Unable to locate hardware
 

Hi all,

Last weekend, I pulled my desktop out to clean up the cables in back of it, including the USB cable for my MBox (I believe it is an MBox 2).
Today was the first time I've tried running Pro Tools since then. It refuses to run, giving me the "Unable to locate hardware" runaround instead. So, I assume it is not detecting the MBox.

Which is weird since Windows has absolutely no problem with it whatsoever. It gives me the MBox as a valid sound input and output device and lets me switch to it. No flagged driver problems in the device manager. Moreover, the lights on the MBox look normal when plugged in. It's only Pro Tools that doesn't recognize it.

I've restarted the computer (full restart) several times. I've tried different USB ports and cables. I uninstalled and reinstalled the driver (twice). This was the driver from the provided CD. Made sure the active sound device for Windows wasn't the MBox when running PT. Nothing worked.

I've had this computer for over a year and never had this problem. I didn't make any changes to it since the last time I used Pro Tools, except for unplugging all the devices (while powered off) and plugging them back in.

The only other thing I can think of is to try and take some isopropyl to the contacts in the MBox ports. But since Windows has no issue communicating with the MBox, I don't know that it's a problem with the hardware. I'll try it on my other computer that has PT installed and see if I get the same problem.

Maybe like magic it'll work fine again tomorrow, who knows.

But does anyone have an ideas? Any tricks to try? Is there some way I can check what hardware PT DOES recognize when it launches?

Any help would be greatly appreciated...

Thanks,
B

-- Some Specs
Windows 10
Pro Tools 11.3.1
Mbox 2
AMD Ryzen CPU

Re: Unable to locate hardware
 

Double-check all the AVID recommended optimizations. One of 'em relates to USB ports...

Re: Unable to locate hardware
 

Yes, turning off Power Management on all USB ports is something all Windows users need to do, and you need to check it after any Windows update(I have had this feature reset on SOME ports at least twice from updates).

The other thing for Windows users: 95% of the time, things work better if you go into Windows Sound Properties and set Windows to use the on-board sound card(Realtek?) as the default playback device.

Re: Unable to locate hardware
 

Thanks!

I hadn't remembered to turn off the Power Management on this computer, so thanks for the reminder.

Since it's a super-cool-legit-gamer motherboard, its built-in sound options are kinda weird. I don't get the Realtek driver as a device option and it'll only let me choose inputs and outputs that have something plugged in at that time (including headphones - the jack doesn't exist without headphones apparently), so that's kind of a pain. My solution is to make sure I have headphones in the front jack and a USB mic as decoy devices so it doesn't revert to the Mbox.

Also I'm an idiot - my Mbox is gen 3, not 2. Whoops. It doesn't really matter since I have the correct driver installer but eh.

It appears to be working now, but the only thing that worked for me was COMPLETELY uninstalling anything remotely Avid related from this computer (including the Mbox driver and Pro Tools) all at once and reinstalling them. I used to have an older version of the driver too for some reason, so updating that might have helped as well.

Anyway, thought I'd post my solution just in case someone comes across this in a search. If restarting several times doesn't do it, guess you gotta just suck it up and try the uninstall...