Yes its a bit odd - I flip between speakers and headphone a bit - but I wouldnt say its a lot.  Over 3 months seems quite extreme wear.

Well  I did receive a reply - I can send the device away and have the buttons replaced.

To be honest I don't know if I will have time for this. could take 4 weeks, and who knows if it will do it again.   I was told that it might be because I have sweaty hands, funny how they never affected my old Babyface Pro over 4 years of its life.

Guess just the QC of the devices has gone downhill.

I hadn’t really considered that.  It’s a stupid thing to chase up.  Maybe if that is the case an alternative design might be better.

Thanks Ronmac,  I can see the print on the other buttons (that I don't use) has a definite weakness that can chip of really easily with a gentle rub - I didnt go far testing this in case I never resolve the issue.

I owned the Babyface Pro prior to the FS and never had this issue - I upgraded as I has someone interested to buy mine so upgraded as I owned the older non FS for 4 years.  Avoid using chemicals on my hands, I have quite a few devices here that don't show this issue.

I am in contact with the supplier at the moment, I have been offered to swap the buttons over, my worry is that I will be doing this again in 3 months.   I have always liked that I get good resale value with RME products. this would cause that to slide.  I love the size of the Babyface, its like carrying a mastering grade interface in your bag, all bus powered.  Nothing comes close in terms of portability and design.  It will be a shame if somethings slipped through and not identified as I hope to keep this interface for another 5 years at least and want it to stay looking pretty good for when I next upgrade one day (I do take really good care of my studio gear).

strangedays, I am sorry for all the inconveniances that you have, but ....

at the moment, it's all conjecture. If there were general quality problems, the forum would be full of them. With machine production and mass delivery of parts it can happen, that a batch of something is maybe not fully ok. Sadly such things can't be avoided to 100%.
So I would propose to wait and see whether the new buttons solve the problem. If there should be remaining problems in the future I am pretty sure that you will get further help.

About the other problem. It would not be the first time that a computer update (operating system and/or services) leads to problems. I propose you try to find out what might have changed on your computer from the one day where all worked to the other day where not. Make some notes when you 1st observed that it didn't work reliably anymore to be able to cross check with logfiles and update histories. Sometimes such things can also happen on config changes of the user.

With Windows, I would restore a backup from a working system a few days ago in about 10-15 minutes.
This is the usual way how system administration and troubleshooting works ...
If this is not possible for your system, then you should ask for help how this can be achieved for your system.
Operating a computer without a proper backup / recovery strategy is like driving without safety belt.

Sounds like the USB connector is not fully inserted into the BF Pro USB socket. It must be pressed in deep so that the bigger part of the plug lines up with the housing, without gap.

Then it must be a computer issue as the hardware can not disturb graphics in this way. At least imho.

That graphics issue is known, does not cause further issues, and is easy to fix - just grab the window and resize it a pixel. But that graphics issue does not happen on its own, it is triggered by actions like wake from sleep or connecting/unconnecting second monitors. Identifying that might point to the real reason why your BF is dropping.