Bad times with Mac Studio, HDN, and aurora 16

[Darryl Ramm]

If you post your incident number folks here somebody (cough jeffro ) might be able to help see what is going on.

Might be interesting to know if Lynx actually has one of their interfaces running off a Mac Studio... it should be "transparent"... and Digilink is as near dumb as a box of rocks can be so should not be hard to make clone interfaces... ...but, there is always a but. Any chance you can beg/borrow an Avid Digilink interface somewhere? But if Avid think it's the driver (whether or not related to Lynx) hopefully something will get fixed. Seems a reasonable request to Lynx to find out if they actually have their interfaces running on a Studio (or other recent Apple Silicon macs/macOS versions). There is always some chance of some corner case of say weird stuff firmware revisions etc. that might play here, that only Avid support likely has a chance to get to the bottom of. Clearly clutching at straws, and yes I'd expect the Lynx to just work here.

Given the multiple clean installs you have done.... and that it works at all (which says it has nothing to do with driver install, security problems etc.) and seems the memory exhaustion bit (which I overfocused on) was a red herring. I just can't think of much else to try.

Between taking the HD Native board back to your old Mac checking stuff there still worked, and trying with a HD Thunderbolt you've excluded so much stuff.

I'm assuming you used the same digilink cables as when using with your old Mac? If not you might try swapping Digilink cables and inspect the cable ends and connectors for any damage, maybe try gently flexing cables/connections. Unlikely the problem but still. And the only other anal retentive thing I'd check is that you have been installing the right version of software. Try a clean new download of the installer if you have not.

BTW in your earlier reply, the "Pro Tools HALC_ShellObject::HasProperty: initial inner method call failed" Error looked interesting but you would want to know if others where this is working see the same log error. (I personally have no HD native setup on Apple silicon or otherwise to look at the log on). But I sure worth pointing out to Avid support. The MDWORKER errors are just macOS spotlight indexing having it's usual fragile complaints about stuff. Again I was mostly fishing there for memory related stuff which I suspect the memory may be a red herring.

Maybe it's time to try what thebeatless suggests and try a Thunderbolt LSlot card in your Lynx? Maybe Lynx can help you out there with a quick loaner/test?

EDIT: and one last thing, you are installing the HD driver that comes in the 2021.12 installer.DMG, you are not trying to install a different driver install/download? I know just paranoid/checking.

[its2loud]

Re: “ EDIT: and one last thing, you are installing the HD driver that comes in the 2020.12 installer.DMG, you are not trying to install a different driver install/download? I know just paranoid/checking.”

The OP should have had to do a firmware update on the Native card on installation of 2021.12 if coming from 2020.12, which is the version his signature states.

Also. If he’s letting the computer go to sleep or unplugging the expansion chassis while live, this will cause issues.

[kindkind]

My case # is 04391352

Yes regarding the 2021.12 HD Driver and PT version, the driver install did the firmware updates on both the HDNTB and HDN PCI.

We will see what lynx says to my latest update.

Avid did want me to try connecting the HDNTB to a TB3 hub, dont have one but i may try that. They have been having me do this and that as well. No joy yet.

Wish i had someone to try an avid interface! Bay area, CA...

I am going to do another SSD wipe and install, then if fail i will return the HDN PCI to the mac pro and verify the cable is working again. Not much else to try.

[Darryl Ramm]

[deleted comments. all related to firmware updates... since they happened]

You could still try upgrading Pro Tools to 2021.12 on your Mac Pro and just see if that works with the Lynx.

Would be good for Avid support to be more involved, I'm not sure I grock the hub thing at all, I guess TB4 unlike TB3 can have a hub, but... they mean a Thunderbolt Dock with Thunderbolt passthrough? Or really mean a thunderbolt (4) hub? I'll guess they might be worried about Thunderbolt bus power to the HD Native Thunderbolt? It should work fine, you can try multiple thunderbolt ports on the Mac Studio. Given Thunderbolt 4 power delivery specs it should have a very well done power supply. If you have a suitable wall wart you can try to power it from that, but should work fine bus powered through an Apple Thunderbolt adapter.

[MCorbin]

If you have a TB3 hard drive or other TB3 device with two ports, you can try this in lieu of a hub/dock.

In our testing we have anecdotally seen another instance that is similar. The odd workaround was to attach it to another TB device before the Mac Studio.

We are working with Apple and Sonnet to further investigate.

[kindkind]

Things are clearing up somewhat but given the Avid comment, i am a little confused because I am now suspecting the issue could also be related to my digilink cable. *facepalm*, as well as possibly the 2021.12 HDN firmware? When tested old working system and things were good. Re-tested and was flabbergasted to get the 9006 memory error on my old system. I straightened out the cable and things were much better, but still got some random 9006 errors.

on the Mac studio, i placed the HDNTB in a way that the cable could be as straight as possible, and got almost no 9006 errors. When i do get a 9006 error it happens when PT initializes audio engine and has to switch the sample rate. It happened after a 192khz test session when i attempted to open a 96k session from the finder with PT closed. I was able to solve this by setting the hdn to 192 with PT closed, then reopening and PT was able to jump back down to the 96khz session.

Maybe there is something going on with the HDN and 2021.12 firmware, as i never had that firmware on my hd native card before, and was using the 2020.12 version on my mac pro.

Things seem totally manageable right now after considerable testing.

[Darryl Ramm]

Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm

I'm assuming you used the same digilink cables as when using with your old Mac? If not you might try swapping Digilink cables and inspect the cable ends and connectors for any damage, maybe try gently flexing cables/connections. Unlikely the problem but still.

Rare. But I've seen crazy problems caused by Digilink cables. Hopefully you have a handle on this, great if it really is the cable and not something else.

[DetroitT]

Ahhh the days of SCSI
HD driver not-humor

[chaos audio]

I also have big problems with my new setup.
MacStudio M1Max, Sonnet Echo IIID, HD Native PCI, UAD2 Quad. MacOS 12.3.
Clean installation without plugins. HD Driver was installed according to instructions. Protools has write permissions on all drives.
AudioHardware can be addressed via Core Audio driver. Protools starts and session can be opened. Record and play 128 tracks, no problem.
If I install a plugin, e.g. Pro Compressor, the bars in the system usage window go to full. If I delete the Protools Preferences and restart the computer, everything works fine again.
I can do this with all Avid stock plugins.
With plugins from FabFilter or UAD I can't get a system to work.(others I have not tested) Also not after complete reset of the preferences and ONYX
The HD Native hardware works normally with the Core Audiodriver with other software (logic, Apple System Sound).
Help or ideas ???

[chaos audio]

I also have big problems with my new setup.
MacStudio M1Max, Sonnet Echo IIID, HD Native PCI, UAD2 Quad. MacOS 12.3.
Clean installation without plugins. HD Driver was installed according to instructions. Protools has write permissions on all drives.
AudioHardware can be addressed via Core Audio driver. Protools starts and session can be opened. Record and play 128 tracks, no problem.
If I install a plugin, e.g. Pro Compressor, the bars in the system usage window go to full. If I delete the Protools Preferences and restart the computer, everything works fine again.
I can do this with all Avid stock plugins.
With plugins from FabFilter or UAD I can't get the system to work. Also not after complete reset of the preferences and ONYX
The HD Native hardware works normally with the Core Audiodriver with other software (logic, Apple System Sound).
Help or ideas ???