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HOLLY SH*T!!! What just happened


dbraman
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So I was playing/warming up before practice. I put the guitar down to let everyone in and when I got back (and got through with the small talk), I picked up the guitar and NOTHING! No sound at all. Immediately I stepped through the process of isolating the problem: changed cords...nothing. Plugged in headsets...nothing. Opened up Logic to see if USB was feeding the Mac...nothing. Tried the Helix tuner...working (hmmm). Rebooted the Helix (several times)...nothing.Checked the Macs audio settings...it saw the Helix.Finally I tried reinstalling the 2.12 firmware...Updater did not see the Helix. OMG! I am freaking out at this point. At last, out of desperation (and against all seeming logic) I rebooted the Mac and Hallelujah, let there be noise...my Helix was back from the dead. 

 

Naturally, I am hugely relieved; but what the hell happened? What made the Helix comatose. And why did rebooting the Mac bring Helix back to life. 

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I use a PC and Windows so maybe this isn't relevant to Mac but.....

 

There's a USB setting in Windows that controls when/whether a USB port goes into sleep mode, and what will wake it up. I've heard of similar situations where the communication between computer and usb-connected device is lost until the computer is restarted.

 

The fact that the Helix tuner was responding is a good sign, meaning the device did not completely crash. How are you monitoring the sound? While the problem was evident, were your monitors (speakers/headphones) connected to Helix or your computer?

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I use a PC and Windows so maybe this isn't relevant to Mac but.....

 

There's a USB setting in Windows that controls when/whether a USB port goes into sleep mode, and what will wake it up. I've heard of similar situations where the communication between computer and usb-connected device is lost until the computer is restarted.

 

The fact that the Helix tuner was responding is a good sign, meaning the device did not completely crash. How are you monitoring the sound? While the problem was evident, were your monitors (speakers/headphones) connected to Helix or your computer?

The Mac saw the Helix in the audio options, and when I disconnected the usb cable, the Helix was no longer listed. And as for monitoring sound, I go directly from the Helix to an FRFR speaker. And the headphones were plugged directly to the Helix

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Kind of sounds like the volume block/expression pedal volume drop bug, but that doesn't explain how restarting your mac fixed it. 

 

Did you change presets during your troubleshooting to see if that brought back your sound?

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Kind of sounds like the volume block/expression pedal volume drop bug, but that doesn't explain how restarting your mac fixed it. 

 

Did you change presets during your troubleshooting to see if that brought back your sound?

Yep...several times

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Occasionally  - a software bug on an audio app using CoreAudio on OSX will cause the entire sound from the mac to be killed. And only a reboot will normally bring the sound back. 

Now if you mean the sound of the HELIX itself ceased i've no idea. But if you happened to be monitoring audio from the HELIX via some mac app - connected via USB ( or not in fact - its unrelated to USB if its what i'm referring to ) - then this can happen. 

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I'm optimistic and confident that these sort of Helix connected to computer interruption issues will be a thing of the past once the new Helix Native and Helix Editor programs arrive this April.

 

Although Line 6 may be aware of these issues, their progammers are likely focusing on the new software. Absent a widespread mission critical issue presenting in the existing Helix Editor and occurring on a massive user base scale, it is more likely the existing Helix Editor may never get sufficent corrective patching. Rather, it will be replaced by the new Helix Editor and Helix Native. I know this doesn't make existing users suffering through these interim problems any happier.

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I'm kind of with silverhead on this one.  It sounds to me like the USB dropped or was timed out at the computer which may have caused a lockup between the Helix and the DAW.  I've had my Helix connected to the Editor for long periods of time with no activity and nothing like this has ever happened, but we've all seen some of the issues people have encountered with USB connections when upgrading if the USB is not a direct USB connection and is actually a hub.

 

This leads me to think it's somewhere in the interaction between the USB port on the PC and the DAW...possibly the DAW being put to sleep by the OS which then kills the USB connection.  From the Helix the only thing that could be done in this case is to have some form of alert that the USB is no longer active to alert you that the problem lies in the other side of the connection.

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I suppose all these usb/Mac theories are possible and logical except for the fact that I was getting no output from either the Helix directly out of wither the send jack or the headphone jack. At the same time, there's no denying that it was Mac reboot that finally fixed the problem.

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