HD audio worked 'first time' but no USB Audio?!?

When I say "HD audio worked first time", I mean the first time after I remembered to flash the BIOS!

However, the on-board audio isn't what I'm interested in.

I have a Firewire audio interface, a Behringer FCA202, which works but I'm only keen on falling back to this or on-board if I'm stuck without USB audio.

The screenshot attached show that the Rig Kontrol and Kore Controller are on the USB bus but neither the NI USB Audio Manager nor OSX's Audio Devices can see them.
There's also a remark against the System Profiler Required Current entry for both devices which reads "Unknown (Device has not been configured)".

This message is the same in every external USB port that I connect both units to so it's almost as if the installed driver has failed. I have the same 'driver' on the MacBook Pro which is at 10.6.3 and both devices work fine.

As I write this, I'm pretty sure that when I was trawling the OSX86 wiki, the NI stuff was reported a working but it's late and I guess I'm being lazy and hoping somebody here has an answer for me to wake up to in the morning

If you're on 10.6.3, try rolling back the IOUSB kext to 10.6.2 version; easy using Multibeast>Advanced Opts>kexts>misc>...

But first, if you have an USB2.0 external hub avail, might be worthwhile to try connecting via that.

Disclaimer: I've got basically same MB (v1,1) and so far no problems with USB 2.0 devices, so I've not had to worry about the 10.6.2 rollback. But others for whatever reason have experienced problems after upgrade to 10.6.3, so might be worth a shot.

Thanks humph , I'll try that but since it's 2am , maybe later

I got a big clue the last time I checked the NI USB Devices box that you see in the lower center of that picture in the first post. Not only is the app 32-bit but when SysPref reopens it reads System Preferences (32-bit).

So, I've just forced 32-bit mode per editing the Boot plist from the "How do I force 32-bit?" thread and "Voila!" I have my Kore Controller (Version 1, with in-built audio) back up and running.

So what's the trade-off?

• I go to Audio/MIDI and I find I've lost Built-in Sound which was working previously. Interestingly, it still appears in System Profiler
  
  I'm listening through the Kore Controller's headphone port and I have a lot of background electrical noise that I don't get on the MacBook, although to be fair, the USB port I'm using is the one right next to the BT dongle I have plugged in and the tone changes a little and sometimes disappears with mouse movement, so I could be superimposing some RF on the USB lead
  
  The graphics output is limited to the GT220's DVI port only
  
  The resolution appears set at 1024 x 768 as if the machine has started up in safe mode.
  
  The grey Apple boot screen now appears

I'm wondering now if some of the on-board audio issues that people have been having may be related to this 32-bit thingo.

Unless there's an easy-to-fix reason for the on-board audio and the video out 'failing' in 32-bit mode, I think I may have to wait until NI decides to do something about their OS X software and stay in 64-bit mode.

It's not so much the 'loss' of two external audio I/Fs in the Rig Kontrol 2 and the Kore Controller, it's the loss of two controller surfaces.

The audio should be fine for mixing and hopefully audio input with either the on-board or the Firewire for the hobbyist 'recording engineer' status I have.


P.S. edited out the <string>arch=i386</string> and everything is as it was before, like I never went to 32-bit land... ahhhh...

Yeah it's not cool to add new posts to your own thread but I figure since I've gone about this the long-way-around, somebody else might as well...

Here's the word from Native Instruments, basically confirming my 'discovery'

Some special notes regarding 64bit aspects of Mac OS X 10.6:

32bit kernel mode vs. 64bit kernel mode
All installations of Mac OS X 10.6 on Apple consumer models start in 32bit kernel mode by default. This kernel mode allows the operation of both 32bit and 64bit Mac OS X applications.

Users can activate an optional 64bit kernel mode through a special key combination during the boot process. However, drivers for NI audio interfaces and controllers are currently not compatible with 64bit kernel mode.

For the time being, Native Instruments does not recommend using 64bit kernel mode with music production software. The development efforts necessary to establish 64bit kernel mode compatibility for NI products are currently being evaluated.

More NI info on OSX related stuff may be found here

HD audio worked 'first time': 32-bit mode setup findings

I caved in and sorted out the 32-bit graphics issue (but not on-board audio).

Here's the boot plist if you haven't read it elsewhere yet:


Although I've read that there's several ways to parse the arch=i386 command and they all do the same thing, using a separate <key><string> method and locating it after the graphics enabler switch it seems is crucial in this setup; no different to arranging the old config.sys file "in order" in DOS (DOS gaming is where any of my geek-knowledge stems from).

Add arch=i386 as <string>arch=i386</string>, as described elsewhere in the forum, after the GraphicsEnabler line and it seems to get skipped and OSX boots into 64-bit mode as usual; add it before the GraphicsEnabler line and the graphics-mode is locked in 1024x768.