mooseyard

December 4th was eight days ago. As a software developer, I can tell you that there is absolutely no way a bug-fix like this can be added to an operating system and rolled out to customers within eight days. And Line6 wasn't even saying that there is a bug-fix yet, just that they're "making good progress" toward one. I'm glad to hear this update from Line6, but I wouldn't expect a fix for at least a month.

Making changes to what? The Sonic Port doesn’t have updatable firmware (that I know of), and there’s no Line6 driver on iOS; it just uses the regular USB/Lightning audio driver. So there’s really nothing Line6 could do about this. i still blame them, but for (apparently) not bothering to report the problem, or warn users, until the day iOS 13 shipped.

Well, this doesn't have anything to do with Inter-App Audio. It's way lower down in the OS than that, at the device driver or audio Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL) level.

Update: It doesn’t. And I can’t even get my Macs to recognize it as an audio device, and their tech support hasn’t replied to my questions. Avoid. The iRig HD 2 I ordered as a replacement for that works fine, however.

No. Generally you only get a response if they need more information, or after an OS containing the fix is available. I just ordered a Mooer GE150 as a replacement. It's a multi-effect pedal, but it does have a USB audio interface that should work with the CCK. Seems like a good deal for $170. If I didn't also want the effects, I'd probably have gone with the iRig HD 2 ($80).

I know, right? I'm an iOS developer and I reported the problem in a bug report to Apple a month ago (FB7127906, if anyone from Apple is reading). But that doesn't have as much weight as a bug report from Line6 themselves, especially because they could have done more troubleshooting and maybe included details that would help Apple identify the problem. Of course it's possible that Line6 _did_ find the problem and alerted Apple and nothing happened; Apple bug reports go into a black hole and it sometimes takes a long time for them to be addressed. But even if that's true, it was bad form of them not to acknowledge the issue in this thread (or some other thread), or to post a compatibility warning earlier the way other companies like NI and Ableton did.

Further reading between the lines, it sounds like Line6 didn’t bother to test iOS 13 during the 3-month beta period (nor to read their own forums) and suddenly discovered the incompatibility after everyone installed the final release. Dammit. ”We have no control over if/when this will be fixed” — well, generally the earlier you file a bug report the earlier it gets fixed. And it’s much likelier to be fixed soon during a major release beta cycle, than at other times when only carefully picked bugs get fixed for minor releases. Time For me to buy a new interface, I guess. And I’ll be unlikely to consider Line6 gear in the future if this is how their QE/compatibility process works.

At this point I'd recommend returning it, if you can get your money back. There's no way to know when (or if) this will be fixed by Apple, and there's not anything Line6 can do since the device doesn't have any way to update its firmware. And Line6 have said absolutely nothing about the problem. I'm probably going to give in and buy a different adapter, like the iRig HD 2. :( One thing that just occurred to me: Has anyone tried connecting the Sonic Port to iOS via USB, through the Camera Kit? If the problem is specific to the Lightning interface, that might work around it.

Bad news: Sonic Port is still busted with the latest iOS 13.1 dev beta that came out this week. Good news: I tried out an USB audio interface I had lying around (Behringer U-Control), via the “Camera” Connection Kit, and it works fine. So it seems this problem may be specific to the Sonic Port. (Downside is that the U-Control only has line-level inputs, so I can’t plug my guitar in directly, but I have a multi-effect pedal with line level out.)

To be pedantic: “AudioKit” is the wrong term. AudioKit is a 3rd-party open source audio library used by some audio apps, but not part of the OS. The Apple code in question here is CoreAudio, probably the parts of CoreAudio that interface with external hardware. From comments above it sounds like the Sonic Port is not the only hardware affected? Is it only interfaces that connect directly to Lightning, or are USB audio interfaces via the CCK broken too? if it’s more than this one device, this seems like a really serious problem (esp. given the huge number of musicians using iOS) and I’m surprised it’s persisted through this many beta builds. I’ve already filed an issue with Apple, but I’ll check the developer forums too to look for more reports of this.

I’m not expecting them to support a beta OS. But this should be brought to their attention because, unless either Line6 or Apple fix something, the device is likely to not work with the released iOS 13. And at this point there’s little time left.

Same problem here, unfortunately. Doesn’t function at all in any app on iOS 13 b8. Can’t even use the Music app to output audio.