Double Audio Drivers Icons in Sound Prefs? 10.13.6

[joelfriedman]

Hi,

I'm looking for any confirmation, not so much a fix, at least not yet. I have my new iMacPro on 10.13.6 and I keep getting double Audio Driver icons in the Sound Prefs. I know the "phantom driver" has appeared when either I got no audio, or I get cracking, no pitch, like digital clipping, instead of audio. I've had this happen a LOT while using Sibelius (Ultimate 2018.7) as I've been doing much of my work in the app, but I have also run into this a few times while using DP 9.51.

When I 1st got the machine I went through HELL with the double icons consistently - even when playing YouTube videos, and ended up swapping out the 1st machine, and a tech from MOTU mentioned over the summer that the extra icon was a known OS issue but didn't really matter. That didn't explain the cracking or absence of sound. I thought recent OS updates and new MOTU drivers would handle the issue, and it seemed to at first, but no longer. I'm getting it again.

I find the only and best way to get rid of it is to do a total cold restart with unplugging my UltraLite MK4 before rebooting. I'm not fully taking the time to troubleshoot this right now as I'm under deadline, this is more "anecdotal," maybe I don't have to do a full cold restart with unplugging the interface, but I know that has worked every time.

I'm more curious if anyone is getting this behavior.

Thanks!

Joel

[joelfriedman]

It ends up that this is a "known thing" according to MOTU, and that should be solved in the "next updates." Of course that was before the latest OS release...

Evidently if your audio interface is on before your computer boots up you will get 2 icons and the potential for the digitally clipped audio etc. The fix is easy: boots CPU 1st, then turn on interface.

Since doing that I've been fine. Just make sure that if you restart for any reason that you shut down your interface as well.

Best,

Joel