Need help with my Focusrite Saffire 6 USB - audio stops

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Hi,

Starting to lose faith in my new saffire 6 USB. It will work and then when i leave it it will stop working when i return, it has stopped twice during use. The USB light is still lit and the device still shows in my sound preferences as active. If I unplug it and plug it back in it works again.

I have been in contact with focusrite who are very helpful, but I wondered if anyone had any ideas.

I am running an iMac with Snow Leopard (same thing happened on Leopard) and have tried with all my internet/network connections disabled and currently testing with bluetooth turned off.

I currently have connected to my iMac the Saffire 6, an M-Audio Key, a Trigger Finger & a firewire External Hard Drive and the USB Apple Keyboard/Mouse. The mouse is plugged directly in to the keyboard. Until this morning I was using bluetooth mice. So am trying this to rule out bluetooth.

Getting desperate and may end up returning this which is a shame as I really love its sound and it may not fix my problem anyway with a different model.

Any suggestions?

[vicz]

Try looking for USB error messages in Utilities/Console . Are you connecting via a hub? Is it powered?

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Connected straight in to the back of the iMac, nothing in the console.

[vicz]

Hmm well it smells like bad driver / bad cable / broken device in that order. Unusual but not impossible for a software clash not to leave a message in the console. I think you are on the right track with stripping down to minimal system and seeing if it still works - could you manage without the f/w drive for a bit? - then adding stuff till the problem returns and/or trying the interface on a different machine. Also maybe try the interface through a powered hub in case there is a low power / sleep thing going on.

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Yeah I currently have plugged in nothing but the saffire and my Keyboard/Mouse.

I could try it on my macbook, but essentially I want to use it on the imac and just the macbook for DJing at this stage. But if it continues after this I'll try the macbook as at least I can rule it out.

Powered hub is a good idea, just seems unusual to have to do this. I guess I don't mind it happening when I leave the computer alone, but when it did it when i was browsing soundcloud clips that freaked me out.

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Well I unplugged the firewire external drive and it works!

Been on solidly for well over 30 hours

Faith in the focusrite restored!