Upgrade to AVL MXE 21 alsa cant use Saffire6 o/p but i/p OK

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boik
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Upgrade to AVL MXE 21 alsa cant use Saffire6 o/p but i/p OK

Post by boik »

Not quite sure where to post this.

had a few problems with my Saffire6 USB 1.1, but @Puleglot of this parish came up with a kernel patch to get it working and I've been very happy with it. Lovely bit of kit. I still had to have a few restarts each session for everything to kick into life on AVL 19 but then it runs perfectly.

Just upgraded to AVL MXE 21, and Mixbus/Jack will not start under any circumstances. However if I tell Mixbus to use ALSA direct, and use the Saffire6 for input, and the onboard PC audio for output, everything works first time every time. If i try to use the Saffire6 for output it doesn't start.

It feels like something is grabbing/locking the Saffire6 outputs on startup, and I'm suspecting PulseAudio, but using pasuspender does not resolve the issue.

I've tried using lsof on various devices, but can't seem to shed any light on it.

Anyone come across this before? Cheers for any help.
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GMaq
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Re: Upgrade to AVL MXE 21 alsa cant use Saffire6 o/p but i/p OK

Post by GMaq »

Hi,

My guess might be the far newer Kernel in AV Linux 21 vs. the MX-19 based version and USB1 support left the building long ago... I have a perfectly good Tascam US-122 sitting in a cupboard that also lost support quite some time ago..

If you go into the MX Package Installer you will see there are a variety of older Kernels you can install perhaps a 5.10 kernel or similar and see if it works more like you expect.. Be aware you will lose all of the performance features of the default Liquorix Kernel if you install an older non-Liquorix kernel..
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sunrat
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Re: Upgrade to AVL MXE 21 alsa cant use Saffire6 o/p but i/p OK

Post by sunrat »

Liquorix kernels back to 5.2 are still available in the repo - https://liquorix.net/debian/pool/main/l/linux-liquorix/
boik
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Re: Upgrade to AVL MXE 21 alsa cant use Saffire6 o/p but i/p OK

Post by boik »

Cheers guys. I will try a different kernel at the weekend. I notice that someone is selling the USB 2.0 version of the same interface for a good price so might bite the bullet on that one.
boik
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Re: Upgrade to AVL MXE 21 alsa cant use Saffire6 o/p but i/p OK

Post by boik »

OK, well I got a few minutes to try the 5.10 kernel and everything works again, so I have a short term solution.

Not sure how long it would have taken me to discover that it was a general USB driver issue and not something more specific to this hardware.

Thanks for your help. Time to start saving up!
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Re: Upgrade to AVL MXE 21 alsa cant use Saffire6 o/p but i/p OK

Post by j_e_f_f_g »

Moral of the story:

If your system has hardware that is more than 5 years old, and you don't wish to replace that hardware, it's time to seriously consider not updating the software on that system any further. Developers periodically upgrade their hardware. This means that they're constantly adding new code to their software to utilize the new hardware. Sometimes this additional code does something that makes the older hardware no longer work. This is referred to as a "regression". And for devs who don't sell support for their software, they ain't gonna do rigorous testing of their newest software with old hardware they no longer use. So the regression may not be fixed. Furthermore, newer software isn't likely to do anything more with your old hardware than the old software did. (ie, Usually software updates are done to better utilize new hardware. It's rare for devs to work on adding code that better uses old hardware). Therefore, at some point, it becomes counterproductive to update your software. All you're likely to get is a broken system. After 5 years, leave your working system the way it is now. If you ever need some new software feature, you had better be also willing to upgrade your hardware, if needed.

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sjzstudio
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Re: Upgrade to AVL MXE 21 alsa cant use Saffire6 o/p but i/p OK

Post by sjzstudio »

Does this mean that the machine in studio use should be renewed at least every five years? And the old one remains a crappy internet machine. I thought Microsoft and Apple were in that boat. So also Linux. Should I just give up and buy a c-cassette four-tracker?

Of course not. but it's frustrating to think that you have to replace the iron every few years. Everything nowadays costs so sick or is not available.
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Re: Upgrade to AVL MXE 21 alsa cant use Saffire6 o/p but i/p OK

Post by GMaq »

Hi,

The life-cycles of hardware are diminishing greatly and Linux will not be immune to this... a few years ago there was a new Kernel release every couple of months and now they are almost weekly! Every new Kernel version charges forward to support new hardware and on the back side older hardware is left untested and sooner or later as Jeff said either by design or omission support will fade away..

To be honest I've always been completely stunned how people will throw out a completely viable system that is working perfectly just because a single Plugin comes along that they can't update or because they want to use a new Desktop Environment or another Distro that looks cool in a flavor of the month article... It's utter madness really... :roll:

People create a lot of their own misery in the Linux Audio world unfortunately...*shrugs
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Re: Upgrade to AVL MXE 21 alsa cant use Saffire6 o/p but i/p OK

Post by j_e_f_f_g »

sjzstudio wrote: Does this mean that <my computer> should be renewed at least every five years?
No. Use it for 10, 15, 20 years. Just think twice about updating its operating system after 5 years. If you must update it after 5 years, make sure you first backup your drive. If your hardware no longer works with the newer OS, you'll probably have to restore your old OS from that backup.

OTOH, it's extremely unlikely every piece of hardware in your computer will no longer work with a particular OS update. It's more likely that one piece of hardware may stop working, in which case, you should be prepared to update that piece if you don't want to revert to your old backup.

In conclusion, when the hardware is over 5 years old, you start running the risk of having software updates no longer support your hardware so you should:

1) Make a backup of your working software system before updating. Don't just assume the update will work, and therefore forego making a backup.

2) The older your hardware gets, the more likely support for it will either get broken (and never fixed), or just disappear. (For example, if you try to run the latest linux on a really old pentium, absolutely nothing will work. That's because support for such old hardware has been dropped completely from new kernels.) So be prepared to replace at least one piece of old hardware in your system if you absolutely must have the updated software.

P.S. I think it's really risky to update your OS nowadays if you're using an audio interface that uses Firewire. That support has been languishing for awhile now, and thus, it's a prime candidate for being broken by newer kernels.

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