mbox 2 pro box hardware not showing

[lechszcz]

Hi, I just updated to leopard, now have OS 10.5.5, and just upgraded my pro tools from, 7.3 to 7.4.2 (had to pay for that one). When I updated everything it worked fine, but now I noticed the power light has been blinking green. When I open protools is tells me to install the digidesign hardware, which its already plugged in via fireware. Why is my mbox not showing up?

I tried every firewire port combination. I have an iMac 1.83 ghz, OS 10.5.5, leopard, mbox 2 pro, pro tools 7.4.2. How can i get this to work? I am trying to avoid restarting pro tools and really trying to avoid buying a new friggin mbox. Please Help!!!

[DigiTechSupt]

Are you possibly using the power supply with the Mbox 2 Pro? If so, shut down the computer, disconnect the power supply, disconnect the Mbox 2 Pro from the computer, wait a couple minutes, then reconnect the Mbox 2 Pro to the computer, but leave the PSU disconnected (it's not needed unless firewire doesn't supply power). Restart the computer and let us know if it's working again.

[docbop]

We have had the similar problem on our MBox 2 Pro for ages and tied everything Digi support recommended and still the same. What we have to do is disconnect the FW cable wait a few seconds then plug it back in. after that all is good.

[lechszcz]

I did both of those suggestions and still the green light is blinking and pro tools is not reading my hardware. when the power supply is not plugged in I only get an orange blinking light.

[DigiTechSupt]

Originally Posted by lechszcz

I did both of those suggestions and still the green light is blinking and pro tools is not reading my hardware. when the power supply is not plugged in I only get an orange blinking light.

This sounds like corrupted firmware. Do you possibly have access to a PC with Pro Tools on it? If so, connecting the unit to the PC may allow it to re-flash the firmware.

If not, you should call tech support by phone for other options to get this fixed.

[LittleBirdie]

I had pretty much the exact same problem: blinking green light with the mbox's power connected, blinking amber light without it connected; the computer not able to detect the mbox 2 pro; and of course pro tools won't initialize without the hardware connected, so I'm dead in the water. By the way, fyi, I have a mac mini running leopard 10.5.4, intel core duo, and an mbox pro 2. I read all the posts here about this issue I could find, and tried all the suggestions. I downloaded LE 7.4.2, and rebooted, checked firmware updates (i don't have a PC with firewire so couldn't connect to PC to update firmware, which is a totally weird thing to do I was thinking anyway).

Here's what finally worked for me. I decided not to give up hope on my system being compatible (which it probably isn't judging from the insanely complex process for determining compatibility, at least in my opinion, and I'm new to macs and digidesign which makes it even harder for me). So I decided I would treat this like a firewire problem and troubleshoot that. I found some info on firewire, and how it works; and a mac support site that walked through some simple steps to fix firewire problems including devices not being recognized.

Step one: power everything down.
step two: disconnect everything from computer except monitor, keyboard, mouse.
step three: unplug power supply from computer. (I also unplugged the firewire from the mbox)
step four: wait at least 5 minutes
step five: connect firewire to mbox and computer. Plug power back into computer. Power up computer.

Mine worked, although I have no idea why. Works fine now. Oh, and I made sure to disable the sleep mode in my mac, because sometimes sleep causes problems with firewire devices, I read somewhere. It's in the manual for the mbox 2 pro, in the section that tells how to optimize your mac for running PT LE and mbox. Other possible things that can maybe cause problems: having other USB devices connected (I had connected 2 external hard drives from an old PC to move some data onto my mac) and this may have caused some trouble with the firewire, I don't know. Also, we had a power outage here and that might have messed things up. Firewire is new technology to me and apparently it's finicky, I don't know. Anyway, I hope this helps some people out there, it looks like others have had this problem.