URGENT: Losing audio through Ultralite MK4 (RESOLVED?)

[joelfriedman]

UPDATE: Interesting experience. I've been running mostly without peripherals. 2 days ago I tried just plugging in the Ultralite via USB to my iMacPro and booting Sibelius (see above for details). Let on all day etc. NO CRASHES. Last night I decided to add 1 more USB - my Nektar. The idea is: 2 USB ports, add my keyboard so I can enter notes and hear via Ultralite and NotePerformer. All fine last night and most of today. Went away for a bit (1 hr+) came back - and crash! Now what?

Is this a clue (from crash report)?

panic(cpu 2 caller 0xffffff801e3c3356): Kernel trap at 0xffffff801e3b8cc0, type 14=page fault, registers:
CR0: 0x000000008001003b, CR2: 0x0000000000000008, CR3: 0x000000002259f000, CR4: 0x00000000003626e0
RAX: 0xffffff86be7f7640, RBX: 0x0000000000000000, RCX: 0x000008b00ac8d519, RDX: 0xffffff801f042080
RSP: 0xffffffc11dee3930, RBP: 0xffffffc11dee3930, RSI: 0x0000000000000008, RDI: 0x0000000000000008
R8: 0x0000000000000000, R9: 0x0000000000989680, R10: 0xffffffa0979d20b8, R11: 0xffffff86be7f7640
R12: 0x0000000000000000, R13: 0x0000000000000000, R14: 0x0000000000000000, R15: 0x0000000000000000
RFL: 0x0000000000010202, RIP: 0xffffff801e3b8cc0, CS: 0x0000000000000008, SS: 0x0000000000000010
Fault CR2: 0x0000000000000008, Error code: 0x0000000000000000, Fault CPU: 0x2, PL: 0, VF: 1
Kernel Extensions in backtrace:
com.apple.driver.usb.AppleUSBCommon(1.0)[EB580C4B-57CE-358F-932E-E80633941A58]@0xffffff801faa6000->0xffffff801faa9fff
com.apple.iokit.IOUSBHostFamily(1.2)[748FD795-BA14-3BFA-ACF4-A47AE745021F]@0xffffff802108a000->0xffffff8021117fff
dependency: com.apple.driver.AppleBusPowerController(1.0)[AE6F367C-B545-3346-BB4B-FDF25BED5B97]@0xffffff801f62e000->0xffffff801f631fff
dependency: com.apple.driver.AppleSMC(3.1.9)[63716D6F-8C07-3CF3-822B-C162FEE3710F]@0xffffff801f956000->0xffffff801f96efff
dependency: com.apple.driver.usb.AppleUSBCommon(1.0)[EB580C4B-57CE-358F-932E-E80633941A58]@0xffffff801faa6000->0xffffff801faa9fff
dependency: com.apple.driver.AppleUSBHostMergeProperties(1.2)[32B0AA4E-65AA-3312-8599-94AFC81CCA87]@0xffffff8021184000->0xffffff8021184fff
dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOACPIFamily(1.4)[D8EB9D11-8304-311A-9B3D-34C1D131A452]@0xffffff8020845000->0xffffff8020846fff

Process name corresponding to current thread: kernel_task
Boot args: chunklist-security-epoch=0 -chunklist-no-rev2-dev

Alas, I forgot and also a Keynote file open for reference, which clouds the purity of the troubleshooting.


J

[peterd]

After having turned Computer Volume Controls to OFF for over a week now I've only had a single instance of audio loss. This is a lot less frequent than before—it used to happen several times daily.

[joelfriedman]

Things go 'round in circles... evidently so do I. The audio dropouts are thing of the past for me (and I did uncheck the box you suggested). What is still BEDEVILING me are the kernel panic crashes. I'm chasing my tail, but the latest is:
I've been keeping the system up and running all day now
The iMacPro is *mostly* stable now with the Ultralite and MIDI controller plugged in via USB
It is *mostly* stable with Sibelius Ultimate open
Avid's recent update seems to really have helped with my stability
BUT... I do not have my trio of Samsung 1 TB T5 SSDs plugged in
Once in a while I will come back to a crash

Once I plug in the 3 Samsung's I invariably get a kernel panic crash
Seems more definite when Sibelius is open
What's on those drives? Just my Projects and my samples. I need those.
BUT... Sibelius is NOT using Sibelius Sounds from the Samsung. It's running of NotePerformer (which is on my boot drive)
The TM drive is also on USB and there are no problems with it
I'm getting the well-known "no Samsung portable SSD is connected" message when I open up their software, but I've always gotten that since day 1, but I've always been spooked by these kernel crashes, just not as often as now
BTW: they always appear on the desktop, they are always accessible as drives that I can copy/delete/write/read from.
Yes, I've gone through the whole "System Extension Blocked" thing with Samsung and it is fine

So maybe it's something with these drives, or the cables, or the ports? Maybe that's been the problem the whole time?

Someone somewhere suggested wiping them and reformatting them strictly with Apple not the Samsung utilities

I'm seeing reports of issues in the past with kernel panic restarts with 2nd monitors via USB-C hm... I have that...DELL U2414H

Things go 'round in circles....

[peterd]

Gosh yeah… USB hubs and devices are a mystery to me.

On my previous MacBook Pro for instance I had an intermittent high-pitched whine coming from the Ultralite. Eventually I found out that this only happened when plugged into the ports on the right hand side of the laptop. Left hand side: all good. Beats me.

But good luck! MOTU support were always quite helpful to me in helping to resolve any issues.

[mikehalloran]

Gosh yeah… USB hubs and devices are a mystery to me.

On my previous MacBook Pro for instance I had an intermittent high-pitched whine coming from the Ultralite. Eventually I found out that this only happened when plugged into the ports on the right hand side of the laptop. Left hand side: all good. Beats me.
…

That's easy. Not all ports on older MacBooks supply bus power. This goes back decades.

[joelfriedman]

So... Mike: what do you know about the USB-C ports on a 2017 iMacPro and using Samsung MU-PA1TOB's ? (https://www.samsung.com/us/computing/me ... lsrc=3p.ds?).

These are bus powered, that shouldn't be an issue. Samsung is a litter of non-replies from people who have issues (bad customer service, evidently). I see people saying to wipe the drive and reformat them with Apple Disk Utilities (although if I did, I don't know how I would update firmware etc. if needed). 3 trio of drives have always been accessible, but never registered with Samsungs app. I've followed their directions and nothing.

Wondering if my crashes are related to
Kernel Extensions in backtrace:
com.apple.driver.usb.AppleUSBCommon(1.0)[EB580C4B-57CE-358F-932E-E80633941A58]@0xffffff8010ca6000->0xffffff8010ca9fff
dependency: com.apple.driver.AppleBusPowerController(1.0)[AE6F367C-B545-3346-BB4B-FDF25BED5B97]@0xffffff801082e000->0xffffff8010831fff
etc.

I went to the Apple community and posted a description and EtreCheck file and only got 1 response: go to Apple. Alas, I'm sick right now so that has to wait until next week.

Joel

[peterd]

Joel, are you running those three bus-powered drives off of a powered hub? I assume you are, otherwise they might not get enough power and that might cause issues?

[joelfriedman]

Peter, N, actually. They're going directly into the USB-C ports on the back of the iMac. The drives are def. buss powered as they have no power cord etc.

I have run Apple Hardware Diagnostic and come back fine. Is it the ports? the cables? The drives? Something else? As I mentioned - things go 'round in circles... I've had a number of issues with this machine since 2017 (some seem more like lemons than others. Never had issues with my 2008 cheese grater), but this one - kernel panics leading to shutdowns - has come and gone and now is back with a vengeance.
90%+/- it's fine with no peripherals
90%+/- it's fine with just the USB UltraLite & Nektar peripherals
90%+/- it's fine if I add in the 2nd Dell 24" monitor (via the last USB-C port (I don't have HDMI on the iMacPro)
80%+/- it's fine with with those 2 and if I boot up Sibelius using NotePerformer *not* SS, which are on the external Samsung SSDs
The new version of Sibelius made it a bit more stable, but it still happens.
So in theory I can at least do engraving with some periodic crashes
I have not opened DP etc., but then all of the samples and my project drives are on those Samsung T5s
50%+/- it's fine with the 3 T5s via USB-C
I have a MILLION crashlogs I can share that might yield something.

[vladbold]

UPDATE: Interesting experience. I've been running mostly without peripherals. 2 days ago I tried just plugging in the Ultralite via USB to my iMacPro and booting Sibelius (see above for details). Let on all day etc. NO CRASHES. Last night I decided to add 1 more USB - my Nektar. The idea is: 2 USB ports, add my keyboard so I can enter notes and hear via Ultralite and NotePerformer. All fine last night and most of today. Went away for a bit (1 hr+) came back - and crash! Now what?

Is this a clue (from crash report)?

panic(cpu 2 caller 0xffffff801e3c3356): Kernel trap at 0xffffff801e3b8cc0, type 14=page fault, registers:
CR0: 0x000000008001003b, CR2: 0x0000000000000008, CR3: 0x000000002259f000, CR4: 0x00000000003626e0
RAX: 0xffffff86be7f7640, RBX: 0x0000000000000000, RCX: 0x000008b00ac8d519, RDX: 0xffffff801f042080
RSP: 0xffffffc11dee3930, RBP: 0xffffffc11dee3930, RSI: 0x0000000000000008, RDI: 0x0000000000000008
R8: 0x0000000000000000, R9: 0x0000000000989680, R10: 0xffffffa0979d20b8, R11: 0xffffff86be7f7640
R12: 0x0000000000000000, R13: 0x0000000000000000, R14: 0x0000000000000000, R15: 0x0000000000000000
RFL: 0x0000000000010202, RIP: 0xffffff801e3b8cc0, CS: 0x0000000000000008, SS: 0x0000000000000010
Fault CR2: 0x0000000000000008, Error code: 0x0000000000000000, Fault CPU: 0x2, PL: 0, VF: 1
Kernel Extensions in backtrace:
com.apple.driver.usb.AppleUSBCommon(1.0)[EB580C4B-57CE-358F-932E-E80633941A58]@0xffffff801faa6000->0xffffff801faa9fff
com.apple.iokit.IOUSBHostFamily(1.2)[748FD795-BA14-3BFA-ACF4-A47AE745021F]@0xffffff802108a000->0xffffff8021117fff
dependency: com.apple.driver.AppleBusPowerController(1.0)[AE6F367C-B545-3346-BB4B-FDF25BED5B97]@0xffffff801f62e000->0xffffff801f631fff
dependency: com.apple.driver.AppleSMC(3.1.9)[63716D6F-8C07-3CF3-822B-C162FEE3710F]@0xffffff801f956000->0xffffff801f96efff
dependency: com.apple.driver.usb.AppleUSBCommon(1.0)[EB580C4B-57CE-358F-932E-E80633941A58]@0xffffff801faa6000->0xffffff801faa9fff
dependency: com.apple.driver.AppleUSBHostMergeProperties(1.2)[32B0AA4E-65AA-3312-8599-94AFC81CCA87]@0xffffff8021184000->0xffffff8021184fff
dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOACPIFamily(1.4)[D8EB9D11-8304-311A-9B3D-34C1D131A452]@0xffffff8020845000->0xffffff8020846fff

Process name corresponding to current thread: kernel_task
Boot args: chunklist-security-epoch=0 -chunklist-no-rev2-dev

Alas, I forgot and also a Keynote file open for reference, which clouds the purity of the troubleshooting.


J

Hello,

I have joined this forum to take part in this thread specifically. I am experiencing the same issue with my iMac Pro 2017 (Monterey 12.4) and Motu UltraLite mk4 interface.
The kernel panic log looks exactly like the one you posted here (14=page fault), the only difference being that cpu values vary (mostly 4, but 10, 12 too).

I have isolated my problems, tried various troubleshooting techniques and - at least for me - it all reduces down to the Ultralite mk4 interface. And not the actual interface which is fully functional, but maybe its drivers.

Without the interface connected, the system does not crash. There are days when my system crashes several times per day and days when crashes happen more rarely. During say, December 2021 or up until February 2022, before the Motu drivers for Monterey were updated, the crashes were happening at least once every 10 minutes, but obviously motu kext. problems were revealed in the panic logs. I downgraded to BigSur too and had exactly the same issues.

So my fix at the time was to roll back to Catalina which was very stable and wait for some updates either from Apple or Motu. Fast forward a couple of months later, in May, I decided to try the Monterey upgrade again hoping this has been dealt with only to find out that, while some of the previous kext. errors have been sorted, the problem persists.

I have yet to contact Motu, but at this point I don't have the necessary time to go through the problem. I will probably do so in a couple of weeks time.
I was hoping that maybe the upcoming release of Monterey 12.5 might sort this out, but at this moment I kind of lost hope?

Anyway I have found that launching Ableton Live and keeping it open in the background will make the crashes stop. Launching and keeping it open in the background as in not minimising the window to the dock after launching it; otherwise, with the Live window minimised the crashes will happen. This is the best fix I have found until now that has allowed me to work undisturbed by these kernel panics.

Other detail I could mention as to what triggers these kernel panics would only be related to playing audio from whatever source (music app., safari, chrome etc.).

At the moment I am desperately looking for a fix be it Apple or Motu, but the latter seems more logical since launching my DAW seems - to my limited knowledge - to create a stronger computer-interface usb connection and bypass that kext. error.

Glad I am not the only one to experience this though. I did search the internet exhaustively for a similar issue, but with no luck until I found this thread. Hopefully it will be resolved soon.

All the best,
Vlad

[bayswater]

So... Mike: what do you know about the USB-C ports on a 2017 iMacPro and using Samsung MU-PA1TOB's ? (https://www.samsung.com/us/computing/me ... lsrc=3p.ds?).

These are bus powered, that shouldn't be an issue.

I wonder if using the ports on the Mac, rather than a powered hub, is any guarantee. As Mike pointed out, not all ports on all Macs are powered.

On my 2018 Mini, they are all powered: I can plug a Samsung drive into any port and it works. Same with my 10 port powered hub. But I have to be careful of the specific arrangement. If I plug too many thing into either the Mac or the hub, after a while, some of them will randomly dismount.

My assumption is that all the ports on the Mac, if they are all powered, are powered by one power supply, so there is no guarantee that any specific combination of devices will get sufficient power, or for any type of use.

I've had to randomly move things back and forth between the Mac and two hubs to get an arrangement that is stable. On top of all that, some USB devices don't like to be in the presence of Bluetooth and vice versa.

It's all a PITA. USB might be wonderful in small quantities, but it doesn't scale well.

[joelfriedman]

Wow, just saw these 2 recent posts. Thank you for confirming that I'm not the only one. I am fatigued from trying to isolate and solve it over many months. I was all set to go into Apple and ask them 1. What the f&ck do these 10,000 crash logs have in common? 2. Please check the ports of my iMacPro (me running hardware check came back normal). I've had to cancel as I've come down with something and these days you don't go anywhere with sniffles.

I am now beginning to think it IS a MOTU issue. Here's why. Just yesterday I decided to boot up in the background with everything plugged in - Directly into iMacPro: 3 SSDs & Dell 2nd monitor, ilok, Nektar LX88+ USB, the UltraLite ; USB hub with USB TM drive, Steinberg dongle (for Dorico... some day), and USB cable for charging my wireless magic keyboard & trackpad. the Ultralite is plugged in but NOT POWERED UP. Guess what? It has NOT crashed. No kernel panics. I'm not doing anything, running anything, certainly not Sibelius or DP, but in the past just having it up and running meant kernel panic restarts. I am plugging into the ports or hub the way I have been in the past and no issues (so far). Of course I can't use my music software as I don't have an interface... I'm going to ignore it and let it run another day or so. If it's still working without crashes then I'll turn on the UltraLite and... wait for the fireworks.

Meanwhile I'm going to totally ignore the whole Samsung Portable SSD software issue saying "No Samsung Portable SSD is connected" if I boot up their software because: the 3 SSDs are plugged in and it's not crashing, and I can totally access my 3 SSDs. A lot of people have been complaining about this for Mac for a while and not happy with Samsung's costumer service. So I think this is probably a red herring.

If anyone else is having a similar issue perhaps we can all contact MOTU and see if they can put out a new driver.

[bayswater]

Joel, if you repeat this, but don’t plug in all the Samsungs but power up the MOTU interface, and it works without crashing, it seems to me the problem is not the MOTU interface per se, but having more plugged in that the power supplies to the USB and other ports can handle.

[joelfriedman]

Gotcha. Very smart. Thank you.

[joelfriedman]

Hi Bayswater,

You might be a genius. I've been up and running for the last 3 hours without a crash, albeit with no audio or notation software running, yet.

If this is the problem then I'm looking at a powered hub, no?

My iMac Pro (2017) 1,1 has the following ports:
Four USB-A ports
Four Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) ports with support for:
DisplayPort 1.2
Thunderbolt (up to 40Gb/s)
USB 3.1 Gen 2 (up to 10Gb/s)
Thunderbolt 2, HDMI, DVI, and VGA supported using adapters (sold separately)

I wonder if simply using a powered hub for the 3 Samsung SSDs (Samples I, Samples II, Projects) would offload enough power and be fast enough not to screw things up. Something like this (which ain't cheap)?
https://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/TB4HUB5P/

Conversely I guess I could go with adding a simpler powered USB hub for the Ultralite, keyboard, dongles etc. which might be just as good for power and far cheaper?
https://www.amazon.com/Splitter-Chargin ... ics&sr=1-3

But I guess the point is I can't have EVERYTHING plugged in at once.

Thanks!

Joel

[bayswater]

Joel, I hope you’re on the right track here.

I can’t suggest any specific equipment. In my case I move a lot of things like dongles that don’t need much power or speed and put them in an unpowered hub, then plugged that into one slot in a powered hub. I tried various combinations of devices with some plugged directly into the Mac and some into the powered hub. I ended up with an arrangement that didn’t didn’t look any more obvious than any other, but it was stable.