Audio Engine Shutting Off Inexplicably (SOLVED I hope)

[brp]

Rig running fine here for 1.5 years without moving/unplugging anything, and 2 years before that; same setup.

I had to unplug my USB interface a couple weeks ago, from the interface end only to put some velcro under it.

Live was completely fine for a couple weeks. Then I start getting sporadic Audio Engine shut-off AKA lost interface driver connection.
But interface doesn't appear to disconnect from PC in Win10. Restart engine; does it again and again, sporadically, with no user input. Even when Live's not playing. To be clear, I'm not sure it has done it when Live IS running.

Googling, I ran across a few others with the same glitch behavior from Audio Engine but no concrete cause or fix to be found.

Troubleshooting performed:
- re-seated USB cable.
- cold booted interface after cool down.
- forced interface firmware update.
- confirmed engine drops whether Live's "second window" is open or not and whether 2nd monitor is even on or not. Somewhere I read someone with same issue thought this was related?
- I'm always able to re-select the USB audio device in Live's preferences without delay. It's not like the interface isn't showing up anymore, no Live re-launch required.
- It can go quite some time without happening and all is fine.
- OS version is updated.
- Live version is updated.
- confirmed same issue occurring regardless which als file open.

In almost 20 years of using Live, I've never had the engine shut off randomly on any version. But I see several others have had this happen unexplainably.
Anyone with any insight on this random Audio Engine shutting off problem?
USB cable compromised in some way? I'm using the cable that came with the interface. Seems odd it never happened for years in same setup/install and then started not long after unplugging the interface, yet not for weeks after, and why would that cause intermittency, unless the cord was barely half seated, which is was/is not. It's a real pain in this install to swap the cable so I'm researching other things before I go there.

Thanks for any related advice!
specs in sig.

[pottering]

Bluetooth audio auto-connect maybe?

When somebody turned on an earbud to use with their phone it could have auto-connected with your computer before it was switched to the phone.

[Rod Underleaf]

I find if there is movement of the USB cables and hubs, this can result in the audio engine shutting off...try securing the sound card and pinning the input USB end securely to a surface a foot away from the entry to the sound card or a USB hub...

[helyee]

This has been happening to me also. The only thing about the setup that has changed is that I am using Live 12 now. This never happened in Live 11, but it is happening about every 2 or 3 work sessions with Live 12.

[brp]

This has been happening to me also. The only thing about the setup that has changed is that I am using Live 12 now. This never happened in Live 11, but it is happening about every 2 or 3 work sessions with Live 12.

Oh that's bad news because I just upgraded to 12 Suite and thought that had maybe solved it!
Hasn't happened since though (fingers crossed).
Thnx for posting.
I do suspect USB cable but that doesn't make as much sense in your case.

[brp]

I now am fairly convinced that this is/was a USB cable at fault. Interface started disconnecting and reconnecting repeatedly for the first time when not using Ableton, just youtube audio in use, ruling out an Ableton specific issue. Also 1st time it did it repeatedly (dozen times) in a span of a few minutes. Seemed to take longer to reconnect than when occurring using Ableton. Swapped USB with my controller and problem vanished and has not returned so far (*knocks wood hard).
I'm going to mark this as solved if I can (*knocks wood again). Will update if problem reoccurs.
Thanks for the input