Topic: several problems

I have several problems concerning my new fireface uc:

1. Sometimes, when I switch off the uc, my macbook crashes. That I means that the "grey screen" will appear and I have to restart my computer. But there is no audio running at this moment.  Isn't it possible to switch off /disconnect the uc while the computer is running? It would be very useful to do that. I thought that USB is able to be hot-plugged. In Mac, unlike in windows, there is no possibility to "unmount" usb-devices.

2. Last time I switched the fireface on, the host led lighted at the following rhythm: appr. 5 seconds on, then 3 times shortly on/off. This cycle repeated until I restarted the fireface. Then everything went fine. Is this a error code, perhaps a hardware issue?

3. Sometimes (not very often) I get distorted audio in several applications. The error can be fixed by switching  the sample rate in the settings dialog to for example 48kHz, then back to 44.1kHz. Often but not always switching the latency helps also.
I saw in this forum, that this problem occurs with several kinds of rme hardware, either firewire, pci or pciam, on mac and on pc.
Is there the possibility of a driver update in near future? I tried other interfaces and onboard sound, there the problem didn't occur. So it SEEMS to be RME related.

4. Last time,when I burned a DVD, suddenly the host led lighted. I was not able to rebuild the connection by restarting the fireface, until the DVD was finished. The only running audio app was iTunes. The cpu load was not very high at this moment. This may not be a very critical error, but it is not very useful, that you even can't use system sounds or iTunes, while simply burning a dvd.

I would be thankful for suggestions on these issues. I'm still in a testing period for the uc and I'm very interested in stability. So I'm still undecided if I should retain the uc or switch to other stuff.

Re: several problems

Hi,

I'm having the same issue (3). Distortion / sample rate mix-up which can be temporarly fixed by switching the sample rate forth and back again. Like it loses it's lock to the setting.
I solved it before, but this week I had to reinstall my system due to a crash, and the issue returned.. I don't remember exactly how I fixed it last time, but it can be done and it's not the Fireface UC.

Some serious issues on my system came/come from the NVIDIA GeForce GTX280M video card that I have, and somewhere on the internet I found an old driver which solved the problem. Unfortunately it went down together with the rest of my harddrive...

When I find the solution I'll post it here, or does anyone know how to fix it already?

Thanks,

Maarten

MBP17"2011-2,2GHzIntelCorei7-16GB1333DDR3-AMDHD6750M-Crucial960GBSSD-MacOSX10.10-RME Fireface UC

Re: several problems

In my case the RME Fireface UC sample rate problem indeed appeared to have been caused by the NVIDIA display driver.

Downgraded the driver to version 185.85 (as found on the NVIDIA website: http://www.nvidia.com/Download/Find.aspx?lang=en-us  )

Problem solved :-)

Happy.

gr.
Maarten

MBP17"2011-2,2GHzIntelCorei7-16GB1333DDR3-AMDHD6750M-Crucial960GBSSD-MacOSX10.10-RME Fireface UC

Re: several problems

@hoswa  I am having the same issue as your #1.  In fact, I think #1 causes #3 for me.  I posted about it here: http://www.rme-audio.de/forum/viewtopic … 043#p44043

Did you ever find a proper way to unmount your Fireface UC on your mac?

5 (edited by oblique strategies 2010-09-24 15:01:39)

Re: several problems

hoswa wrote:

I have several problems concerning my new fireface uc:

Which MacBook Pro do you have, what operating system are you running, & which USB port are you using?

I initially had some problems with my MacBook Pro (non-unibody, early 2008). The issues that were similar to yours include kernel panics (grey screen of death), regular audio dropouts, & issues when using the optical drive (inserting CDs). I was running Leopard, & had never installed any virtualization software.

What helped me was moving from Leopard to Snow Leopard, & using the latest drivers. I also performed a semi-clean install, meaning I transferred some data from the backup, but re-installed or newly configured other things. I figured that if I just transferred everything over from the backup I'd be running the risk of transferring over something that might be responsible (or partly responsible) for some of the problems I was having with my FFUC.

I haven't had one kernel panic since upgrading. There are still issues with the optical drive, but now all that happens is a single brief audio dropout when inserting a CD. I can live with that. So, after a very rocky beginning, now almost everything is smooth sailing.

Re: several problems

I have a MacBook 2008 unibody with Snow Leopard + all the latest drivers and updates and still have the issues described here:
http://www.rme-audio.de/forum/viewtopic … 043#p44043

Re: several problems

Just had a nice big audio dropout! All is not right with the world...

8 (edited by oblique strategies 2010-10-01 12:55:04)

Re: several problems

FFUC suddenly stopped audio input. It allowed incoming audio again only when de-selected in Audio MIDI, & then re-selected in AudioMIDI. Audio output was uninterrupted.

Yesterday I experienced the following:
FFUC not being used as output despite being selected in AudioMIDI
Seen this before: selected FFUC as output in AudioMIDI, leave computer idle for a while, come back later to play a video in browser, & audio is coming out of built-in speakers. Then it immediately happened again. Had to shut down & restart the computer.

Nope, all is not right with the world.