HDX card Firmware issue?

[InphaseProductions]

I am currently helping another studio engineer upgrade his system.

2023 Mac Pro M2 (24 core/128 gb ram)
Protools Version 2023.9.0

My HDX card does not seem to want to firmware update properly. When I restart the system, I get a message saying that HDX requires a firmware update, and to open protools and select HDX as the audio playback to begin the firmware update.

The issue is that when I open protools HDX is not an option.

The PCI card shows up as "Protools audio bridge"


Any Ideas of how I can force a reset of this card? Unfortunately with the new Mac tower design, you can't open up the machine while it's powered on. To get to the little button on the physical card.

[Darryl Ramm]

Hi Welcome to DUC.

Just to get one thing out of the way first, your card is not showing up at all in the playback engine options. It is *not* showing up as "Pro tools audio bridge". That is the entirely separate Aux I/O aka audio bridge feature in Pro Tools that was added in the last year or two and is well described in the reference guide when you want to learn about it, but is totally irrelevant here.

Are you absolutely certain that Pro Tools is starting up as Ultimate? you see that in the splash/about screen? You have to check, this manages to burns folks repeatedly.

There are important guides to HDX and HD Driver installs in the Pro Tools knowledgebase. (link up the top of this web page)

What *exactly* are you doing/upgrading from/upgrading to?

Technically it is a PCIe not a PCI card, they are different things. No hyphen in PCIe

One test is to make sure the card hardware shows up at all in the macOS system report under PCIe (it may not be identified as a HDX card). It should do if you get this warning on the most recent boot, but its just one more sanity test the card or something else is not flakey/failing.

Still stuck, you might need help specific to the new Mac Pro, other folks here might be able to help you, but I suspect it is a good idea to go ahead and open a support case to at least get that going.

[BScout]

You need to reduce the security on drivers on the mac (Apple and Avid both have published instructions how to do that. Avid in the HDX guide.)
Then you need to install the HDX drivers.
There will be multiple reboots and you will have to go to system preferences, security to unblock the Avid drivers (and then reboot.)

Only after all that, can you do the HDX firmware update because then the HDX drivers will be loaded and Pro Tools can talk to the cards (and you'll see HDX as an option for playback engine)