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USB audio

Hi there,

For years I have had issues with my Scarlett 8i6 audio interface. I’ve done a lot of googling of the problem, and have come across many variations of the same issue for people using various USB interfaces - it’s not limited to the Scarlett. I haven’t found any permanent solutions, but I wanted to bring all the information I could find together in one place.

The problem is that, when playing audio through the USB interface, after a certain amount of time the audio degrades and a significant amount of digital distortion is added to the signal.

I’m running a 11" Macbook Air 6,1, 1.7GHz, 8GB RAM; but have experienced the problem with a previous Macbook Air, and a previous Macbook Pro, and over operating systems 10.7, 10.8 and 10.9

Characteristics of the problem

- the length of time it takes for audio to degrade varies - from user to user, and for me from day to day. It’s usually between 4-15 minutes.

- the level of distortion can creep up very incrementally (tiny pops and crackles taking a few minutes to develop to full blown distortion), or can arrive suddenly to the point that the audio becomes totally incoherent or stops almost immediately)

- it happens on any app that uses the USB interface - for me this includes Chrome, Skype, Spotify, Ableton Live (8 and 9), Max 6...

- it happens on a per-app basis - so audio can have stopped working in one app, but still be working fine (or sometimes, not fine, but ‘better’) in another

- starting audio in another app can affect the signal

- when the computer goes to sleep and wakes up this often starts the problem

- the problem is not consistent - normally after struggling with it for a few hours it fixes itself

- there are no audio related console messages when the problem occurs

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/1202226?start=0&tstart=0 - discussion about USB headsets which seems to be the same problem for most people posting

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2166616?start=105&tstart=0 - another headset problem which sounds similar although it’s about input sound not output sound

https://blog.erikphansen.com/weird-os-10-7-lion-audiovideo-problems/ - discussion about killall coreaudiod as a way to solve it

https://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic.php?f=47&t=75861 - same problem for an Audacity user

https://forum.ventrilo.com/showthread.php?t=47741 - same problem for surround sound software

https://superuser.com/questions/268368/usb-audio-stops-working-randomly-on-mac-os - same problem with a USB headset

https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=160920 - same problem with Chrome users

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4059899?start=0&tstart=0 - same problem with thunderbolt USB audio

Temporary Workarounds

- the easiest workaround is to force quit (and hence restart) the coreaudiod process - I normally do this in Activity Monitor

- restarting the audio interface (plugging / unplugging from power supply)

Suggested solutions that haven’t worked for me

- I’ve read that connecting to a hub rather than direct to the Mac, or vice versa, has solved the issue for people. This hasn’t consistently worked for me

- I’ve read that reducing the amount of memory usage of other programs helps prevent the problem happening.

- I’ve read that turning off airport solves the problem. This sometimes works for me but isn’t a viable ongoing solution

- I’ve read that simply clicking on the airport menu bar icon solves the problem for some. This hasn’t worked for me.

- I’ve read that disabling flash solves the issue. It’s not a viable ongoing solution for me

- I’ve read that disconnecting all other USB devices solves the issue. This hasn’t worked for me.

Anyone who can add anything, link to others have the same problem, or who has a solution, please let me know!

Hi,

I know this is a very old thread, but I have the same interface and the same problem on macOS sierra. was there ever a fix for it ?

最後更新：2017-09-23 12:07:57

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