No input from Mbox Pro 3

[rodney morris]

Hey all. I cannot get ProTools to record any audio from my Mbox Pro 3. It worked last month. I came back from vacation this past Sunday to find that no inputs from Mbox Pro were showing up in ProTools. I could see the meters on the front panel of the Mbox Pro deflecting, but when I placed the corresponding track/input in ProTools in record mode, there was nothing - no audible sounds, nothing on the track or master meters. I was running PT 2018.4 at that point, so I updated to 2018.7 hoping that might solve the problem. I made sure I was running the latest Mbox driver (which I was), still no luck. I was also running MacOS 10.13.4 at this point. After more research, I read that ProTools was not compatible with 10.13.4. In reading the forums, I thought I read that someone was using 10.13.6 successfully with PT 2018.7, so tonight I upgraded to 10.13.6. Still no luck. Next, I uninstalled my Mbox Pro driver and reinstalled the driver. Now when I place a track in record mode, I can hear the audio coming from the Mbox Pro's input (in this case input 1) playing through the speaker (which it was not doing before I uninstalled and reinstalled the Mbox driver) but still nothing on the track meter or the master meter. Indeed, when I try to record the track there is nothing in the waveform. The output of the Mbox seems to be working fine. I've verified that Mbox Pro is selected in Playback Engine and Hardware setup. I/O setup reveals all is as it should be. I've adjusted H/W buffer size to everything from 256 and up.

I'm stumped. What am I missing?

27" iMac late 2013
3.2 GHz Intel Core i5
Upgraded internal HD to 1TB Solid State drive
24 GB RAM
Mbox Pro 3rd gen
Mac OS 10.13.6
PT 2018.7
Mbox driver 1.3.6 (firmware 1.0.4)

[Darryl Ramm]

Nobody can read anything on those screenshots. Can you try to post screenshot of just the actual dialog boxes not the whole screen. Or worse case describe exactly what is showing.

Starting with the basics...

What actual playback engine is in use (Setup>Playback Engine)?

Did you suspend or let the iMac sleep with the Mbox Pro attached? That will hand the driver. Try just rebooting the computer... does it work now? This is a very common problem of the interface not showing up in Pro Tools (or anything else). If you've been doing OS upgrades you may have lost any prior power management settings you are supposed to disable sleep to avoid this problem.

You may well be hearing audio though hardware monitoring with nothing working from Pro Tools. If it's enabled hardware monitoring will work with or without the driver hung. Do you have hardware monitoring enabled in the driver control panel? If you don't understand that read the Mbox documentation there is a whole chapter on it.

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Next time maybe ask for help with your initial problem and avoid this long wandering trail of frustration.

[rodney morris]

Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm

Nobody can read anything on those screenshots. Can you try to post screenshot of just the actual dialog boxes not the whole screen. Or worse case describe exactly what is showing.

Starting with the basics...

What actual playback engine is in use (Setup>Playback Engine)?

Did you suspend or let the iMac sleep with the Mbox Pro attached? That will hand the driver. Try just rebooting the computer... does it work now? This is a very common problem of the interface not showing up in Pro Tools (or anything else). If you've been doing OS upgrades you may have lost any prior power management settings you are supposed to disable sleep to avoid this problem.

You may well be hearing audio though hardware monitoring with nothing working from Pro Tools. If it's enabled hardware monitoring will work with or without the driver hung. Do you have hardware monitoring enabled in the driver control panel? If you don't understand that read the Mbox documentation there is a whole chapter on it.

---

Next time maybe ask for help with your initial problem and avoid this long wandering trail of frustration.

I apologize for my somewhat rambling post and the useless pics- it was late and I was tired. I have edited the original post and replaced those pics with ones that you can actually see.

When I first experienced this issue (this past Sunday), I quit ProTools and power cycled the Mbox. That didn't work. I then did a reboot of the computer. That also didn't work. The Mbox driver has been uninstalled and reinstalled (last night), so I wouldn't think it's a hung driver.

I've had the Mbox Pro for 3 years now - it's worked fine until recently. I've been a ProTools user for over 20 years now, I generally can get these kinds of things fixed without too much fuss.

I have attached new pics below of the Mbox control panel and another pic showing the available choices for the Playback engine.

Thanks for the help.

[jryser]

On mine channels 1&2 on the hardware inputs are up; also disable host control is checked.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[rodney morris]

Originally Posted by jryser

On mine channels 1&2 on the hardware inputs are up; also disable host control is checked.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I tried bringing up channels 1&2 on the hardware inputs, but that did not fix it. It simply passed whatever was coming through those inputs straight to the outputs. I still had no signal present on the record enabled track corresponding that those inputs. I also disabled host control (however, I did not have channels 1 and 2 up on the hardware inputs at that point) which also did not fix it.

Interestingly, inputs 1 and 2 used to come up as "Built-in Microphone" in the I/O settings, as a stereo path with subpaths as mono inputs 1 and 2- which worked fine. Now, the default mode shows Analog 1 & 2 stereo path.

[Darryl Ramm]

OK now you have cofirmed hardware monitoring works.

I’m not following where you are on basic standard troubleshooting.

Like starting with trashing prefs, trying starting with a new empty session, etc. etc. all stuff in standard troubleshooting steps see “help us help you” up the top of every DUC page. If you’ve done that stuff just let us know.

Reinstalling a driver had nothing really to do with it being hung. If you have power saving features enabled your computer can screw everything up very quickly.... another standard troubleshooting thing to do is make sure *all* optimizations are done. That includes disabling sleep/suspend in energy saving. Have you done/checked all those?

Names of IO paths is just fluff in Pro Tools. If the interface is selected as the playback engine that should be enough. The first two outputs are the main outputs, the first two inputs are inputs 1 and 2, etc. The names mean nothing. But you can always delete the paths and default them on those setup>IO>Input/Output/Bus pages if you want things to look normal.

[rodney morris]

Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm

OK now you have cofirmed hardware monitoring works.

I’m not following where you are on basic standard troubleshooting.

Like starting with trashing prefs, trying starting with a new empty session, etc. etc. all stuff in standard troubleshooting steps see “help us help you” up the top of every DUC page. If you’ve done that stuff just let us know.

Reinstalling a driver had nothing really to do with it being hung. If you have power saving features enabled your computer can screw everything up very quickly.... another standard troubleshooting thing to do is make sure *all* optimizations are done. That includes disabling sleep/suspend in energy saving. Have you done/checked all those?

Names of IO paths is just fluff in Pro Tools. If the interface is selected as the playback engine that should be enough. The first two outputs are the main outputs, the first two inputs are inputs 1 and 2, etc. The names mean nothing. But you can always delete the paths and default them on those setup>IO>Input/Output/Bus pages if you want things to look normal.

I have trashed preferences and rebooted. I have gone through all of the required optimization list, including energy settings. I've tried at least dozen times opening new, blank sessions each time double checking the I/O, Hardware, and Playback Engine settings. I've checked every input on the Mbox Pro, including S/PDIF - nothing shows up in ProTools. I have not uninstalled and reinstalled ProTools, nor have I tried creating a new user profile.

[Darryl Ramm]

Hang on? You really can't be on Mac OS X 10.3.6 Panther are you? You mean 10.13.6 High Sierra... which is now I misread it before.

Get one end of the thread and keep pulling. Do not just change stuff until you have a theory as to what is going on and you try to test that theory. You did not help yourself early on by just jumping in and changing lots of stuff.

Does the Mbox 3 work as an audio input and output with other apps?

Does Pro Tools work with Aggregate IO using the Mac's Built In Input and Output? (If so Pro Tools is likely totally fine, don't uninstall/reinstall it).

I can't tell how you are trying to monitor in Pro Tools, I suspect you are using hardware monitoring even if you think you are not. Get software monitoring working so you can tell if there is audio going to the DAW. LLM disabled. Confirm that you are using software monitoring by setting a large playback buffer size and clearly hearing the audible delay from say a mic input. Make sure it's an audio track you are using not instrument track (common mistake for anybody, and it's record armed and the transport is armed and the track is in input monitor mode).

If that works and Pro Tools is not showing it is recording audio to an audio track then Pro Tools is likely hosed, uninstall and reinstall. If other apps don't work with the Mbox then it's the driver or hardware. If they do but you can't get software monitoring to work then I'll bet you are doing something wrong.

[rodney morris]

Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm

Hang on? You really can't be on Mac OS X 10.3.6 Panther are you? You mean 10.13.6 High Sierra... which is now I misread it before.

Get one end of the thread and keep pulling. Do not just change stuff until you have a theory as to what is going on and you try to test that theory. You did not help yourself early on by just jumping in and changing lots of stuff.

Does the Mbox 3 work as an audio input and output with other apps?

Does Pro Tools work with Aggregate IO using the Mac's Built In Input and Output? (If so Pro Tools is likely totally fine, don't uninstall/reinstall it).

I can't tell how you are trying to monitor in Pro Tools, I suspect you are using hardware monitoring even if you think you are not. Get software monitoring working so you can tell if there is audio going to the DAW. LLM disabled. Confirm that you are using software monitoring by setting a large playback buffer size and clearly hearing the audible delay from say a mic input. Make sure it's an audio track you are using not instrument track (common mistake for anybody, and it's record armed and the transport is armed and the track is in input monitor mode).

If that works and Pro Tools is not showing it is recording audio to an audio track then Pro Tools is likely hosed, uninstall and reinstall. If other apps don't work with the Mbox then it's the driver or hardware. If they do but you can't get software monitoring to work then I'll bet you are doing something wrong.

Yes, I was having a brain fart there with the Mac OS. I am on 10.13.6.

I never change lots of things at one time. Scientific method - one thing at a time. It may not have read that way however.

I will try your suggestions and report back. Thanks for your help.

[rodney morris]

I tested to see if the Mbox Pro 3 worked with other apps - it worked fine as input and output for both Audacity and GarageBand. Good news. So I thought I might as well try ProTools again. I created a new blank session, the same as I have done for the last week. This time the input worked as it should. I'm baffled, but happy. I have not changed anything with ProTools or the Mbox since my last experiments with them a couple of days ago. But it's working for now, so I'm going to drive on. Thanks again, Darryl, for your help and suggestions.