Hi Daniel,

Thanks for your reply.
This is absolutely not reproducible, as we have performed this show many times without any issue.
My problem is that I need to be sure this never, ever happens again.
If you think it could help, I believe I can find a recording of the issue.

What details might be pertinent ?

The UFX+ was connected via USB3 to the macbook pro.
These files had been played back via QLAB many times in the past without issue.
The first file in the show played fine, then the problem occured at the beginning of the second file.
Once the issue started, all the files were affected (until the UFX+ was rebooted).

Thanks,

sam

10.11.6

13 inch early 2015
3.1 ghz intel core i7
16 gb ram

Unless the UFX+ is defective, it is not likely to be the cause of this - the problem seems to be on the side of the computer, but it's not easy to say what caused it here. Unless this is reproducible in a test setup, all this is hard to determine, though. You could test a new partition with 10.13 perhaps.

Regards
Daniel Fuchs
RME

If its reproduceable up to a point that it happens multiple times a day or if you can trigger it somehow,
then you could try to use Durec for Playback. Routing you can preconfigure in up to 6 standalone profiles.
By this you could exclude the PC component completely and observe whether this issue comes back even without PC or not.

I also understand you from a performer point of view and your use case.

My suggestion was simply meant as "brainstorming" ... what could be done under certain pre-conditions (reproduceability).

I think it would already help a lot if you could bring this to a point whether this is PC related or not,
to concentrate troubleshooting / repair on either RME or PC (or even software) side.

Using Durec for audio playback might possibly be also of help to have a plan B for playback during performance shall the PC have an issue.

So the next time if this happens, maybe you can prepare already to have all tracks on the stick that you can continue the show with the next song to be played by Durec, and if this works you might know by this that its most likely not the UFX+ unit. At lest not in the D/A department. Could still be USB or driver or PC or application related ....

Sorry Multiple times edited .... pls reread.

Some other ideas:

1. Maybe its not required to buy a different device, as the MADIface driver recognizes already automatically,
when the device is being plugged into an USB2 port.
Then the driver automatically switches to USB2 transfer mode and reduces the amount of channels by not
transferring the 2x64 MADI channels.
I think this would be then pretty much the same situation as connecting an UFX or UFX II to the computer.
1.1 Maybe this lowers the "load" a little on the computer side.
1.2 Maybe it turns out by this test that something other is defective if even this smaller amount of channels cant be transferred.

2. Would it be possible to add a configuration option to the MADIface driver to i.e. exclude the MADI channels from this USB3 isochronous instant transfer ? Comparable to what existed i.e. in the UFX firewire driver ? USB3 full-duplex operation would still be a nice feature to keep even if not really required for less amount of channels.

3. Cool would be a feature to activate different transfer modes with USB3 isochronouse transfer mode.
To select to strip 0, 25, 50, 75, 100% of MADI channels to be able to reduce the USB3 load in increments and as most people do not require all MADI channels. Would that be possible to integrate such a features into the driver ?

4. Dont know Core Audio much, but would it maybe save CPU load and audio driver load for him, to select in the application which of the channels he wants to work with ?

5. To put an example: I question myself whether its a wise decision for me to put all of the I/O channels of the UFX+ into my Cubase projects. In cubase I can select, with which input and output channels I want to work with.
Would it reduce CPU and/or ASIO load if I would choose only the required channels ?
If yes: could something like this help him to reduce load a little bit, shall his application also allow for this ?

EDIT3:
6. Did you open driver settings dialog, which has an integrated USB diagnosis, to ensure that no data transfer errors happen due to bad USB port or cabling ? This you could eventually to proactively during the next gig to see whether in another case of bad look crc failures are to be seen.
7. Depending on the result, can you try other USB ports and eventually also cables ?
8. Which USB3 cable do you use and what is its length ? Maybe try a Lindy Premium cable of max 2m ?

hey soundwunder,

so here's where I remember getting with this, I believe I had blamed the effect I had added on wav file in qlab.
i'm pretty sure it's a combination of causes, but I remember that I had finally blamed the effect.
anyway, it's a good case to mention when people make fun of us running a full second copy of our shows parallel to the main systems.
let us know if you every figure anything out further.

Yes, latest driver installed.