HDX/HDIO intermittent connection issues

[melodydetective]

Hi folks.

I have a ticket out on this but wanted to see if anyone has had this.

2013 Mac Pro. 10.14.6. Latest PT and HD Driver. HDX card in a Sonnet PCIe thunderbolt 2 chassis.

I’m having odd issues with the HDX driver. In ProTools it’s represented in two ways: one, occasional pitch flux. Two, sometimes PT won’t go into play or locates to the end of the session and then won’t go into play. So that sounds like clocking issues. Changed DigiLink cable - same story. No other clock connected.

When I try to use the HD driver in coreaudio with Cubase, periodically I get the “hardware has been removed from your computer” pop up - then it disappears and the HDX is back, for a while.

Swapped thunderbolt cables with no change. Nothing else is in that thunderbolt bus but two PCIe SSD’s that are when added to the HDX well within bandwidth limitations.

Any of this sound familiar to folks?

[Darryl Ramm]

No recall of these issues, but some suggestions.

First

occasional pitch flux == pitch flutter? Pitch change? Describe clearly what exactly happens.

Swapped thunderbolt bales with no change. == swapping thunderbolt cables causes no change?

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Is the chassis on it's own Thunderbolt bus. No display or disk on the same bus?... remember that the six Thunderbolt ports are connected to three separate Thunderbolt busses. Google for more info. Put the chassis on a dedicated bus... should not be needed but I'd try it anyhow.

Can you test the HD IO or HDX card in another system.

What exactly is connected to the HDX Card? One HD IO? Remove anything else.

Does your setup past Digitest? Can you get it to pass normally, and the when things go bad rerun Digitest and see if/what error it fails with.

The Mac is definitely optimized to not sleep?

[melodydetective]

All good suggestions.

Pitch flux means it slews like a tape machine if someone put a finger on it. Slows then resumes.

Bales? Typo. Cables is right.

Chassis is on its own buss. The three are arranged oddly on the 2013 MP -

1 2
1 2
3 3

I could conceivably test it in my cheesegrater. Hoping not to but those may be the breaks.

Only the HDIO is connected.

All devices pass digitest. But that is an onboard (self) test, so if something in the path between card and Mac is bad, nothing would show.

Sleep has been off for ages. Still is.

I’m going to try swapping thunderbolt busses also - when our power has become more stable here in Texas.

Thanks for the thought you put in!