Re: Fireface UFX & High Sierra Issues

Want to avoid problems with RME UC on HighSierra?
Go back to Sierra!
This was my solution.
Also because FCP X 10.4 is not running without bugs in HighSierra, at least not on my MacPro 6.1
And also important, Waveburner is not running in HS and never will.

UFX+, FireFace 802 FS, Digiface USB
12 Mic, M1610 pro, Micstasy
MacBookPro M1
Logic Pro X

Re: Fireface UFX & High Sierra Issues

childrenof9, definitely not an optimal situation for you either! I read there's a new macOS update coming soon 10.13.14, but I don't know if there's a fix for us included. RME fellas, any word on that or other future plans?

I suspect all this is mainly Apple's hardware problem, but whatever the reason, it's still alarming that once superbly reliable RME hardware is now glitchy in macOS. I don't know what do, buy a new Macbook Pro or older, or new RME I/O or some other audio I/O, go back to 4-track Tascam or what? Damn!

Re: Fireface UFX & High Sierra Issues

did anyone ever resolve this? On intense sessions, I get this. I know it's not the computer choking because the session can handle the internal sound card just fine. But the UFX gets debilitatingly impossible to use. glitches every few minutes or so. I have had this issue since I got my mac in late 2016. yes that's right. I have hated nearing the end of a session for almost a year and a half because I know it's going to start the glitching.

I've tried EVERYTHING that has been mentioned over the past year and a half (including talking to support for UFX and studio one) and i just can't get it to stop. I don't want to replace the UFX with something else but I am at my wits end.

btw, I don't have this issue with anything but intense daw sessions. And it is as everyone describes. bitcrushing lost sync for about 30 seconds then it ususally comes back. although not always.

Re: Fireface UFX & High Sierra Issues

Resolved? Not really no, but something. I’ve had partial luck using side-hub for my Macbook Pro 2016. It uses up two USB-C ports, has two USB3 ports and other connectors. When RME is plugged here, crackling and bitcrushing seems to disappear. But NOT always. Some crackles occur still every once in a while, but at least the total choke hickup is gone. This leads to more reliable recordings, but I still wouldn’t trust this setup to capture a jazz quartet looking for that unique take. 

I trust this setup as far I can throw it, and that move may happen soon because I hate this uncertainty. I hear crackles in my sleep. But I just don’t know what to replace it with. Maybe I’ll just give up on Mac and get back to Windows. Get a gaming laptop and live with the noise or something. Record everything on 4-track, back to basics?

I sent email to RME about this many moons ago, no answer. Just few days ago I sent inquiry via RME facebook page, no answer. RME has left us in the dark. Too bad, because I really liked this interface.

Re: Fireface UFX & High Sierra Issues

Stakula wrote:

I sent email to RME about this many moons ago, no answer. Just few days ago I sent inquiry via RME facebook page, no answer. RME has left us in the dark. Too bad, because I really liked this interface.


Please don't spread any lies. You have got your answers from support as well as from Facebook.

Regards,
Audio AG Support

Re: Fireface UFX & High Sierra Issues

Stakula wrote:

I sent email to RME about this many moons ago, no answer. Just few days ago I sent inquiry via RME facebook page, no answer. RME has left us in the dark. Too bad, because I really liked this interface.

There is one mail from you in my inbox, from February, which I replied to the next day.
This was about a different topic, though. Nothing else to be found here, sorry.


Regards
Daniel Fuchs
RME

Regards
Daniel Fuchs
RME

Re: Fireface UFX & High Sierra Issues

Well, I got an Facebook answer today AFTER I posted the earlier response, so please don't try to confuse things. And I wouldn't advise to call your customers liars, please behave. If you don't like negative feedback, it is your right to delete them and possibly cancel this forum altogether. But do not advise me how to state my angst when it comes your hardware not working. And I have sent an email about this before. If it got lost, then it did. Plenty of info here about the same issue, but no answers.

I think we can all honestly say we love your products and would like work with them in the future. If there are problems, we'd like to know whether they're fixable or not. This is not just a matter of who sent what to whom, this is about getting your gear to work with other gear, so we can work and make our living.

So please stop laying blame to your customers on trivial matters and tell us what's this all about, are there new drivers in the works, is Apple doing something about it? Or even simple things like yes, MBP 2016 is scheisse, it won't work reliably ever with your gear, buy iMac Pro or wait for a new Apple laptop, etc. I don't mind drastic moves, I don't even mind extra costs, I just want to have a reliable setup, hopefully with RME gear I've grown to like for some 15 years.

Thanks for your understanding!

Audio AG Support wrote:
Stakula wrote:

I sent email to RME about this many moons ago, no answer. Just few days ago I sent inquiry via RME facebook page, no answer. RME has left us in the dark. Too bad, because I really liked this interface.


Please don't spread any lies. You have got your answers from support as well as from Facebook.

Re: Fireface UFX & High Sierra Issues

Stakula wrote:

Well, I got an Facebook answer today AFTER I posted the earlier response, so please don't try to confuse things. And I wouldn't advise to call your customers liars, please behave. If you don't like negative feedback, it is your right to delete them and possibly cancel this forum altogether. But do not advise me how to state my angst when it comes your hardware not working. And I have sent an email about this before. If it got lost, then it did. Plenty of info here about the same issue, but no answers.

I apologize for the term 'lies'. Nevertheless it's not true that we leave you in the dark. Your facebook message was sent on last Sunday and the reply came today after the Bank holiday yesterday.
Let's continue to support you and solve problems so you can have a reliable setup.

Regards,
Audio AG Support

Re: Fireface UFX & High Sierra Issues

Hi there.

I am having the same issues and I have been troubleshooting for months.

Majorly Disruptive, Intermittent audio glitching.

Troubleshooting has led me to these conclusions.

1. The "Bitwig Studio" DAW runs without problems when I use the macbook pro's in built soundcard.

2. Bitwig has major audio glitching issues when using RME babyface Pro or RME Fireface UCX sound cards.

3. Logic Pro runs perfectly using built in sound card or either of the RME sound cards.

4. 3 other producer friends of mine have confirmed with me that when they run Ableton Live and RME sound card, they have the exact same intermittent audio glitching issue.

5. One of the friends mentioned above resorted to buying a different brand sound card which resulted in no more glitches for them.

6. Increasing the buffer size in Bitwig Studio makes no difference to this glitch issue.

7. Removing several Instances of VST Plug-ins makes no difference to this glitch Issue.

8 Installing all updates for Bitwig, RME Drivers & Mac OSX does not fix the issue.

9. A representative from Apple told me that the issue must be fixed by RME.
An RME representative told me that the issue must be fixed by Apple.



I hope these points somehow help us all get a solution to this major problem. I am so close to abandoning RME and buying a Universal Audio Audio Interface.

Here are the current specs of my equipment.

Macbook Pro (13-inch, 2017, Four Thunderbolt 3 Ports)
Processor - 3.5 GHz Intel Core i7
Memory - 16 GB 2133 MHz LPDDR3
Graphics - Intel Iris Plus Graphics 650 1536 MB

OSX 10.13.4

Sound Card - RME Fireface UCX
Sound Card - RME Babyface Pro

Bitwig 2.3.4
Logic Pro 10.4.0

60 (edited by ramses 2018-05-24 11:48:02)

Re: Fireface UFX & High Sierra Issues

pspiralife wrote:

3. Logic Pro runs perfectly using built in sound card or either of the RME sound cards.

[...]

Here are the current specs of my equipment.

Macbook Pro (13-inch, 2017, Four Thunderbolt 3 Ports)
Processor - 3.5 GHz Intel Core i7
Memory - 16 GB 2133 MHz LPDDR3
Graphics - Intel Iris Plus Graphics 650 1536 MB

OSX 10.13.4

Sound Card - RME Fireface UCX
Sound Card - RME Babyface Pro

Bitwig 2.3.4
Logic Pro 10.4.0


If it would be a RME driver problem then audio glitches should consequently also occurr when using Logic.
But you say, that you do not have these issues when using Logic.

This brings me to the conclusion, that the issues are on the application layer, so to say Bitwig and Ableton related. Maybe they handle audio in a different way compared to Logic.

Maybe Apple changed something somewhere and only the Logic devs use proper programming ...

Compareable to the Windows 10 issue, that you need to know about "Virtual Lock" parameter to avoid audio stalls up to 100ms (which Microsoft forgot to document and to communicate), see this article: https://www.facebook.com/notes/vb-audio … 165445117/

BR Ramses - UFX III, 12Mic, XTC, ADI-2 Pro FS R BE, RayDAT, X10SRi-F, E5-1680v4, Win10Pro22H2, Cub13

Re: Fireface UFX & High Sierra Issues

Not sure what the negatives are, but Apple informed me not to go from 10.13 back to 10.12. I assume it has something to do with the Intel fix.

62 (edited by thedommer 2018-05-25 17:24:58)

Re: Fireface UFX & High Sierra Issues

Has RME released any statement on this? Like they are aware that for some users with the new MacBook pros and high Sierra that there is a driver glitch. Just seems bizarre that this is obviously happening to a decent number of people and no one has been offered a solution. Regardless of wether this is apple's fault for something new in high sierra or not, I just kinda want closure.

Anyways my UFX is going on kijiji. It was a good run until this new mac. It has become useless for me.

Re: Fireface UFX & High Sierra Issues

We are about to investigate this with an affected device, since the issue has not been reproducible on our systems. From what we can say until now, this is unlikely a "driver glitch".

Regards
Daniel Fuchs
RME

Regards
Daniel Fuchs
RME

64 (edited by thedommer 2018-05-25 21:33:27)

Re: Fireface UFX & High Sierra Issues

Awesome! Looking forward to the outcome.

They key for me was high CPU load. lots of tracks and lots of plugins. The computer chugs along just fine with internal sound card. But thats when UFX becomes unusable.

Re: Fireface UFX & High Sierra Issues

Unusable as in "same buffer settings", or unusable even at higher UFX buffer settings than internal soundcard buffer settings?

Re: Fireface UFX & High Sierra Issues

Timur Born wrote:

Unusable as in "same buffer settings", or unusable even at higher UFX buffer settings than internal soundcard buffer settings?

Highest buffer settings on both since I am mixing and need the power.

67

Re: Fireface UFX & High Sierra Issues

Please try this driver:

https://archiv.rme-audio.de/download/dr … ac_308.zip

Regards
Matthias Carstens
RME

Re: Fireface UFX & High Sierra Issues

Need to spend a few more days with it but first impression is that this has solved the problem. Spent about an hour in a very intensive session. On skips and drop outs were the usual ones you expect when a session takes your cpu to the limit. So far great! Will check back in a few days if I notice otherwise. What was the issue?

Re: Fireface UFX & High Sierra Issues

Seems to have solved the problem for me as well. Thanks

Re: Fireface UFX & High Sierra Issues

thedommer wrote:

Need to spend a few more days with it but first impression is that this has solved the problem. Spent about an hour in a very intensive session. On skips and drop outs were the usual ones you expect when a session takes your cpu to the limit. So far great! Will check back in a few days if I notice otherwise. What was the issue?

I changed my UFX to Firewire and use it now with 2 apple adapters to Thunderbolt/USB-c and it seems that this has changed the game totally. Had a long composing session yesterday with Live 10.0.5 and no glitches or audio drop outs so far. I'm was still able to find  overload/skipping cycle notifications in the console log but I cannot hear or see them happening during the process. I also started using Sonarworks in Systemwide mode in the new laptop which seems to work properly too.

I installed the latest driver driver_fw_mac_335 and running it in MBP 2018 i7, 2,6GHz, 16GB, 512MB SSD system.

Cheers,

T

71 (edited by gpiccolini 2019-10-31 21:13:09)

Re: Fireface UFX & High Sierra Issues

Hello. I'm also having intermitent but severe cracles and pops: Sometimes it just happens and I can keep working, but 99% sure they'll come back and became worse. Only "solution" is to shut UFX off. Sometimes I have my synth plugged in and if there`s no playback or sound for a while, the moment I start playing the synth (thru Totalmix) it starts to cracle and then stops... like a gate. Sometimes it goes dead silent for a while. Crackles are visible on UFX screen in analog inputs. Front inputs leds also lit. Other times happens when working with Logic or when listening anything in Firefox... Is it the OS or is it a faulty UFX?. It never happened with my old FF800.
Imac I7 mid 2011, OSX 10.13.6, UFX via FW , 3.38 driver (no change from 3.35)

PS: after a good 5 hours using UFX standalone without problems I begin to think the problem is computer related.

Re: Fireface UFX & High Sierra Issues

gpiccolini wrote:

Hello. I'm also having intermitent but severe cracles and pops: Sometimes it just happens and I can keep working, but 99% sure they'll come back and became worse. Only "solution" is to shut UFX off. Sometimes I have my synth plugged in and if there`s no playback or sound for a while, the moment I start playing the synth (thru Totalmix) it starts to cracle and then stops... like a gate. Sometimes it goes dead silent for a while. Crackles are visible on UFX screen in analog inputs. Front inputs leds also lit. Other times happens when working with Logic or when listening anything in Firefox... Is it the OS or is it a faulty UFX?. It never happened with my old FF800.
Imac I7 mid 2011, OSX 10.13.6, UFX via FW , 3.38 driver (no change from 3.35)

PS: after a good 5 hours using UFX standalone without problems I begin to think the problem is computer related.


I am having the exact same bug.  I'm on an iMac Pro, and everynow and then, I have audio glitches that happens, but major ones. All audio stops for a sec... then continue to work after that.  Which is a REAL bummer when recording.  I search a lot on the topics and did all the usual things:  reset the SMC.. disable Apple real time sync/update, ect... I also use an adapter from USB2 to thunderbolt-3 plugs instead of the USB 3 port, but still the same bug happens...

I honestly don't know what to do.   Sell my card and buy an other card?  Like a UAD maybe?   Wait for a UFX3 to happen?

73

Re: Fireface UFX & High Sierra Issues

If you read the threads here you should have seen what to do: open console and check for the audio interruption messages after such an event. It might show you what causes the stop in audio. This is not a general problem and all the things you tried are already fixed in our latest drivers and 10.14.6. You might need to start a fresh macOS installation and see if that works as expected.

Regards
Matthias Carstens
RME

Re: Fireface UFX & High Sierra Issues

Stakula wrote:

nce ag some two weeks ago I had to make a clean install of the macOS. To my surprise, with 10.13.3 clean install, I'm now back with crackles. It's not so bad as before 10.13.2, but still those typical console messages appear and audio crackles and almost halts occasionally. Less in Nuendo, more frequently in Netflix and VLC and playing back audio in general. It seems like CoreAudio is more at fault than ASIO Guarded VST audio in Nuendo, but even the latter is not totally crackle free.

Changing ports, getting rid of USB Hubs, etc. won't make any difference, or doing NVRAM or SMC resets. Also, in addition to haltingly terrible crackles and audio stops, I also get minor clicks in audio when listening to audio files or Soundcloud and similar, outside Nuendo. Clicks appear to go to red in TotalMix even though the files are not clipping nor are volumes boosted in VLC or anything like that.


Thanks!

Hello Matthias, I did read the thread and get the impression a clean install did not solve it; also Console language is chinese for me and honestly I don't want to go back to Windows98 style of using a computer big_smile . The thread is somehow confusing and I was under the impression that the new driver would solve the problem. Not in my case... Neither have any idea what caused it as it started to happen without a OS upgrade from my part. If you post a guide to solve the problem would be nice from your part, even if it seems it's not your fault.

75 (edited by Antt 2019-11-04 13:20:43)

Re: Fireface UFX & High Sierra Issues

Hi guys. New to the forum. On High Sierra as well and was considering picking a UFX+. Has anyone had these issues with the UFX+ or just with the UFX II or Babyface Pro?

Re: Fireface UFX & High Sierra Issues

MC wrote:

If you read the threads here you should have seen what to do: open console and check for the audio interruption messages after such an event. It might show you what causes the stop in audio. This is not a general problem and all the things you tried are already fixed in our latest drivers and 10.14.6. You might need to start a fresh macOS installation and see if that works as expected.

@MC, I've read and search in the forum and waste already a lot of time and could not fix the problem.  I had this problem from day 1 after performing a clean install. 

But hey, thanks MC for your superb, clever and helpful answer.

77 (edited by Ash Rothschild 2019-11-10 19:05:34)

Re: Fireface UFX & High Sierra Issues

Antt wrote:

Hi guys. New to the forum. On High Sierra as well and was considering picking a UFX+. Has anyone had these issues with the UFX+ or just with the UFX II or Babyface Pro?

I'd also like to know this as I am purchasing a mac High Sierra very soon & already have UFX+ on Windows using Thunderbolt which was working flawlessly.

Cheerz.

78

Re: Fireface UFX & High Sierra Issues

gpiccolini wrote:

Crackles are visible on UFX screen in analog inputs

Then the UFX must be defective. The local level meters are fed directly from the AD converters.

Regards
Matthias Carstens
RME

Re: Fireface UFX & High Sierra Issues

MC wrote:
gpiccolini wrote:

Crackles are visible on UFX screen in analog inputs

Then the UFX mist be defective. The local level meters are fed directly from the AD converters.


bad news... The problem seemed to have gone after Imac SMC reset. I worked a month or so... Now it came back. No updates.  I my tests never happened with the computer turned off.

Re: Fireface UFX & High Sierra Issues

I'm in Argentina. What can be done from here to repair the unit?. I bought it in Europe.