[Solved] Slightly OT question about USB power for UR

Dorico
1

I’ve posted a similar question in the UR sub-forum of the Steinberg Hardware forum about a week ago, with no response so far, so thought I’d try here. As you can see in my signature below, I rely on a UR22MkII as my MIDI interface with my MacBook Pro laptop running Mojave and Dorico 2.2.10.

My problem is this: If I turn off either the Mac or the UR22, the Mac reboots. In fact it is impossible to turn off the Mac if the UR22 is plugged into it via the USB port. It just reboots over and over. It IS possible to turn oft the UR22, simply by unplugging the USB connection. However, this again triggers a reboot of the Mac, which drives me slightly nuts.

Do I just have to live with this situation? Or is there a solution? I’ve tried using the power-source switch on the back of the UR22 as an on/off switch, but that also triggers a reboot of the Mac. It occurs to me that buying an external power supply for the UR22 rather than relying on the USB connection for power might solve, but I don’t even know where to procure such a thing. Anybody have any ideas?

:question:

2

This sounds like some sort of hardware problem. You should be able to plug or unplug any USB device without rebooting or crashing the computer. That’s how USB is designed to work. (Of course you might crash a particular application program if it was using the USB when you unplugged it, but that’s not the same as crashing or rebooting the entire computer system.)

You might be able to isolate the problem by

  • try a different USB port on the Mac
  • try plugging / unplugging a different USB device to see if that causes the Mac to reboot (it shouldn’t)
  • try plugging /unplugging the UR22 on a different computer.
3

Probably not.

What boxes are checked in Preferences/Energy Saver?

4

If you need to diagnose what process is causing a Mac to wake up, try following in Terminal:

pmset -g assertions

5

Any phone/tablet charger will do. You just need a USB A to Micro USB B cable.

6

Another thing. Flipping a power source switch while the device is powered up is not a good idea. I wouldn’t be surprised if something got fried.

7

PF Slow asked which boxes were checked under Preferences/Energy Saver.

ALL boxes are checked EXCEPT the one that says: “Prevent computer from sleeping automatically when the display is off.”

I must confess I don’t understand the implications of your question, PF.

8

That’s ok.

Uncheck Wake for Network Access and Start up immediately after a power failure.

Reboot.

See if this is still an issue. If so, run the terminal command and see what that says.

9

I’d blame the Apple hardware for it. I used to have a Mac Mini and never any trouble together with the UR22 and UR22mkII and I hot plugged a lot.
Now I have an iMac and frequently some similar issue. When I unplug the UR, the iMac does not reboot, but it completely loses all connectivity, i.e. USB-Keyboard, BlueTooth mouse, so the only way to recover is a hard reset. (Needless to say, that I never have any such issue on my lenovo laptop.)

10

PF Slow, I unchecked the box that says: Wake for Wi-Fi Network Access.
Rebooted. No change in behavior.

I don’t seem to have a box labeled: “Start up immediately after a power failure.” Under either the Power Adapter or Battery tab. (I always keep my Mac plugged into the Power Adapter when at my desk. Which is always where I am when using Dorico and the UR.)

Here’s the output when giving the terminal command you provided:

PreventSystemSleep 0
ExternalMedia 0
PreventUserIdleSystemSleep 1
NetworkClientActive 0
Listed by owning process:
pid 466(AddressBookSourceSync): [0x000000630001810b] 00:00:01 PreventUserIdleSystemSleep named: “Address Book Source Sync”
Timeout will fire in 1798 secs Action=TimeoutActionTurnOff
pid 104(hidd): [0x000000140009803b] 00:00:00 UserIsActive named: “com.apple.iohideventsystem.queue.tickle.4294968889.3”
Timeout will fire in 600 secs Action=TimeoutActionRelease
Kernel Assertions: 0x4=USB
id=502 level=255 0x4=USB mod=12/31/69, 6:00 PM description=com.apple.usb.externaldevice.14200000 owner=USB2.0 HUB
id=505 level=255 0x4=USB mod=12/31/69, 6:00 PM description=com.apple.usb.externaldevice.14220000 owner=USB Receiver
id=506 level=255 0x4=USB mod=12/31/69, 6:00 PM description=com.apple.usb.externaldevice.14240000 owner=Portable Super Multi Drive
id=507 level=255 0x4=USB mod=12/31/69, 6:00 PM description=com.apple.usb.externaldevice.14210000 owner=USB Receiver
id=508 level=255 0x4=USB mod=12/31/69, 6:00 PM description=com.apple.usb.externaldevice.14100000 owner=IOUSBHostDevice
Idle sleep preventers: IODisplayWrangler

Thanks so much to everybody who has responded.

–Len

11

I’d reach out to the hardware vendor… this is obviously not right. I would imagine this has been reported to them and they are working on it? Perhaps there’s a firmware update.

12

Romanos, the UR22 is a Steinberg product.

And reaching out to Apple probably won’t get you very far :slight_smile:

13

Just to update (and again thanks to everybody who has tried to help):

I tried the external power source trick, plugging in a phone charger. Didn’t solve anything. Turn off the UR22, the Mac reboots.

I may just have to live with this.

14

I would suggest making an appointment with the technicians at your nearest Apple Store and taking your MacBook Pro and your UR22 in to see them. I’ve never heard any similar reports of this kind of thing, and I strongly suspect some kind of hardware problem with your Mac. Of course it’s also possible that your UR22 unit is faulty, so you could also contact our technical support team in the US to see what the RMA procedure is to get the unit repaired or swapped out.

15

Thanks, Daniel, I’ll do that. Although it’s a two hour drive! It won’t be real soon.

–L3B

16

Hi, Daniel.
I’m interested in this thread too, because I noticed that, since I installed the Steinberg UR242, when it’s plugged and powered on (all the time when I am at home), my mac would not shut off. It restarts, telling me there’s been a problem turning it off. At first I was wondering what it could be, but now that I am not at home, it would turn off without a problem. This might probably be related with the ur242, so I’m wondering whether this is really a macbook pro issue… (Late 2013 here)

17

I have a UR22 connected to my Mac mini at home, and it has no problems with sleeping, waking or rebooting when the UR22 is connected. I don’t think there is a general problem with the drivers or the power management of these devices on Mac.

18

OK, I have made an appointment with the Service Dept. at the nearest Apple Store (105 miles away !!!) for next week. I will take both the MacBook Pro and the UR22MkII in with me and they will see if they can figure out what the heck is causing this issue. It’s pretty obvious from all of my above posts what I’m going to ask them.

If any of you have any additional questions or comments you can think of that I should convey, please chime in here before Tuesday the 26th, or send me a PM. Thanks.

–Len

19

Have you had Apple look at this remotely? They can log in. In this case it’s a bit convoluted because of the sleep/wake issue. But the tech can access Console logs and drill down.

When it’s a 3rd party call, they can’t fix it but can often tell you what is causing the issue. That’s 9/10 the battle.

I have had issues with ancient system extensions “waking up” and causing problems. Removing them from the system fixed the issue. A couple of years ago, it was HP print drivers from 2005 messing with my wife’s iMac. Huh…what the… why… how ??? It can happen.

20

PF, Apple offered the remote service, but after discussing it we all mutually agreed that it would be helpful to them to see the issue happen in real time as it happens, rather than trying to reconstruct from logs.

You had suggested I run a terminal command, and I have posted the output from it above. Do you seen any clues there?

Thanks.

–LB