I received communication from Steinberg today - thanks Ed and Fabio.
Unfortunately my UR driver problem remains and the performance trace hasn’t shed any light on why the issue exists with 1.9.9 and Yamaha are unable to reproduce it. It seems to impact a relatively small number of users, but that doesn’t really lessen the problem for those of us that have it. Does make it difficult to resolve of course.
In regards to the help ticket delays. Fabio shed some light on the ticket work load they are working through (first come first served). He and the team have my sympathy!! There’s rather a lot on the plate.
I’ve offered to provide additional performance traces and whatever other testing they might require. It might even just get fixed by some side effect update (next UR driver, next Windows update, who knows). For the moment though I won’t be able to upgrade to Cubase 9 or the latest UR driver without replacing the interface with one of the alternatives people have successfully change to as mentioned in this thread - or perhaps one of the shiny new ones released at NAMM!
Bummer, this UR44 interface was absolutely flawless (on the same computer) when I first purchased with Cubase 7.5 (and the appropriate drivers and OS at that time) - even had 6 video monitors and minimum buffer size! Got a bit dodgy with Cubase 8, okay with Cubase 8.5, Win 10 and 1.9.5 (128 buffer). But 1.9.9 it dies in a ditch. I’m not risky a Cubase 9 update - rather save for a new interface first.
Glad you received an answer, robw. I did contact them as well with my - relatively untelling - testing videos in hopes of a reply but still waiting for a response. I can imagine their workload, but slowly I’d like to know whether I need to get another interface or if there’s hope for unfortunate users like us.
If there’s anything we could do - maybe Yamaha can release a special driver version that produces a log file for us who can replicate the problem to test it and send the logs to them. I think with a simple instruction, many of us would be able to setup a dbgview and gladly monitor it for resolving these issues. I guess it’s maybe expensive for them to sign those drivers so us private persons can test it out for them?
I will put in my .02 - this is happening to me as well. but with both RME UFX and with a Focusrite Forte. So i would say this is a steinberg issue… or windows issue… not audio device driver. Unless all audio drivers have been effected because of a windows bug. Also i am on latest Nuendo build … so its not just cubase.
Sooooo Very frustrating! makes record almost useless!
@Zet - you can use Windows Performance Analyser to make a log file that Yamaha and Steinberg can use. That’s what Steinberg asked me to do as part of my support ticket and I sent through a 1.9.9 Driver log back before Christmas. This week I will be running to to log traces, one with 1.9.5 (which works okayish for me) and 1.9.9 so Steinberg can play compare and contrast between the two driver versions. I’d wait until asked to do it by Steinberg so you can be sure it will be looked at.
At the moment I’ve a working Cubase 8.5 with the 1.9.5 driver and UR44 on Windows 10. It does not performs to the standard I started with - mostly same PC hardware, UR44, Cubase7.5 and Windows 7 - but it is sufficient. I can make music and save for a new interface. Whilst saving I will do what I can to work with Steinberg and Yamaha as they are able to try and nut out the underlying issue. At least in my case I can show it is directly related to the driver version though Yamaha apparently do not know why the changes should cause the issue I am seeing. I’ll send those logs off as soon as I can get them done this week and see if it reveals anything for them. In a few months when I’ve saved enough it might be time for a full update, not sure if I will move to Cubase 9, perhaps if the driver issue gets fixed and confidence is restored.
My suggestion though, if you can’t make music at the moment, buy a new interface as soon as you can (test it at the shop first, take in your PC!) Life’s too short to worry about audio interface issues and not be making music!
i might have a lead on some of the odd glitches. I noticed that i was getting my drops when Skype was open in the background. i wonder if its a windows audio issue. with sharing. Though I am using a different device jabra for skype.
We are still on this issue but it is really hard to find a reason for it. One question from development:
Is there anyone here with drop outs who also uses Google Play Music and its Chrome App Extension? Does the performance issues change, if that extension is removed from Chrome for a test?
I do, Ed, will try to remove it from Chrome now, and see if i still get dropouts.
Edit: Nope, no luck. I removed the Play Music app, and still have dropouts (seem to be a tad less though). I also tried to deactivate “Run apps in the background when Chrome is closed” in the Chrome settings, but, that did nothing either. Only trick which works for me is deactivating my wi-fi adapter here. Other’s mileage may vary.
@Ed - Thanks for keeping on this issue. I don’t have Google Play but I will remove chrome completely and retest tomorrow. I still owe you guys 1.9.5 and 1.9.9 UR driver performance analyser traces to see if a comparison can shed light on the issue. Should get all this done tomorrow and will report back via the support ticket.
Looks like I’m not the only one with this problem! I just picked up an UR22mkii for my new audio workstation which is:
x99 deluxe motherboard (which seems to be listed here as a problem, alas)
i7 6900k 8 core
128gb RAM
zotek 1050 ti gpu
…and a few ssds.
What I get is exactly what others report: I’ll be playing audio and then the USB power light will flicker, audio will drop out and then come back a few moments later. I can’t really say if there’s anything specific that triggers the issue–though it does seem to happen slightly more often when I’ve a modest (30-40%) cpu load in Cubase. This is worrisome because I am going to be running my system at much higher loads in the future.
I’ve tried the front and back USB ports and so far no luck. I’ll try some of the suggestions listed on this thread tonight and report back if anything works. I hope it does–it’s otherwise a very nicely built interface. Fortunately I have a couple weeks left before the return date, so I’ll see what I can do.
I tried to uninstall Google Chrome completely in the meantime BTW, and, it didn’t really help, still dropouts on my desktop computer. Deactivating the wi-fi adapter is still the only thing which solves the dropouts for me.
Just to follow up, I have tried a lot of the suggestions in this thread. USB powered hub, changing my USB hub devices in device manager to never turn off to save power, different ports, disabling any and all network related things.
So far, no dice. I still get dropouts at the same rate. At the moment I’m down to using the HDMI audio out with Asio4All. That works–flawlessly–as do my other USB powered devices (external hard drives, keyboard, Mackie MCU pro).
Well I have the same problem. I hoped that is PC issue so I bought new one (I wanted it anyway). Here all what I’ve tried:
POWERED USB hub - worked until some restarts.
UNINSTALL Chrome - no change
DRIVERS 1.95 - worked until restarts or one day
NEW cable - no change
DIFFERENT USB port - no change - no matter USB 3 or 2
So I was so pissed off that I went to grab my old UR22 left in PC in my rehearsal room. Changed it and I have had the same problem. After of couple of days cursing steinberg and yamaha I have realized that I had the same problem with old one too on old pc. But I have solved it with PCIe USB3 card in PCIe 16x port. The card has own power and since yesterday i works like a charm. I will try later the UR22 mkII again. But now It looks better. Please keep your fingers crossed.
SOLUTION?
PCIe USB3 hub CARD in PCEe 16x port… own power. only thing plugged in this card is the UR22. I have installed the manufactors drivers but it was ok before with microsoft’s one…
MY PC RIG
AMD FX-9370 CPU 4,4 Ghz x8
MSI 99FXA GAMING
Crucial Ballistix Tactical 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 1866
SSD SAMSUNG 250gb
and lots of disk and other stuff.
and EVGA gtx960
OLD one was
AMD 1090t x6
ASUS mainboard AM3
8gm ram dd3 1333
and the rest the same…
I just finished a few days ago my first pc build and the last thing to do was to install my brand new UR22mkII.
I have installed it yesterday and soon I experienced the same audio dropouts problems.
My new pc :
asus 170-a motherboard
i5 6600 cpu
8gb Dual Channel DDR4
1 Sandisk 120 gb ssd for Windows 10 64 Professional
1 WDC hdd 1 Tb
The issue came out simply listening some tunes on YouTube, then the same dropouts happened playing a track with FLStudio 12.
Updated to the latest firmware and 1.9.9.1 Yamaha Steinberg USB driver, but this not solved the problem.
So I disabled advanced power-saving features in the UEFI BIOS, Enhanced Intel SpeedStep (EIST) and Intel Turbo Boost, as suggested.
Now my UR22 seems to work very well, played some complete tracks with FLStudio, rendered one of them to mp3 and listened 1 hour of music on YouTube without any audio drop outs.
Interface : Steinberg UR12
OS : Windows 8.1 64-bit, Windows 10 64-bit
CPU : AMD A6-6400K
RAM : 8G
Mainboard : ASRock FM2A88M-HD+
I upgraded Windows 8.1 to Windows 10 months ago.
And then, finally, I experienced ‘audio drop outs’.
Drop outs were happened randomly, but more often under heavy network activity.
After many tests, I downgraded OS to Windows 8.1. Drop outs were gone.
When new driver(V1.9.9) came out, I upgraded OS to Windows 10 again but drop outs still existed.
So I downgraded OS to Windows 8.1 again.
Since then, I did same thing again and tested several combinations(OS and driver versions) but the result was same.
In my opinion, it’s a driver issue.
Something(USB interface handling) changed in Windows 10.
So, Steinberg tweaked a driver. But it’s not compatible with Windows 10 fully.
Audio pops and ‘Enable Loopback’ checkbox disappearing problem(see my previous post) are all related to this, I think.
Steinberg says ‘For most customers, the UR interfaces work reliably without drop outs’.
And suggest many things to poor customers.
Who’s gonna change everything except audio interface?
‘just change interface’ is a quick and easy method.
Either way, we have to pay more money to solve the problem.
I still have some hope they solve this problem and release new driver.
But I’m tired of waiting.
I came here to reporting that I still have this problem since last year. The problem is not happen often for me, but still happen everyday with my both laptop PC and recently new build PC.
Laptop is ASUS N550J
Windows 8.1
Build PC i7 6800k
MSI x99a Tomahawk
Nvidia 1060 GTX
All drivers are up to date
It happen often at first. But I troubleshoot as admin said. I did disable all unuse network devices, change power saving performance, disable unuse audio devices. It’s better, but still happen to both of my PC. And I think it is driver or firmware problem. I would like to get RME babyface pro, but I have to save money for other things.
I hope they will fix this soon, and I quite sure that they have more people who have this problem but don’t report to Steinberg.
I am throwing in the towel. No stable drivers since Win10 is completely unacceptable. It worked fine in Win 8.1 for me at 64 samples. Now it is barely stable at 128 samples in Win 10. So workable latency has literally doubled.
I am going to see if I can sell my UR824 (at a considerable loss) and I will get a Focusrite 18i8 to tide me over until Slate release a 4 channel version of their ‘Virtual Recording Studio’ audio interface.
Life is too short to be troubleshooting an audio interface every other day while basically being stonewalled by Steinberg. All people want to do is be creative and have a reliable interface, which the UR series have not been, for myself and many others.
I can’t see myself investing in Steinberg hardware again after this. The driver support has been pitiful and the position of “it isn’t our drivers, it must be your system” is insulting when we have invested in your hardware (and software).
It’s even more insulting when testing other audio interfaces (Focusrite for example) that work perfectly and show that it is not in fact an issue with the system, but an issue with your drivers.
Word of caution to Steinberg. Once you have lost the trust of your consumers, it is incredibly difficult to win it back.
Same problem. Has been worse with the latest driver. When using Cubase, the sound cuts, USB light blinks, and sound comes back after a while. Same thing, when watching Youtube, listening to music, etc. Sometimes there are long periods without any problems, but after while it’s back again. Really hard to track, what’s causing this.
I’ve tried an USB hub, different USB ports, updated display drivers…
Small update from me in regards to the UR44 driver problems. Steinberg and Yamaha have been analysing the performance traces I sent over comparing 1.9.5 and 1.9.9 drivers. They sent me back some stuff to check and I’ve just responded with the new test results. There were definite differences apparent and I am hopeful the new diagnostics will assist the engineers and hopefully translate to other systems. Please don’t ask for details on stuff that was checked, I just did as I was asked to support them in their efforts and reported back. I’m not qualified to provide advice on why this or that made any difference and don’t wish to add confusion.
The good news is they are actively on the driver case and that is the message I wanted to pass on.
