bt12 Posted June 22, 2011 Share Posted June 22, 2011 I am having the craziest issue with my relatively new Focusrite Saffire Pro 24. Audio is cutting in and out, in iTunes, Logic, Safari-anywhere audio can be played. In logic I get a sync error message, and the guys at Focusrite said there were a bunch of sync errors in my log. Focusrite had me ship the interface to their repair center. They couldn't find anything wrong with it and shipped it back. I have continued to trouble shoot with Focusrite to no avail. I have even gone as far as an archive and install of a totally different OS and am still having the issue. The interface works fine on my roommates CPU. I have tried everything, different cable, different versions of the driver(they even sent me a beta to try), different user, different outputs, updating everything, repaired permissions several times, tried it without any other devices connected, etc etc. My built-in output works fine, my USB M-audio works fine. Does anyone have any ideas on what could be up? Macbook 2.4 core 2 duo 4gb ram 10.6.7 (and tried 10.5.2) Logic 9 Ableton 8 Thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jordi Torres Posted June 22, 2011 Share Posted June 22, 2011 Have you tested any other firewire devices in your computer to see how they perform? J. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bt12 Posted June 22, 2011 Author Share Posted June 22, 2011 Unfortunately, I do not have another firewire interface to test BUT I have tested a firewire hard drive and it worked fine (mounted and transfered data). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jordi Torres Posted June 22, 2011 Share Posted June 22, 2011 Well, I guess you could test on a freshly installed OS (No archieve and install)...but better if you can test some other FW device that deals with audio. Do you get the same problem at different sample rates? J. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bt12 Posted June 22, 2011 Author Share Posted June 22, 2011 That was a great question to ask! I went into the Saffire software and 96k and 88.2 seem to work fine. 48k and 44.1 do not! Good call. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jordi Torres Posted June 22, 2011 Share Posted June 22, 2011 Well, that's good news! But unfortunately it doesn't really fix the problem. Maybe tell the Focusrite guys and see if they can recommend anything based on that. Cheers, J. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bt12 Posted June 22, 2011 Author Share Posted June 22, 2011 yeah, I will. Unfortunately, as I ran updates to leopard even 96k became crunchy, too. As I decrease the sample rate it just gets worse until at 44.1 it is full on dropping out. Tomorrow I'll have my snow leopard disk back and be able to upgrade back to that and go from there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bt12 Posted June 25, 2011 Author Share Posted June 25, 2011 The issue is still unresolved and this has been going on for over a month now. The initial diagnostic from my Focusrite tech rep was that the unit was broken and I should ship it to their US repair facility. I had to pay for that, even though the product was only six months old. I hear from the repair facility two-weeks later that they can not find anything wrong with the interface and are shipping it back to be. I respond politely letting them know my frustration with having to have a) pay for shipping something that isn't broken and b) still no resolution. At that point someone very nice from Focusrite UK took over and began trying to trouble shoot. That was almost a week ago and with one email a day back and forth, two delete and clean OS installs, and a multitude of trouble shooting the issue is still not fixed. I had to let Focusrite know that this has gone on too long and at this point I need to buy a new interface that can work with my computer. Love the product. Not satisfied with customer service. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jordi Torres Posted June 26, 2011 Share Posted June 26, 2011 I had to let Focusrite know that this has gone on too long and at this point I need to buy a new interface that can work with my computer. Love the product. Not satisfied with customer service. So you are going to return that interface and get a new one with the money from the return, no? (And you are getting your money back, right?) I'd definitely do that myself after such a nightmare. Hope everything goes well. J. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bt12 Posted June 26, 2011 Author Share Posted June 26, 2011 we'll see. I bought the interface from djdeals.com and it is far outside of their return policy. I will be curious to see how focusrite handles it from here. And I'll keep everyone posted. Nightmare indeed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Homina Posted June 29, 2011 Share Posted June 29, 2011 we'll see. I bought the interface from djdeals.com and it is far outside of their return policy. I will be curious to see how focusrite handles it from here. And I'll keep everyone posted. Nightmare indeed. That the unit works properly on another CPU strongly suggests that there's a hardware setting somewhere that's screwing the pooch. It's more likely to be on your CPU than your Saffire, but you can reset both. The "Restore Factory Default" command in the File menu of Saffire Mix Control will do it for your Saffire unit. Zapping your machine's PRAM will do it for your Mac (see http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1379). You'll have to reset some things manually afterward, but your ports will be back to their factory defaults. If neither of those actions help, then I'd look at the source of your system's clock-signal. If Logic and the Saffire are looking in different places for your timing data, it could precipitate problems like this. I'd also suspect the FireWire bus' integrity. Go into System Preferences/Network, click on FireWire as a network device, and select None from the drop-down connection menu. If your FW port has somehow been designated as a network device, it can produce spurious activity that could interfere with normal data transmission. Eliminate such activity, and things could get better. If things are still wrong, you can try a last-ditch diagnostic tactic. Even with a fried PHY chip on your motherboard, zapping the PRAM will give you an initially stable FireWire connection. Shut down your system completely and disconnect everything that's unnecessary before zapping your machine's PRAM. Then shut it down again and connect only the Saffire to the FW bus. If the Saffire works OK right after you zap your machine's PRAM AND the Saffire's performance deteriorates quickly again, your FireWire port is likely to be the source of the problem. FireWire is advertised as a hot-pluggable protocol, but a gazillion FW ports blown by surges and static electricity challenge that assertion's validity. It's criminally easy to fry a FireWire port just by hot-plugging it. Unfortunately there's no fixing a cooked motherboard port short of changing the motherboard. Hope this helps. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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