MOTU ultralite Hybrid Mk3 OSX Firewire, USB, Woes and Fixes

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Discussion related to installation, configuration and use of MOTU hardware such as MIDI interfaces, audio interfaces, etc. for Mac OSX
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Prossi78
Posts: 3
Joined: Thu Apr 09, 2015 11:43 pm
Primary DAW OS: MacOS

MOTU ultralite Hybrid Mk3 OSX Firewire, USB, Woes and Fixes

Post by Prossi78 »

(Note this is under 10.11.4 - I have not yet made the jump to 10.11.6)

Let me start off by saying. I love my Ultralite. It has the power, ins and outs, and portable that is critical for all that I do. I have struggled with issues with the Firewire since I owned the device and also the USB. But, I haven't given up on trying to keep it working for me.

A slight mis-title--let's call it "potential" fixes. I have had this unit for a while now, at the very least through 10.10 and 10.11 flavors of OSX. From day one, Firewire was flakey for me, though this seemed directly related the the shortcomings of the Firewire jack itself.

USB Connectivity--Recent loss of reliable connectivity
Just last week, my USB connection (which I had been using in lieu of Firewire because of too many issues in the past) has gone all wonky. It is an intermittent thing, but about 60% of the time when I power the unit on, the audio interface will connect, but the MIDI ports do not show up. I reinstalled MIDI drivers, removed other drivers, etc... nothing really seemed to work. I even went as far as to go into the terminal and repair permissions from the command line. And here's where things get interesting:

FireWire Connectivity--Lack of connection
One day, my device simply stopped be picked up by OSX.I thought the port on the MOTU finally gave up the ghost so I switched to USB, and despite some sufferable issues that seemed to get me along..until the above mentioned MIDI issues. However, when debugging the MIDI stuff I did notice that anytime I connected the FW cable (of course, I had to see if this was a solution to the MIDI stuff), I would get a FW detected from the MOTU. Curious.

After fixing permissions via terminal did not resolve the MIDI issue under USB, I decided to give FW a try again. The device connected immediately! I have done several runs of powering off the machine and device, rebooting, etc,

So far, encouraging results. I have some gig prep to do this week, so I'll get a lot more data to report on. But for anyone who has had this same issue...there may be hope yet!


Poor jack design:
Potential fix: Secure that jack, friend! I have found some success putting a well-applied, and thin layer of electrical tape around the Firewire connector so that when insert it into the jack, it fits more snuggly. Now, the jack itself is a bit wobbly, so I will most times wrap a veclro tie around the Firewire cable and MIDI cable right at the jack to secure things up....and then try not to bump the whole setup while I'm playing.
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