user
  • Offline
  • Registered: 2023-11-27
  • Posts: 12

Re: How I fixed my UFX III M1 Max stutters / dropouts / glitches

OK so after doing some digging, I think that I found the issue: installing both the kernel extension driver and the DriverKit driver is indeed messing up the installation.

I did get this error in the first place when installing both drivers: https://forum.rme-audio.de/viewtopic.php?id=37074. But then it got away, not sure how exactly. But the thing is: it looks like the kernel extension wasn't properly removed. This post: https://forum.rme-audio.de/viewtopic.ph … 40#p209440 actually made me think that.

So I'm sharing it here again for visibility. If you installed both drivers, instead of doing a clean install of your Mac, you can "clean" your kernel extensions:

Clear staged KEXTs with command: 

sudo kmutil clear-staging

Shutdown
Boot into Recovery Options (On M1, hold down power button while booting)
Launch Terminal
Reset the KEXT system with command: 

kmutil trigger-panic-medic --volume-root /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/

  (Or whatever your startup disk is called)
Restart

I'm a software engineer and I've already built a Hackintosh so I know what I'm doing, but this is clearly a bad user experience for regular Mac users using the Fireface.

If someone on the RME team reads this: please improve the manual and the drivers download page. They are really misleading and it's not clear what is the preferred driver. And I think that you should also include a guide for removing the kernel extension if you know that newer macOS versions are not removing it properly via the DriverKit installer.

  • Registered: 2022-12-17
  • Posts: 63

Re: How I fixed my UFX III M1 Max stutters / dropouts / glitches

ax wrote:

Hey!

Thank you for sharing your experience. I just got a brand new UFX III and I'm experiencing the same issues on my MacBook Pro M1 Pro.

Trying to understand why the clean install fixed your issue: what driver did you install after the clean install on macOS Sonoma? The kernel extension driver or the DriverKit driver? Or both?

I might have installed both when setting up the UFX III -- and I think that the issue might be linked to having both drivers. Would love to know which one is working without any issues with Sonoma.

Thanks!!!

I first tried the kernel extension and it worked fine. Then I installed the DriverKit.

I got the error about concurrent extensions installed, so I went through the process of disabling then re enabling SIP, and that deleted the original kernel extension.

Here's the post explaining how to fix the concurrent installed extensions: https://forum.rme-audio.de/viewtopic.php?id=37074

After installing 4.09 and cleaning the concurrent kernel, everything seems to work fine. It's now been several days with none of the same dropout behavior as before.

Another note: my UFX III is directly connected to a CalDigit TB3 hub.

  • Registered: 2022-12-17
  • Posts: 63

Re: How I fixed my UFX III M1 Max stutters / dropouts / glitches

ax wrote:

OK so after doing some digging, I think that I found the issue: installing both the kernel extension driver and the DriverKit driver is indeed messing up the installation.

I did get this error in the first place when installing both drivers: https://forum.rme-audio.de/viewtopic.php?id=37074. But then it got away, not sure how exactly. But the thing is: it looks like the kernel extension wasn't properly removed. This post: https://forum.rme-audio.de/viewtopic.ph … 40#p209440 actually made me think that.

So I'm sharing it here again for visibility. If you installed both drivers, instead of doing a clean install of your Mac, you can "clean" your kernel extensions:

Clear staged KEXTs with command: 

sudo kmutil clear-staging

Shutdown
Boot into Recovery Options (On M1, hold down power button while booting)
Launch Terminal
Reset the KEXT system with command: 

kmutil trigger-panic-medic --volume-root /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/

  (Or whatever your startup disk is called)
Restart

I'm a software engineer and I've already built a Hackintosh so I know what I'm doing, but this is clearly a bad user experience for regular Mac users using the Fireface.

If someone on the RME team reads this: please improve the manual and the drivers download page. They are really misleading and it's not clear what is the preferred driver. And I think that you should also include a guide for removing the kernel extension if you know that newer macOS versions are not removing it properly via the DriverKit installer.

I didn't see this as I was typing my reply. Thank you for sharing!

6 Reply by ax

  • ax
  • ADAT user
  • Offline
  • Registered: 2023-11-27
  • Posts: 12

Re: How I fixed my UFX III M1 Max stutters / dropouts / glitches

We posted at the same time :)

Thanks for sharing the details. So yeah this is exactly the same issue. I figured it out myself earlier today and I've been playing music for more than 2 hours without issues, so this is the fix. RME, you know what to do!

7 Reply by GeometryGod (edited by GeometryGod 2023-11-27 17:55:23)

  • Registered: 2022-12-17
  • Posts: 63

Re: How I fixed my UFX III M1 Max stutters / dropouts / glitches

ax wrote:

We posted at the same time smile

Thanks for sharing the details. So yeah this is exactly the same issue. I figured it out myself earlier today and I've been playing music for more than 2 hours without issues, so this is the fix. RME, you know what to do!

Wish I saw this last week - lol

8 Reply by ax

  • ax
  • ADAT user
  • Offline
  • Registered: 2023-11-27
  • Posts: 12

Re: How I fixed my UFX III M1 Max stutters / dropouts / glitches

I feel you. Definitely a super annoying issue for this kind of high-end product. But I'm glad it's fixed for both of us now. Hopefully this post helps more people too.

Have a good one!

  • Registered: 2023-12-08
  • Posts: 6

Re: How I fixed my UFX III M1 Max stutters / dropouts / glitches

Just stumbled across this post. I have been experiencing occasional dropouts of audio too, with M1 and Fireface UFX III. This is with more than one laptop, and part of a much larger touring system, so tracking down the issue has been tricky. I will follow the advice you guys have posted here and will report back. Thanks for documenting your experiences!

  • Registered: 2023-12-08
  • Posts: 6

Re: How I fixed my UFX III M1 Max stutters / dropouts / glitches

An update: I'm running 2 MacBook Pro laptops at the moment, both with macOS 13.2.1 and M2 chips. Both have Fireface UFX III interfaces connected.

Both had the v4.09 driver installed, and both experienced occasional dropouts of audio (around a second of silence).

I have installed v3.82B on one of the laptops, set up a continuous sine wave tone on one of the analog outputs, and have recorded the results. I've uploaded an image of the dropout here: https://ibb.co/RB9KFJD

You can see that there is a glitch in the sine wave 2 times before the dropout occurs.

I'm still unsure which driver is the correct one to be using, and of course installing v3.82B without uninstalling v4.09 may be contributing to the problem - I don't know. The RME website is not at all clear about which driver should be used - of the 3 available drivers, the second one specifically says it's for M1/2 Macs. The third one says "M1 user please download macOS 11 and up USB Series Driver" but this does not make it clear which of the other 2 drivers it actually means!

Do you guys have any advice on which driver should be used? I assume that the best course of action will be to remove ALL RME related software, drivers, preferences etc and start again, but I don't want to do that until I know that I'm installing the correct driver.

Thank you!

  • waedi
  • DAW Mastermind
  • Online
  • From: Swiss Zürich
  • Registered: 2020-12-08
  • Posts: 3,410

Re: How I fixed my UFX III M1 Max stutters / dropouts / glitches

Post 3 and 4 in this thread are interesting and may be the medicine for you.
Cleaning the 328 driver completely out of the computer and then install the 409.

M1-Sonoma, Madiface Pro, Digiface USB, Babyface silver and blue
  • Registered: 2023-12-08
  • Posts: 6

Re: How I fixed my UFX III M1 Max stutters / dropouts / glitches

Thank you - the confusing thing is that I did previously have 4.08 installed and I got the dropouts. However I'm fairly sure that I didn't do the first step of booting into Recovery mode and changing the security settings (because of course it doesn't mention doing that on the page where you download the drivers!). So maybe that contributed to the problem.

I will try this when I'm back in the rehearsal studio on Monday.

  • Registered: 2023-12-08
  • Posts: 6

Re: How I fixed my UFX III M1 Max stutters / dropouts / glitches

Ok, here we are again... Thoughts I've had over the weekend:

- Although I never booted into Recovery mode to change the security settings, this should be unnecessary for me, as that is only related to the kernel extension driver, correct?
- Prior to post 10 in this thread, I had only installed v4.08 - I then did install v3.82B as clearly v4.08 wasn't working.
- I had not flashed the firmware of the RME units to the latest versions

So, things I've done this morning, on one laptop and interface:

- Followed the steps in post 3 of this thread, and removed v3.82B
- Flashed the firmware of the interface to the latest versions
- Installed v4.09

I'm now running the sine wave test and will keep you posted.

14 Reply by stylesforfree (edited by stylesforfree 2023-12-11 18:29:45)

  • Registered: 2023-12-11
  • Posts: 1

Re: How I fixed my UFX III M1 Max stutters / dropouts / glitches

Hmmm, sounds worrying. I have a UFX II and I have been looking at getting a new mac laptop but for now I think i'll stick to windows.

I went through all these issues a few years back when I got my windows PC and spent a fair bit of time tweaking things to eliminate the dropouts and glitches. I was hoping this wouldn't be the case with a mac.

Maybe I should spring for a new old stock intel mac laptop?

  • Registered: 2023-12-11
  • Posts: 8

Re: How I fixed my UFX III M1 Max stutters / dropouts / glitches

Good evening RME Forum,

I too am now having this issue. I recently installed all my DAW software and literally hundreds of plugins on my MacBook Pro M1 Max including my RME Fireface UC.

Everything was running perfectly and it was smoking my self-built, but aging Windows PC.

Then....
Stutters and dropouts.

Now I can't get anything accomplished. I thought I was done being a computer geek after switching from Windows but lately I've been trying all these procedures with NO resolution.

Whats even more frustrating is I thought I solved it by deleting an old audio driver from an older Yamaha driver. It was running smooth again for a couple of days and then BAM. It's back to glitching audio out of the blue.

Are there any new developements?

I was soooo close to producer nirvana sad

16 Reply by ss

  • ss
  • ADAT user
  • Offline
  • Registered: 2023-08-28
  • Posts: 25

Re: How I fixed my UFX III M1 Max stutters / dropouts / glitches

stevencowley wrote:

Ok, here we are again... Thoughts I've had over the weekend:

- Although I never booted into Recovery mode to change the security settings, this should be unnecessary for me, as that is only related to the kernel extension driver, correct?
- Prior to post 10 in this thread, I had only installed v4.08 - I then did install v3.82B as clearly v4.08 wasn't working.
- I had not flashed the firmware of the RME units to the latest versions

So, things I've done this morning, on one laptop and interface:

- Followed the steps in post 3 of this thread, and removed v3.82B
- Flashed the firmware of the interface to the latest versions
- Installed v4.09

I'm now running the sine wave test and will keep you posted.

Have you done all of this after a clean install?

I’m about to upgrade to Sonoma to see if it fixes my problem, and if not then a clean install is next on the list.

Did we get confirmation WHICH driver is best to use for a clean Sonoma install?

  • Registered: 2023-12-08
  • Posts: 6

Re: How I fixed my UFX III M1 Max stutters / dropouts / glitches

ss wrote:
stevencowley wrote:

Ok, here we are again... Thoughts I've had over the weekend:

- Although I never booted into Recovery mode to change the security settings, this should be unnecessary for me, as that is only related to the kernel extension driver, correct?
- Prior to post 10 in this thread, I had only installed v4.08 - I then did install v3.82B as clearly v4.08 wasn't working.
- I had not flashed the firmware of the RME units to the latest versions

So, things I've done this morning, on one laptop and interface:

- Followed the steps in post 3 of this thread, and removed v3.82B
- Flashed the firmware of the interface to the latest versions
- Installed v4.09

I'm now running the sine wave test and will keep you posted.

Have you done all of this after a clean install?

I’m about to upgrade to Sonoma to see if it fixes my problem, and if not then a clean install is next on the list.

Did we get confirmation WHICH driver is best to use for a clean Sonoma install?

In answer to your questions:

I didn't do a clean install, no - I might consider doing this if I get more dropouts.

I'm running Ventura 13.2.1, and if I do a clean install then I might try to roll back to Mavericks.

Let me know how it goes with Sonoma - tbh I'd be nervous about trying a newer OS but you never know!

Post 11 in this thread suggests installing driver 4.09, but I don't know whether that's the official guidance from RME or not, as the info on the website is so vague.

And for extra info:

I've been recording sine wave outputs from 3 of my laptops - two of these are running 4.09, with firmware on the interfaces updated to v20. The third is running 4.08, with the firmware on the interface still at v15. Annoyingly, there have been no dropouts in the 2 days I've been testing. I was hoping that I'd see dropouts on the v15 unit, and that would give me some confidence that v20 is solid.

The advice I've had from the UK distributor is that the interface should be connected directly to the laptop, rather than via a hub. I guess that removes one variable from the system.

All I can do at this stage is continue testing and see what happens. Life is incredibly busy but I'll report back when I'm able to.

  • Registered: 2023-12-08
  • Posts: 6

Re: How I fixed my UFX III M1 Max stutters / dropouts / glitches

Taisoul wrote:

Good evening RME Forum,

I too am now having this issue. I recently installed all my DAW software and literally hundreds of plugins on my MacBook Pro M1 Max including my RME Fireface UC.

Everything was running perfectly and it was smoking my self-built, but aging Windows PC.

Then....
Stutters and dropouts.

Now I can't get anything accomplished. I thought I was done being a computer geek after switching from Windows but lately I've been trying all these procedures with NO resolution.

Whats even more frustrating is I thought I solved it by deleting an old audio driver from an older Yamaha driver. It was running smooth again for a couple of days and then BAM. It's back to glitching audio out of the blue.

Are there any new developements?

I was soooo close to producer nirvana sad

I feel your pain. We'll get it sorted somehow, I hope. What OS/firmware are you running?

19 Reply by dimundsareforever (edited by dimundsareforever 2023-12-30 17:00:50)

  • Registered: 2023-12-22
  • Posts: 1

Re: How I fixed my UFX III M1 Max stutters / dropouts / glitches

Just wanted to share my experience with this. I have a UFX III running the kernel drivers on Sonoma on an M1 Max Mac Studio. I was having dropouts and glitches like those described here every 3 - 5 minutes or so. Incredibly frustrating. Clearing all of my kernel extensions out didn't completely resolve the issue, but it improved things dramatically. I had a version of ACE running on the kernel side from a previous installation of Loopback. Removing that cleared things up quite a bit, but I still have issues periodically. I hope RME can address this since I would imagine a lot of us are probably running our cards on the new Apple Silicon boxes. I would highly recommend to anyone using the RME kernel drivers to not have any other kernel extensions running on their system.

UPDATE: I got pretty frustrated with this, especially since it didn't fully resolve, and it was causing skips when recording sad I went ahead and uninstalled the kernel drivers, installed the driverkit drivers, and the issue is gone. Latency and clocking with driverkit seems pretty rock solid and I'm not experiencing any dropouts at this point, so my recommendation is to use driverkit instead of kernel.

Tossing in some keywords to help surface this better in Google search:

Mac OS Sonoma RME UFX 3 UFX III audio glitch pop crackle dropout loopback ableton sonarworks reference 4 soundid

20 Reply by ax

  • ax
  • ADAT user
  • Offline
  • Registered: 2023-11-27
  • Posts: 12

Re: How I fixed my UFX III M1 Max stutters / dropouts / glitches

Hey!

Coming back here to hopefully save someone some trouble. I was still experiencing some drop-outs from time to time. I'm now using a USB 2 cable instead of the USB 3 cable included in the box and it's (finally) working perfectly!

I don't need too many channels for now so USB 2 works for me, but it would be cool if RME and Apple figured this out smile