1 (edited by bg 2024-10-26 10:41:39)

Topic: Fireface 802 bug (very low input levels) after switching to DK?

Hi,

tl;dr: After updating fireface to most recent driverkit I find input levels in totalmix and DAW to be suspiciously low. Switching back-and-forth samplerate fixes this and levels are "normal" afterwards. I believe this indicates a bug in the driverkit software.

I'm using a fireface 802 on a macbook air m2 with OSX Sequoia 15.01.
Recently I switched from the kernel extension to the most recent driverkit. I'm using the 4.16 driver and v20 firmware. 
During the update i encountered the below error in terminal:

sudo /usr/bin/kmutil rebuild
Password:
Checking the auxiliary kernel collection...
Error Domain=KMErrorDomain Code=31 "Error occurred while building a collection: Cannot build collection without binaries as only 1 codeless kexts provided" UserInfo={NSLocalizedDescription=Error occurred while building a collection: Cannot build collection without binaries as only 1 codeless kexts provided}

And after completing the driver update and reboot, the 'concurrent kernel extension detected' warning, which i seem to have fixed by disabling and re-enabling SIP in safe mode.

While testing post-update, I noticed that input levels coming into my DAW are suspiciously low in comparison to before the driver update.
Example; signal at the front mic/line input is coming in almost clipping, but is hardly reaching a peak level of -36 DB in DAW. Prior to the update I believe to have seen a much more healthy level (let's say 'the full dynamic range') in my DAW session on the same signal. I quadruple-checked total mix settings, input gains etc., but could not find anything strange. Also a total reset on totalmix did not help.

After a lot of fiddling around, it turns out that after switching back-and-forth the sample rate (from 44.1k tot 48k and back to 44.1k) immediately solves the issue and my levels are "back to normal" again.

So, I believe i've stumbled upon a bug. If you require anything from me to solve this, please let me know.

Regards,
Bas


Addition: It seems that after switching sample-rates as described above, this 'fix' persists between reboots as well. I've tested this once (1 reboot), so it may be a shallow observation.

2

Re: Fireface 802 bug (very low input levels) after switching to DK?

The issue might have been that after driver installation you did not reboot...I am sure there is no bug and it will work from now on.

Regards
Matthias Carstens
RME

3

Re: Fireface 802 bug (very low input levels) after switching to DK?

Thanks for your response.
I haven't seen the issue anymore, so that must've been it.