Disconnects with 1248 on M1 Pro/Monterey [resolved with latest drivers]

[yooda]

Same issue here with Ultralite AVB and M1 Macbook Pro on Mac OS 12.1.
I believe that preventing the laptop from sleeping may help, as most of the time the problem pops up when I left the computer for a while. But sometimes this happens also while working...

[MakingSomeWaves]

Hey everyone, I've made a discovery with this issue, and made an account on this forum just to help out. I'm also using a 1248 with a 2021 16" MacBook Pro with M1 Pro chip, OS 12.2

If the 1248 is connected to the left two thunderbolt ports, and is disconnected or turned off, the computer crashes 100% of the time. I've submitted the crash report with MOTU tech support (which has been very helpful btw) and they pointed out that it's the Apple thunderbolt driver on the computer that's crashing, and not anything related to a MOTU driver.
However! Connecting the interface to the right thunderbolt port and disconnecting or turning off the interface does not crash the computer. It seems to work totally fine. From this I'm guessing two things:

- The right TB port, for whatever reason, seems to be more reliable than the two left TB ports. Or at the very least, it functions slightly differently than the left two ports.
- This seems to be an Apple issue, and not really a MOTU issue.

[HCMarkus]

Hey everyone, I've made a discovery with this issue, and made an account on this forum just to help out.

Great info. Thank You MSW!

[mikehalloran]

Apple portables over the years have often provided bus power to only one port. This was true of of FW and USB MacBooks and MBPs. I suspect that this might be your issue but the actual charging voltages at the three ports is not mentioned in these specs (but those are done by Marketing):

https://support.apple.com/kb/SP858?locale=en_US

I know that the 1248 is not bus powered but you want to know where to look for a problem; this is the first place to look.

The first thing to do when port behavior is suspect is reset the NV RAM. Among many things, this resets all your ports to Default. Either hold the Command Option p r keys and then hit Power — let it chime three times — or run the following Terminal commands:

1. nvram -xp (this views view NV RAM contents)
2. nvram -c (this clears NV RAM) If this command is not permitted, try the other way.


If the 2-port side still crashes, I would have this checked. If the voltage is supposed to be the same on both sides and it's not, there's your problem. If Engineering specs show a difference and your MBP is within spec, there's your explanation. If all three ports put out the correct Voltage and it's the same, there's your mystery because it's something else.

[MakingSomeWaves]

Apple portables over the years have often provided bus power to only one port. This was true of of FW and USB MacBooks and MBPs. I suspect that this might be your issue but the actual charging voltages at the three ports is not mentioned in these specs (but those are done by Marketing):

https://support.apple.com/kb/SP858?locale=en_US

I know that the 1248 is not bus powered but you want to know where to look for a problem; this is the first place to look.

The first thing to do when port behavior is suspect is reset the NV RAM. Among many things, this resets all your ports to Default. Either hold the Command Option p r keys and then hit Power — let it chime three times — or run the following Terminal commands:

1. nvram -xp (this views view NV RAM contents)
2. nvram -c (this clears NV RAM) If this command is not permitted, try the other way.


If the 2-port side still crashes, I would have this checked. If the voltage is supposed to be the same on both sides and it's not, there's your problem. If Engineering specs show a difference and your MBP is within spec, there's your explanation. If all three ports put out the correct Voltage and it's the same, there's your mystery because it's something else.

Hey Mike, thanks for chiming in.

I tried out the key command to no avail, but I found online that this key command no longer works with M1 Macs .

On M1 Macs, the NVRAM is tested during the startup process, and if the system detects a need to reset, it will. There isn’t a key combination that you hold down while starting up the Mac. If you would like the system to inspect the NVRAM on an M1 Mac, shut it down completely, wait a few seconds, and then power up the Mac.

I tried out the first terminal command and I've copied the results below. I also tried the second terminal command, and it said that the action was not permitted (I did use the sudo command just in case).

EDIT: I've deleted the terminal output because it has personal information in it. It's in base64 so I'd have to go through all of it and delete it all.

I talked with Apple tech support on the phone and they're telling me that it must be a manufacturing error, and that I should bring in my computer for repair and they'll give me a new one since it's still under warranty. However, I frankly don't believe them. My theory is that the left connections are connected to the motherboard in some way that's different from the right connections, and there's some bug affecting the driver of that controller. Apple has already had issues with the power connection just above the TB ports that they fixed with an OS update, so maybe there's a connection between the two.

Regardless, it doesn't matter what I think - I'm going to bring my 1248 and laptop to Apple next week and try it on a different MacBook of the same model and see if it still happens before I have them "repair" my current one. I'll be sure to post any updates.

[Pabishay]

Have the same issue with a stage b16 and a new Macbook pro. Tried usb-c prots left and right, with a u-tech hun and with an original apple usb-c to usb adapter.
The problem maintains the same, dropouts and even sometimes problems recordin due to unreliable allocating chanels to DAW tracks.

In cubase it runs instable, logic won‘t open at all in regular mode. Disabeling all plugins and drivers will enable opening the programm, but as soon as you select the motu audio driver, logic will crash with an error message mentioning an outdated driver.

Will try to daisy chain with an apple usb keyboard today.

I reported the issue to motu as well, but not to apple.

Please post if anybody finds a solution…
Thx and greetings
Patrik

[mikehalloran]

It seems that with recent MacOS, resetting the SMC is now the preferred solution if port issues are suspected. I collapsed some of them on my iMac Pro last Sunday while on the phone to Apple Support.

Resetting the SMC on a desktop ie simple: Shut down. Disconnect the power cable and wait 20 seconds. Reconnect and wait 5 seconds. Reboot.

It's a little more involved on Apple notebooks depending on what you have.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201295

[Pabishay]

Yes, but a whole bunch of other stuff (SSDs, HDMI Monitor, license keys etc are connected to these ports… and all works without any dropouts - however, the motu interface does drop out on any port from time to time… however frequence and the modality of the dropouts change sometimes depending on wich port it is pluged in.
But dropouts and occasional static sounds just on the recording occure (must be between interface and DAW as you don‘t hear any static sound on the monitor while recording)

But a weired thing I noticed is that the interface sometimes produces sound while no output is shown in the motu safari application…

[Dark Barn]

The latest driver release seems to have further fixed the issue for me, I no longer seem to be getting crashes and I can use any Thunderbolt port to directly connect the 1248 to the MacBook rather than requiring a hub between them, as was my previous workaround. I get disconnects if left idle too long but they can be quickly fixed by reinserting the Thunderbolt cable, and if memory serves this would also happen on my old laptop anyways, it's only a minor bother. On my old laptop I could also let the computer go into sleep mode without issues, I may get around to testing that as well and report back.

Update: I did provoke a crash by turning off the power on my 1248 while connected, so while things seem to be moving I. The right direction there still seem to be some issues.