URGENT: Losing audio through Ultralite MK4 (RESOLVED?)

[peterd]

I would ask Motu to see if they can recommend a powered hub.

[joelfriedman]

Thank you Peter. I missed your correct diagnosis earlier.

Best,

Joel

[peterd]

Oh not at all Joel. I hope we get to figure this out together.

A powered hub—probably more like the second one you linked to, from Amazon—will surely improve how your external hard drives are powered. Some external monitors can also function as a powered hub by the way, it's worth checking whether your display monitor provides that feature. I have a Dell monitor that I use like this.

[joelfriedman]

And a partial update... I realized that I had a big and "dumb" POWERED Seagate 8TB USB drive as my TM backup plugged into a small 4way StarTech USB A BUS powered hub. The StarTech is plugged into one of the 4 USB-C ports in the iMacPro. It's been that way since the beginning. The drive stopped showing up without me realizing it until I saw the TM hadn't backed up in over a week. I switched the TM drive directly into a USB A port and swapped the iLok into the StarTech.

Right now the StarTech has my iLok, Steinberg's version (for Dorico), and the USB charging cable for my wireless keyboard Magic Track pad.

Meanwhile all 3 of the Samsung external SSDs are plugged in as well.

So far no crashes. I've deliberately booted up Sibelius and left it running all day, which is usually begging for trouble. No crashes. Of course since I've had issues with Sibelius Sounds crapping out (crackling-distorted sound, no sound) I habitually run it off NotePerformer instead. But that's a different issue.

I upgraded DP to 11.11 and opened a file and... it scanned everything, opened, and didn't crash... until I quit the app. COQ. I rebooted and opened it again and it was fine. We shall see what happens.

So was the problem based on using a USB A cable into a bus powered hub, even the drive itself was powered?
Do I still need to get a powered USB hub to replace the StarTech? Would that be safer?
I think the 3 SSD's are fine (maybe?) as they are, each going into it's own USB-C port. A powered hub listed on OWC for that is quite expensive ($175) so I'd prefer to avoid that purchase.

I've been deviled by all sorts of distorted-crackling and drop out audio on this iMacPro since the beginning and have spent a lot of time with Apple, Sibelius, and MOTU tech support dealing with these issues (you can see of my earlier posts, such as audio dropouts whole using Keynote or Finder, about these issues on this board). So I'm a bit shy of declaring "victory!" as there have been such long-running issues in addition to these kernel panics, and the kernel panics have come in cresting waves in their frequency of occurrence, but also disappeared at times for a month or so.

So, who knows? Is one USB-C port weaker than the others? Was the TM drive drawing too much power via the StarTech? No idea.

[joelfriedman]

Hi All,

We may have a winner. I put my Anker powered USB 3.0 SuperSpeed 10-Port Hub into my chain and offloaded a lot of the USB A items to it and so far... no crashes. Cross your fingers it may have been randomly over-taxed USB ports causing this.

Thanks all,

Joel

[James Steele]

Hi All,

We may have a winner. I put my Anker powered USB 3.0 SuperSpeed 10-Port Hub into my chain and offloaded a lot of the USB A items to it and so far... no crashes. Cross your fingers it may have been randomly over-taxed USB ports causing this.

Thanks all,

Joel

I hope that fix sticks! Would be good news if that takes care of it!

[joelfriedman]

Thank you James! I'm itching to take that question mark off "Resolved?" - but I'm gonna wait a bit longer.

Best,

Joel

[audiogamble]

Thank you James! I'm itching to take that question mark off "Resolved?" - but I'm gonna wait a bit longer.

Best,

Joel

Hi Joel. Found this thread because I'm having a very similar problem with my MOTU M64. Semi-frequent kernel panics that seem to be related to usb connectivity issues. I'm using a 2018 6-core i7 Mac Mini with the latest version of Monterey (12.6.2)

Is your configuration stable now? If so, can you describe exactly what made things work for you? Is your motu going through your powered hub, or directly into the computer? Can you take me through what's going through your hub and what isn't? Also what's the precise model of the hub that you're using?

[joelfriedman]

Hi there,

I'm out of town for the next week so I'm not in front of my system. Worse, I haven't been using DP for a while. That said I believe this is the hub I bought: https://www.anker.com/products/o7510?va ... d3ed3a71bc

My system *has* been noticeably better since I took the powered TM drive off the hub, but sometimes it still has crashed while Sibelius has been open (the app has often been a long-time thorn to me) *and* the system has fallen asleep. For example, I'll have a score open in Sibelius, leave to run an errand, I'll return to see that the system has crashed. I can't tell you if it crashes less now due to me offloading a number of USB items from the regional hub to this powered one, if it was the TM drive drawing too much power, or if I simply haven't been pushing my system as much of late. I know my sample libraries, including Sibelius are all on external drives.

There was talk that there was an issue with external drives and Macs falling asleep. That could be it in a nutshell. Perhaps the highly knowledgeable Mike Halloran can chime in with this.

Best,

Joel

[audiogamble]

Thanks for the reply. When your system crashes it is just software crashing / quitting, or does the computer fully kernel panic and restart?

[joelfriedman]

Kernel panic/full crash-restart. When I return it's at the login stage. I login and get the message about something being wrong and it's restarted. I do have a million copies of the crash log.

[audiogamble]

Thanks for the responses. I've read your past crash reports and mine look exactly the same. (Apple USB bus power kernel extension in the backtrace).

I've launched a support ticket with MOTU to hopefully get some resolution to this, considering I'm doing professional work and my system can't really be trusted in this configuration.

I'm also really quite amazed at the amount of users reporting similar behaviour with their MOTU interfaces on this forum. I really wish I'd read this before and just gotten an RME or something more stable.

[joelfriedman]

Hi,
After a period of respite the issue has returned, with a vengeance. However, I'm in the middle of a big project *composing* so I am not even opening DP. The crash occurs when Sibelius 2022.12 is open. The 1st 5-6 days it worked perfectly and then the crashes started, increasing to *multiple* times yesterday (last night every 45 minutes or so). Usually it happens "out of sight" meaning my system is left on but unattended for 30-45" and I return and it has restarted. Last night it froze and blew up as I was working in Sibelius.

Quick recap: I had talked to Motu - not their problem. I had uploaded to EntreCheck - no solution offered. I *PAID* for a call to Avid Sibelius and was told it wasn't them, my problem. As I mentioned I am in the midst of big project and cannot take time to trouble shoot. It is a literal PITA.

the odd thing is it comes in waves that usually increase. I don't know what "stops it," and I'm guessing that it increases with use (working in Sibelius).

Two additional facts: 1. I am not using Sibelius Sounds (as it... used to distort-crackle-drop out-crash all the time and became useless) and use NotePerformer 3. 2. I've wondered if having my files in DropBox had any effect (Sibelius only), but I obviously keep them set to "make available offline" when using them. Why use Dropbox at all? A. So my files are always available (iMacPro, M1 MBP laptop)*and* having files/folders "online-only" means they don't count as space on my actual boot drives (unlike the way iCloud works/used to work).

Some recent info. They've been cpu 4, 8, and 12 of late.

Joel
panic(cpu 4 caller 0xffffff80165cdd43)
panic(cpu 4 caller 0xffffff8004fcdd43)
panic(cpu 8 caller 0xffffff801afcdd43)
etc.
Kernel Extensions in backtrace:
com.apple.driver.usb.AppleUSBCommon(1.0)[61385155-1852-3184-ACD2-C4AC991BA4E7]@0xffffff801c7e3000->0xffffff801c7e6fff
com.apple.iokit.IOUSBHostFamily(1.2)[5ED08428-5074-388F-A92E-3D1BDA80C82F]@0xffffff801ddbb000->0xffffff801de4cfff
dependency: com.apple.driver.AppleBusPowerController(1.0)[DBB1B4C4-6A3D-308A-B962-F3BB1AAAFD7A]@0xffffff801c2d9000->0xffffff801c2dcfff
dependency: com.apple.driver.AppleSMC(3.1.9)[D64939C9-A184-3FEA-975B-C3889D17DA10]@0xffffff801c66f000->0xffffff801c687fff
dependency: com.apple.driver.usb.AppleUSBCommon(1.0)[61385155-1852-3184-ACD2-C4AC991BA4E7]@0xffffff801c7e3000->0xffffff801c7e6fff
dependency: com.apple.driver.AppleUSBHostMergeProperties(1.2)[12333E88-5055-311B-9EBC-87CEDB95D0B4]@0xffffff801dec0000->0xffffff801dec0fff
dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOACPIFamily(1.4)[9B7E5F8A-0357-37DF-AC13-BEFEA2714FA3]@0xffffff801d58d000->0xffffff801d58efff

[joelfriedman]

And just like that... It's back to working. No crash and running since 11 am. I have no clue. Nothing has changed. Same apps opened and everything.

[joelfriedman]

And the crashes are back. Frequent. Same kernel panics. As I am composing I am only using Sibelius, not DP, but Sib. scans the same plugins, but plugins don't seem to be the issue. I did run into reports of people who had kernel panic crashes in the past on iMac Pros, they seemed to be related to the iMac Pro's GPU, 2nd monitors and/or cables/adaptors used for the 2nd monitor. Since it was easy enough to test this I turned off my 24" Dell and rebooted w/out it. Crash.

Then I turned of my UltraLite MK4 and booted up Sibelius using the iMac Pro's speakers. Guess what? It's been 8 hours and no crashes. Hm... Is it the Motu driver the USB cable, the iMac USB port? All other peripherals are up and running. So we're back to this again. 'Round and 'round we go. If anyone has any suggestions send them along.

I haven't had this much fun in a long time.