Mac USB driver for macOS 11 & Apple Silicon hardware (Page 20 of 20)

https://forum.rme-audio.de/viewtopic.php?id=42831
https://forum.rme-audio.de/viewtopic.php?id=42079

These complaints have not gone away for me. I am not trying to throw shade here, but I can't believe I am the only one experiencing this? DriverKit is a noticeable downgrade for me.

The most annoying thing is system sounds interrupting DAW audio, that never used to happen.

I understand that RME is not necessarily culpable here, but it is making me reconsider USB as a viable protocol for professional audio.

If DriverKit is the only way, maybe it's time to reconsider Thunderbolt options but unfortunately RME doesn't sell these, and I think MC is on record saying it won't happen.

I have had 2+ good years with my UCXII and I love it, but I can't ignore these realities.

@zephonic

It's the same for every OS; you have to deactivate system sound notifications, otherwise it will, of course, appear on your monitoring channel or do other nasty things like you described. Check your settings, see waedis screenshots.
I have to do the same in Windows.

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/064btnoc … u&dl=1

This I didn't mean.
The shown settings in my screenshot only deactivate system sound for certain events like e-mail arrival, low battery, etc
But it does not deactivate Windows sound at all.
You can still use the WDM driver and the Windows default sound device to e.g. listen to Youtube.

With your proposed macOS settings, you also disable only the system sound for "events", but you do not disable audio at all.

The only difference between macOS and Windows is, that Windows allows you to configure every single event individually,
whether a notification should occur, and using what sound, or to disable them all using the sound scheme "Keine Sounds".

macOS can only enable or disable system sounds for all kinds of events (mail, battery warning, etc.) at once.

No, there is a list of all apps under "Notifications" in the system preferences, each can be OFF/ON individually and has settings inside to disable tones.

When you say interrupt, does the music break off for a moment, a dropout ?

Me and Ramses in the previous post mean the system-sounds just appear and are mixed into the output what is uncomfortable for the listener...

Thanks for clearing this up.
Then forget about system settings to tweak the sounds or silent them, it will not help.
This is a deeper issue in the audio driver and system audio MacOS.

But why it does not happen to every other owner of this interface on a Mac ? I don't know.

Let's hope for a MacOS update with fix

Hi ! I own a Rme Fireface 802, i tried to use the midi ports of it , and they don't seem to be recognised by my mac : i tried everything, reset the audi midi setup of the OS, etc etc ... but no luck.
I am on mac Os Tahoe (yes i know ... big mistake) 26.4.
Is there known issues with it about midi ?
Thanks !

My driver is 4.27, i rescanned thru the audio midi app and i plugged the 802 directly and not via a hub.
Maybe i missed something to activate in the 802 settings ? (i bought it second hand, maybe the previous user desactivated something ...)

My firmware is V20, i think it is the last one yes

20 is correct, but I would run the FUT and reflash the firmware for a test.

The Midi ports should appear in the Audio-Midi-Setup and work.

Sorry, I am not using macOS, maybe somebody else has more information about this.

But from what I read so far here in the forum, the future is DriverKit.
At a certain point Apple might cease kernel extension support, but I think currently nobody knows when.

If there is a possibility for you to get DriverKit running stable, for example, by finetuning the "safety offset" (or also "channel limit" if available/doable) in the driver settings, then fine.
But even if big safety offsets should not work then a fallback to kext sounds reasonable to me if there is a chance to resolve issues by that. Of course the thematic will come back to you should Apple cease KEXT at a certain point.

If you use a USB3 recording interface then - if I remember right - you could also use CC mode if both (KEXT, DriverKit) are not working for whatever reason.

I think Apple made a big mistake with their design decision to run 3rd party drivers (esp. audio drivers) in user mode and not in the more robust/reliable kernel mode.

In kernel mode they would have preference before any other processes which are managed by the process scheduler.
In user mode the driver has to compete with other system and user processes, and process prioritization is not as strong compared to kernel mode. In kernel mode drivers can only detach themselves from a CPU core, fully independend of the process scheduler.

The problem is when OS/security designers kind of "overreact" and put security in front of everything else (functionality, reliability, ...). It's a known fact that audio processing is very sensitive and has Near-Realtime processing demands.
A manufacturer like Apple should be aware of this and honor such requirements as good as possible.

Hi, i am running MacOS Tahoe 26.4 on an Apple Silicon M4 Mac

I noticed the "de.rme-audio.dkusb" process always runs as the hottest process in activity monitor
above all other tasks and apps and is between 17-21 (!) % of CPU drain.
(please see attached screenshot)

i am running a Babyface Pro FS with latest driverkit 427 and also latest firmware i can find on the rme website.
and i just updated from MacOS Tahoe 26.4 to 26.5 but that doesn´t make a difference.

i first thought Brave Browser is the issue but it doesn´t matter if i close the browser or with any other
app that processes audio.

Is this a known issue? 

I can't imagine that %CPU means the load of only one core.
This makes no sense to me.
In such overviews you want to know the CPU load of each of the processes of the whole CPU (all cores), where:
- Single-threaded applications will run only on one core.
- Multi-threaded applications have the CPU load split across multiple cores.
Finally the sum of all CPU loads may not exceed 100%.
Where 100% is the full usage of the CPU with all cores/threads.

In the activity monitor hit command 2

It opens a window with real time processor load for all cores

The list of the applications % cpu is real-time.
It is often misleading to the user who think one of his software does occupy a lot of the CPU system.
"Oh shit my computer is not powerful enough, I must run to the Apple store and buy more Macs"

In case you talk about internal playback - yes, a 2 channel hardware will cause less CPU than a multichannel one - not to mention the different hardware connection.

@ramses: waedi is right, and we repeatedly have to explain to Mac users how to read the numbers correctly.

FWIW I am having this problem with my Babyface Pro FS (and never had it with the Motu M2 connected over USB, so it's not all USB audio interfaces). Latest drivers and OS, as of this morning.

having issues here. got a new M5 Macbook pro which of course comes with/Macos26.  now no matter what i do i can’t get the RME UFX+ to play along. it isn’t seen by the mac. won’t show up in system settings or audio/midi set up. the UFX+ is v55 and 4.27 driver.

I tried reinstalling everything, connected via TS3+ cal digit hub and also connected directly. It’s weird. the blue light indicating it’s connected to the host is list up but it is not accessible

It’s connected via USB via the mac USBC-> USB-A adaptor.

Is there some terminal hack i need to do or install the kernel version or some way to uninstall and reinstall the driver to start over? the system settings are set to allow accessories when unlocked. it asked the first time when i connected it directly so i know it’s in the ether of the OS somewhere.. but is not willing to be unhidden fully.

why do you hide, UFX+, i’m you’re ever lasting friend. show yourself. My spells do not work.

edit: double checked the login settings and made sure that is all as it should be. yikes. starting to get a bit worried about this but UFX+ is a premium interface and not very old so wasn’t expecting any issues.,. but MacOS26 i guess is the problem i should’ve expected.

edit edit: read back through the thread. thank you to previous posters with similar issues. seems MacOS26 latest version, 26.5, is not happy with the driver kit 4.27.   I installed the 335 kernel extension and after restarting adn allowing and all that business everything works as expected. so weird to go back a version/method but grateful that it exists because i was starting to panic for a sec.

You are not alone. Macbook Pro M1 Pro, UFX+, latest DriverKit 4.30, i got like a "stutter" which is an audio drop out, either working Bitwig / Ableton or simply watching Youtube Videos. I can't work basically.

I always used it in Windows, but lately decided to use it on my MBP, and this is impossible to use, especially in my case where I print a lot the audio. I know it's not RME fault... but damn.

@MC I see i'm not alone, but this is awful and for sure stressful for you guys. I'm going to try KEXT old skool way to see if it solves... but I am sure the community can help and reach a solution where perhaps things are more stable? As Apple is not going to do shit about for sure. Typical.

I'd also appreciate new "Thunderbolt" options... The issue previously was to do with the supply of Thunderbolt chipsets, something about them not supported for very long. But why can't we just use USB4 or USB4v2 in 2026? Those are open technologies, and support PCIe tunneling.

For now I use HDSPe interfaces in Thunderbolt PCIe enclosures. But my UFX+ is being used as a converter at this point, not an interface. I'd happily replace it with a new UFX that has PCIe tunneling over USB-C. The main issue with the HDSPe interfaces is they require additional external IO (not to mention the enclosure), there's no PCIe/USB4/Thunderbolt interfaces with decent analog IO.