1 Topic by Vocalpoint (edited by Vocalpoint 2023-08-08 13:47:28)

  • From: Calgary, AB Canada
  • Registered: 2009-07-28
  • Posts: 50

Topic: ADI-2 DAC FS - ASIO driver not available in J.River Media Center

All

Been enjoying my ADI-2 for about a year now. I use it with J.River Media Center as the main audio interface/headphone amp (via USB) for my personal desktop workstation. I am running Windows 10 22H2 with the very latest ADi-2 driver set (June 2023)

Now - for all this time - when using the ADi-2 with J.River Media Center - all I can ever remember is the device being able to play EVERYTHiNG I could throw at it - in all possible sample rates and bit depths (44/16. 24/88.2, 24/96 etc) It would switch effortlessly between all different sample rates/bit depths with instant ease.

But yesterday - I was cruising around my FLAC library firing up different albums in different rates when JRMC suddenly started displaying its usual "Something went wrong with Playback" "Playback could not be started using..."

Which always means a driver issue. So off I go to check the driver that JRMC is using with the ADi-2. I was concerned to see only two specific RME drivers offered:

RME ADi-2 [WASAPI]
RME ADi-2 [Direct Sound]

Two oddball MADIface choices:

MADIface Analog (1+2) (Kernel Streaming)
MADIface SPDIF (Kernel Streaming)

And a selection of what appear to be generic Windows choices:

Default Audio Device (WASAPI)
Default Audio Device (Direct Sound)

and finally, two strange JRMC choices

Disk Writer
Null Output

But NO ASIO option for the ADi-2 FS.

Now - for the life of me - I cannot remember if I ever had this driver option to choose - but on the other hand - I also thought I had been using the RME ADi-2 [WASAPI] driver option (In JRMC) all along and it usually had no issues playing back anything?

As soon as this started going south yesterday - I tested each and every one of the RME options above and exactly none of them can navigate FLAC files with different sample rates in JRMC - they all display the Playback error message. But - I could swear this was working beautifully up to about 6 weeks ago when I was poking around the library?

Clearly something is not right here - I am thinking a total device removal from the computer and fresh install is in order but any ideas on why this is suddenly not working?

VP

Vocalpoint's Website

  • vinark
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Re: ADI-2 DAC FS - ASIO driver not available in J.River Media Center

cold reboot?

Vincent, Amsterdam
https://soundcloud.com/thesecretworld
BFpro fs, 2X HDSP9652 ADI-8AE, 2X HDSP9632
  • From: Calgary, AB Canada
  • Registered: 2009-07-28
  • Posts: 50

Re: ADI-2 DAC FS - ASIO driver not available in J.River Media Center

vinark wrote:

cold reboot?

Cold reboot of what - the device?

Have never tried that - how to?

VP

Vocalpoint's Website

  • vinark
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Re: ADI-2 DAC FS - ASIO driver not available in J.River Media Center

Both the PC as the device. Just shut down both. A warm reboot is a restart in windows. Probably the driver was crashed by jriver. It can happen and did here too on a rare occasion

Vincent, Amsterdam
https://soundcloud.com/thesecretworld
BFpro fs, 2X HDSP9652 ADI-8AE, 2X HDSP9632
  • From: Calgary, AB Canada
  • Registered: 2009-07-28
  • Posts: 50

Re: ADI-2 DAC FS - ASIO driver not available in J.River Media Center

vinark wrote:

Both the PC as the device. Just shut down both. A warm reboot is a restart in windows. Probably the driver was crashed by jriver. It can happen and did here too on a rare occasion

Well - I shut everything down to silence. Restarted and no change in any drivers or selections. (As I suspected).

There is something else going on here. No sign of any ASIO drivers and also no sign of any issues either like hardware errors or Windows not seeing the ADI-2 etc. As far as Windows is concerned - it's all good. But really it's not at all.

Why would the ASIO drivers simply not appear at all is baffling to me. Over on another machine here - I have the UCX-II connected via USB and it's ASIO driver is plain as day for selection in ANY audio app - including J.River - which works perfectly BTW.

There is something very weird going on here - especially since I also confirmed (on the shutdown/restart) that Windows Audio and any audio interface on the actual motherboard is 100% disabled.

So this ADI-2 FS should be the only thing that is selectable for sound on this workstation.

VP

Vocalpoint's Website

  • From: Calgary, AB Canada
  • Registered: 2009-07-28
  • Posts: 50

Re: ADI-2 DAC FS - ASIO driver not available in J.River Media Center

Update: Did a deep clean and reinstalled the device from scratch.

ASIO is back and JRMC is working normally.

I do wish I knew why this driver just up and disappeared on its own.

AND - why there were 5 "old" instances of the driver software - listed under Settings->Apps and Features in Windows 10.

Considering RMEs stance (in the manual anyway) of never having to worry about uninstalling the old driver before installing a new one and installing the new old right over the old one - the least the RME installer could do would be to clean up all these old references each time a new driver is installed.

I ended up dealing a trove of errors and other nonsense trying to clean all this up.

Cheers

VP

Vocalpoint's Website

7 Reply by ramses (edited by ramses 2023-08-09 14:59:59)

  • ramses
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Re: ADI-2 DAC FS - ASIO driver not available in J.River Media Center

What makes you so sure that the old RME driver instances are the culprit here?
The new installation also could have fixed something different.
I never had any trouble with any old drivers and believe me, I upgraded a lot and used a lot of different RME products.

And may I suggest that you start using a backup program, which you can use to restore a previous running state?
For this to work best, you need a Windows and data partition, ideally on a separate disk.
Macrium Reflect is a very reliable product to do this.

You should move all prepared folders from your Windows profile to this data partition (Own Files, Music, Games, Pictures).
Open properties, there you find options to move them.

Before doing this make an initial backup so that nothing gets lost.
And user data I would mirror additionally in its native format using FreeFileSync.

Then you can create "golden" disk images for Windows including you programs, registry, application config files.

All that I need to do before a recovery to the day or week or month ago is to save the Firefox bookmarks, then perform the recovery and then restore them.
All other applications do not have that many changes, therefore I don't care if I get the old application settings.

If you mirror your profile and user data additionally using FreeFileSync, then you can restore more from the application defaults, if needed.

So what I do / use is
- Macrium Reflect to create disk images of the OS / Windows incl. Registry, Programs, Application Defaults, User Profiles
- FreeFileSync to mirror data in its native format (User Profiles and user data which should be on separate partition/disk).
FreeFileSync also offers options to save the last n_files with timestamp.
I put them in a separate folder structure, so that its easier to remove some or all of them should I need diskspace.

This way I have best flexibility to recover from any potential "bad situation".

BR Ramses - UFX III, 12Mic, XTC, ADI-2 Pro FS R BE, RayDAT, X10SRi-F, E5-1680v4, Win10Pro22H2, Cub14

8 Reply by Vocalpoint (edited by Vocalpoint 2023-08-09 15:33:59)

  • From: Calgary, AB Canada
  • Registered: 2009-07-28
  • Posts: 50

Re: ADI-2 DAC FS - ASIO driver not available in J.River Media Center

ramses wrote:

What makes you so sure that the old RME driver instances are the culprit here? The new installation also could have fixed something different. I never had any trouble with any old drivers and believe me, I upgraded a lot and used a lot of different RME products.

What makes you so sure they are not? I have been using REM since 2008 and this is the first time EVER that RME drivers have suddenly acted strange. And I too have never had any issues with old drivers - until now.

For the record - J.River hasn't been updated in 9 months so I know that is not part of this equation. And I also know that JRMC WAS working perfectly with the ADI-2 ASIO driver on or about July 20. Then I updated the ADI-2 firmware AND drivers on July 28 - but did not immediately check JRMC until just two nights ago. I can almost guarantee this is where we went off the rails.

RME is good - perhaps the best there is - but that does not mean perfect. Something in this latest package is/was acting odd. Perhaps I had JRMC running in the background when I installed on July 28 and forgot about it and when that latest package went in - something (VERY difficult to test) happened during install. Maybe the ASIO driver did not get copied because it was loaded. LOTS of possibilities here.

ramses wrote:

And may I suggest that you start using a backup program, which you can use to restore a previous running state? For this to work best, you need a Windows and data partition, ideally on a separate disk. Macrium Reflect is a very reliable product to do this.

Been using Macrium Reflect here since 2011 as well. And I am very well versed on known good states etc. This issue however - could have manifested itself 20 days ago or on July 28 for all I know - I am not going to restore back to that date and undo everything I did on my machine since then.

Unlike your situation - there are LOTS of configuration changes and updates happening on this workstation every day. I cannot be rolling back too far regardless of what is going on.

But what I will do (for future updates) is what I probably forgot to do this time - which is to do a system restore point AND a quick Macrium incremental prior to any new driver update. That will allow me to instantly go back if required.

I actually should have known better.

I am also going to start removing ALL drivers every time a new one appears from RME despite their insistence that I can simply install "over top" of the existing ones. That should ensure a known good state every time.

VP

Vocalpoint's Website

9 Reply by ramses (edited by ramses 2023-08-09 15:50:13)

  • ramses
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Re: ADI-2 DAC FS - ASIO driver not available in J.River Media Center

Vocalpoint wrote:
ramses wrote:

What makes you so sure that the old RME driver instances are the culprit here? The new installation also could have fixed something different. I never had any trouble with any old drivers and believe me, I upgraded a lot and used a lot of different RME products.

What makes you so sure they are not?

Three things
a) on a driver new installation all the related stuff, registry entries and what not are written newly.
b) RME documents in the manuals, that removal is not required ... related to my point a)
c) because from time to time also my Windows installation behaves strange (because I try a lot of software)
and then a reinstallation of the backup from a day ago fixes things.

ramses wrote:
Vocalpoint wrote:

And may I suggest that you start using a backup program, which you can use to restore a previous running state? For this to work best, you need a Windows and data partition, ideally on a separate disk. Macrium Reflect is a very reliable product to do this.

Been using Macrium Reflect here since 2011 as well. And I am very well versed on known good states etc. This issue however - could have manifested itself 20 days ago or on July 28 for all I know - I am not going to restore back to that date and undo everything I did on my machine since then.

Sorry, but didn't you say that you performed a new installation?
Well, then you should have lost more compared to trying an older or a proven "gold image"...

It sounds to me as if your backup/recovery concept needs more your backup concept is still not proven enough.

Vocalpoint wrote:

What I will do for future updates is to do a system restore point AND a quick Macrium incremental prior to any new driver update. That will allow me to instantly go back if needed.

Insufficient method. If you do not update drivers for weeks, then your last backup could be up to a month old until Microsoft releases a new monthly update.

You should better use the Grandfather-Father-Son backup method, a mixture of Full, Differential and daily incremental backup. Then you can easily go back to a couple of days ago, if needed and I needed it already quite often and it saved often enough my "butt".

Vocalpoint wrote:

I am also going to start removing ALL drivers every time a new one appears from RME despite their insistence that I can simply install "over top" of the existing ones. That should ensure a known good state every time.

The root cause is still not clear, but you make yourself already much more work with that than needed.
Daily incremental backups and updated gold images would ensure, that you can go back until the point where everything was still fine.

I know many people who only make it more complicated for themselves because they think that this or that is the cause without having analyzed it thoroughly first.
This results in both complicated habits, which are then usually communicated in forums as a pseudo truth with the success that many people then do more work than necessary.
And already there are again great Internet myths, because simply everyone thinks that would be so, without it was ever thoroughly examined.
As I said, my Windows has now and then also a hanger and I solve that much more elegant by
a) sensible partitioning / splitting of OS and user data
b) moving most folders from the user profile to the data partition
c) a clean and well thought out backup / recovery concept.

I do not tell you this to anger you. This is simply my experience of around 40y now and my backup never let me alone. I could always recover without loosing anything.
And regarding RME in particular .. I am using RME products now since nearly 10y. Different products, different drivers.
Never had any problem that would justify such a driver deletion that you intend to do.
I think you can save this work and should better work on your backup / recover strategy.

BR Ramses - UFX III, 12Mic, XTC, ADI-2 Pro FS R BE, RayDAT, X10SRi-F, E5-1680v4, Win10Pro22H2, Cub14
  • From: Calgary, AB Canada
  • Registered: 2009-07-28
  • Posts: 50

Re: ADI-2 DAC FS - ASIO driver not available in J.River Media Center

Ramses

While I appreciate the effort in your response - what works for you - does not mean it works for me (or anyone else)

Nor do I need to explain (or get into) the minutia of my workflow/backups etc compared to yours.

How I want to deal with future installs or how complicated I want to make this is really my call.

This issue is solved now and that is all that is relevant.

VP

Vocalpoint's Website

11 Reply by mark2748 (edited by mark2748 2023-10-06 22:01:07)

  • From: Redmond, WA USA
  • Registered: 2019-08-17
  • Posts: 43

Re: ADI-2 DAC FS - ASIO driver not available in J.River Media Center

@Vocalpoint:  Thank you very much for your clear and detailed post.  Today I encountered exactly what you describe in the opening post:  RME ASIO driver no longer available in latest JRiver Media Center on Win11.

As you suggest, I uninstalled all latest RME Windows drivers and software (leave firmware intact), reboot, reinstall RME MADIface win 09827.  Needed to do this twice.  Now I see ASIO MADIface USB [ASIO] in JRiver.  It plays as expected, automatically switching between 44.1 and 96 KHz flac files.  Within MC, DSP Studio reports "direct connect".

I cannot assess with certainty whether the fault lies with RME (most likely) or JRiver.  However I update JRiver MC very often, and try to keep up with RME as well, so I will watch it and report back if I learn anything.

Thanks again.