URGENT: Losing audio through Ultralite MK4 (RESOLVED?)

[joelfriedman]

Tap-tap-tap... is this thing on? So the kernel panic crashes are back. What I have I learned in the last week?
1. They DO indeed happen using DP (11.2.1), it is not only with Sibelius
2. They do NOT happen when I am not using Sibelius or DP. I can use Safari, Word, Email, Keynote all day long, all sound running through the Motu driver for my UltraLite MK4 and I do not crash, only when using these audio apps (not sure if Audacity would cause the crashes but oddly enough I am no longer hearing sound with Audacity, I see the meters but don't hear anything. System Prefs are set to the MK4 and prefs in Audacity are set there too, as they have been. I used Audacity about 6 weeks ago for teaching and it worked fine.
3. Once the crashes start they happen more frequently, from one a day to 4-5 times a day, or more.
4. Probably unrelated but I've had some success holding off crashes for a bit with doing a cold restart, including unplugging the iMac Pro. That has bought me a few uninterrupted days of working until they start happening again. I assume this is just a coincidence. BUT: could this be heat related in any way? The crashes occur more frequently when I've been at work for a while, when my system is up and the apps have been running for hours.
5. In case it *was* a cable or port issue I changed the MK4 usb cable AND port on the back of the iMac Pro and had a few blissful days. But then the crashes returned.
6. Another "red herring." I do notice that DropBox is using up a lot of processor at moments. It's running in the background backing up files on my boot, and external projects, and samples SSDs. I use it as DB allows older files to exist only in the cloud and not count towards my boot drive contents, and so important files can be accessed from wither my iMacPro or my M1 MBP. 4 years ago I found with iCloud specifically that while I put things up in the cloud it still counted as being on my drive and I was running out of space (I have a huge amount of teaching materials, scores, audio/media files I use for teaching that need to be synced and accessible). Perhaps turn off DB while doing audio? But I don't believe it is showing up on the crash reports. Unless this could be "running out of RAM" related. But then nothing else crashes my system except Sibelius and DP, and DB is always running. I also have 32GB of RAM.
7. Often they will happen while I'm out of the room, so I will return and find the iMac Pro has restarted. BUT... they've happened while I'm working - suddenly the app (Sibelius or DP) will momentarily freeze and then the crash happens, so it is not a sleep problem (my boot drive is NOT set to "put HDs to sleep when possible", display set to "never" for "turn display off" etc.), again it happens as I'm working.
8. While the kernel panics alternate panic(cpu 4, 2, 0, 8...) cpu4 is the most common and I noticed that I think the 1st section of info in the crash report is always the same *except* for the cpu number
Panicked task 0xffffff8701477670: 298 threads: pid 0: kernel_task
Backtrace (CPU 0), panicked thread: 0xffffff8bcd0b4aa0, Frame : Return Address
0xfffffff566e53420 : 0xffffff8011a7bebd
0xfffffff566e53470 : 0xffffff8011bde5e6
0xfffffff566e534b0 : 0xffffff8011bcd953
0xfffffff566e53500 : 0xffffff8011a1ba70
0xfffffff566e53520 : 0xffffff8011a7c28d
0xfffffff566e53640 : 0xffffff8011a7ba46
0xfffffff566e536a0 : 0xffffff80123148b3
0xfffffff566e53790 : 0xffffff8011bcdd43
0xfffffff566e53910 : 0xffffff8011bcda26
0xfffffff566e53960 : 0xffffff8011a1ba70
0xfffffff566e53980 : 0xffffff8012257e29
0xfffffff566e53ab0 : 0xffffff8014a1fd51
0xfffffff566e53ae0 : 0xffffff8014a1cc09
0xfffffff566e53b00 : 0xffffff8014a2916f
0xfffffff566e53cd0 : 0xffffff80133e5aef
0xfffffff566e53ee0 : 0xffffff80133e5801
0xfffffff566e53f20 : 0xffffff801224319e
0xfffffff566e53f60 : 0xffffff80122427c7
0xfffffff566e53fa0 : 0xffffff8011a1b19e

But specific number strings of the next part do change

This is an example of the panic(cpu 0 caller string....
Kernel Extensions in backtrace:
com.apple.driver.usb.AppleUSBCommon(1.0)[61385155-1852-3184-ACD2-C4AC991BA4E7]@0xffffff80133e3000->0xffffff80133e6fff
com.apple.iokit.IOUSBHostFamily(1.2)[5ED08428-5074-388F-A92E-3D1BDA80C82F]@0xffffff80149bb000->0xffffff8014a4cfff
dependency: com.apple.driver.AppleBusPowerController(1.0)[DBB1B4C4-6A3D-308A-B962-F3BB1AAAFD7A]@0xffffff8012ed9000->0xffffff8012edcfff
dependency: com.apple.driver.AppleSMC(3.1.9)[D64939C9-A184-3FEA-975B-C3889D17DA10]@0xffffff801326f000->0xffffff8013287fff
dependency: com.apple.driver.usb.AppleUSBCommon(1.0)[61385155-1852-3184-ACD2-C4AC991BA4E7]@0xffffff80133e3000->0xffffff80133e6fff
dependency: com.apple.driver.AppleUSBHostMergeProperties(1.2)[12333E88-5055-311B-9EBC-87CEDB95D0B4]@0xffffff8014ac0000->0xffffff8014ac0fff
dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOACPIFamily(1.4)[9B7E5F8A-0357-37DF-AC13-BEFEA2714FA3]@0xffffff801418d000->0xffffff801418efff

This is an example of the panic(cpu 4 caller string....
Kernel Extensions in backtrace:
com.apple.driver.usb.AppleUSBCommon(1.0)[61385155-1852-3184-ACD2-C4AC991BA4E7]@0xffffff80021e3000->0xffffff80021e6fff
com.apple.iokit.IOUSBHostFamily(1.2)[5ED08428-5074-388F-A92E-3D1BDA80C82F]@0xffffff80037bb000->0xffffff800384cfff
dependency: com.apple.driver.AppleBusPowerController(1.0)[DBB1B4C4-6A3D-308A-B962-F3BB1AAAFD7A]@0xffffff8001cd9000->0xffffff8001cdcfff
dependency: com.apple.driver.AppleSMC(3.1.9)[D64939C9-A184-3FEA-975B-C3889D17DA10]@0xffffff800206f000->0xffffff8002087fff
dependency: com.apple.driver.usb.AppleUSBCommon(1.0)[61385155-1852-3184-ACD2-C4AC991BA4E7]@0xffffff80021e3000->0xffffff80021e6fff
dependency: com.apple.driver.AppleUSBHostMergeProperties(1.2)[12333E88-5055-311B-9EBC-87CEDB95D0B4]@0xffffff80038c0000->0xffffff80038c0fff
dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOACPIFamily(1.4)[9B7E5F8A-0357-37DF-AC13-BEFEA2714FA3]@0xffffff8002f8d000->0xffffff8002f8efff

Any thoughts on what is going on and how to stop it?

Frustrated & Worn Out Joel

[vladbold]

Hello Joel,
Any stabilty updates since February?
I’ve been checking this thread from time to time, to see if anything has changed. Since my last post I’ve reverted to Catalina without having any stability issues regarding the ULmk4, the only drawback being that I’m currently sacrificing mac Os features by not using one of their newest Os.
Today I have noticed they released Monterey version 12.6.5 during the past month and was wondering if, by upgrading, I will end up having the same crashes. Motu drivers for the ULmk4 have not updated and this is of concern.
By the way, last year I did open a support ticket with motu, regarding this issue, and after a couple of troubleshooting methods with no positive end result, motu concluded the fault is a bug on Apples side which they hope it will be sorted out soon. The thing is I’ve tested my imac with other interfaces and had no issues on any of the newer os’s.
I could not however find another T2 mac to test my interface on.

[joelfriedman]

Hi. Funny you should mention this. I had an odd instance two months ago wherein doing an OS security update seemed to trigger THE upgrade to Ventura. I've never had that happen before, and I am pretty sure I did not choose to upgrade vs the security patch, but I'll have to blame the pilot (me). Once on Ventura... the crashes STOPPED. I have not had an issue using Sibelius since. Nada. The few times I've opened DP it's worked fine, but I'm not doing any real work in the app until this summer. Of course I believe I've probably blown up my copy of NI Absynth, with I love and was using in an ongoing project, as I don't believe it works with Ventura, but... no more spontaneous kernel panics. So it seems it WAS Apple's fault all along - unless it was MOtu's fault in the cocktail with OS 12. At least this is my anecdotal conclusion. YMMV.

On my laptop I'm on 12.6.5 but I no longer have it set up for DP (lack of HD room). I *would* have been in your situation if Ventura hadn't been triggered.

Having it no longer spontaneously crash all the time is like when you realize they stopped hitting you on the head with a hammer: oh, that's why I'm feeling better....

Wondering if you HAVE to still be on OS 12 with your set up.

Joel

[vladbold]

Great news!

I haven’t yet upgraded to Ventura due to all the trust issues that previous os releaes have triggerd.

I have no reason to stick with 11/12 versions, thus this might be a good time to try the upgrade.

I will do it during this period and report back with results, positive or otherwise… maybe others might find some benefit if they land around here at some point.

Thank you for the infos and update!

[vladbold]

So far everything runs super smooth in Ventura. No restarts, no panics, no audio issues. This finally feels like mac os used to.

[joelfriedman]

Right??? This summer I dig back into DP and will give it a test drive. I'm still not 100% sure I can post [RESOLVED!!]. But wow, the amount of crashes I experienced for so long, and they seem to have evaporated. Perhaps I can now move on to "I have to use Rosetta?" and "Oh no, VI/plugin X no longer works?" It's always something, but this beats getting hit on the head with a hammer (not to mention the feeling that it was somehow me and not an issue).

Best, Joel

[cuttime]

Wow. This thread sounds like a case for Ventura. Next thing you know, someone might claim it's "snappier"!

[James Steele]

Wow. This thread sounds like a case for Ventura. Next thing you know, someone might claim it's "snappier"!

Well... now that you DO mention it...