Driver Updates

[MotherGo0se]

 

I don't think that's too much to ask. How many of you guys have more then one line 6 product. I think it's only fair to get a decent updates.

We're having the same issues with the blue screens and all, and I for one don't want to use buggy asio4all drivers. 

I still use both my UX1 and Pod HD 500x. But the last update was...can't even remember.

[joel_brown]

The product is not going to be updated anymore.  Usually the bluescreen problems are due to other ASIO drivers being installed in addition to Line6 drivers.  There's countless posts about this.

[MotherGo0se]

2 hours ago, joel_brown said:

The product is not going to be updated anymore.  Usually the bluescreen problems are due to other ASIO drivers being installed in addition to Line6 drivers.  There's countless posts about this.

 

So that's that? We have some new toys for you to buy, who cares about what you bought from us before.

Thank you for your answer...Such as it is.

I don't have anything else beside line 6 drivers all the other audio drivers are disabled. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[pianoguyy]

The product isn't broken. The product isn't defective. 

Some of the device-compatibility is showing it's age (which has always been my fear/complaint, since my previous rig lasted over 2 decades). 

 

Plus, a lot of the problem people are having are not a fault of L6. But are the fault of the 3rd (and 4th) party. 

 

 

[pianoguyy]

3 hours ago, MotherGo0se said:

We have some new toys for you to buy, who cares about what you bought from us before.

apparently you haven't tried using Windows Media Player on Windows 7 for automated file tagging. 

 

That is simply the way technology works. 

[MotherGo0se]

1 hour ago, pianoguyy said:

apparently you haven't tried using Windows Media Player on Windows 7 for automated file tagging. 

 

That is simply the way technology works. 

 

As a matter a fact I did, but they (Microsoft) did remind us a whole year prior to Win 10 that most of the feats won't continue to work on win 7. Let's put it this way, I'm just looking for a typical ''flash player'' upgrade kind a thing, just to roll with the time. Again I don't think that's too much to ask. 

[DolurumMafikala]

@MotherGo0se I guess it is up to Line 6 if they want to put any maintenance work into the drivers, but I do tend to agree with you that the drivers could be more robust. While Line 6 still sell the HD series as a current product, rather than a discontinued item in legacy support, it would seem reasonable to harden the drivers against the conditions that cause the errors that result in blue screens on Windows.

 

I've had a bit of recent success with getting mine from unusably-frequent-BSODs to a stable setup. I posted about it a few days ago. That post contained a link to the Line 6 USB audio trouble shooting guide that might be useful if you haven't seen it.

 

We can't control whether or not Line 6 can or will make any updates, but if we want to use our Pod HDs we can see what we can do to lessen the chance of BSODs with the current drivers. If you want to DM me what you've tried already we can swap notes. My approach was to remove potential sources of stutter so that the driver stack has less to deal with and therefore the error conditions occur less.

 

DM

5 BSOD-free sessions and counting...

[MotherGo0se]

3 hours ago, DolurumMafikala said:

While Line 6 still sell the HD series as a current product, rather than a discontinued item in legacy support, it would seem reasonable to harden the drivers against the conditions that cause the errors that result in blue screens on Windows.

 

Spot on. 

 

I have read your earlier post thank you for sharing, most of the settings on my pc is already tweaked in same direction.

 

Now I know it's not a good idea to have internet connection on same pc where you play and record, but I like to jump on youtube, cause it's the easiest way to find backing tracks.

 

3 hours ago, DolurumMafikala said:

We can't control whether or not Line 6 can or will make any updates

 

This whole forum is a great way for them to get feedback from us, I mean if not what's the point? 

 

They should support their tech, it's not like they went from gas to electricity.

[joel_brown]

My guess is, they probably use a contractor to write the drivers and it's very expensive.  For the most part, the driver works fine.  The PODHD line is at the end of it's development cycle and they are concentrating on the Helix line. 

 

So why spend a bunch of money for the small percentage of people having issues with an old product at the end of it's life.

[DolurumMafikala]

@MotherGo0se, so would you say you get the BSODs mostly when you are streaming Youtube and playing?

 

I'm wondering what you have already tried to isolate the problem. I've seen some of your older posts where you seemed to be using an oldish machine. Are you still using the same one?

 

Some thoughts: 

 

Have you tried setting the buffers very high? I know you won't want to do that permanently, because of the latency, but it might be worth trying to see if you can find a stable setup. I'm thinking if you try to minimize the load on your machine (and remove unneeded things, even temporarily) you may be able to isolate some of the key reasons for the BSODs and then remove them.

 

Does you get bluescreens if you just listen to Youtube but don't record your playing back to the DAW?

 

Do you get bluescreens if you are just running HD Edit and not streaming audio from the Pod to the PC via USB? i.e. you are listening using speakers or headphones connected to the Pod?

 

For that matter, how do you usually use the Pod? Do you monitor on speakers connected to the Pod or via your PC?

 

Just generating ideas. What have you already tried?

 

DM

 

[MotherGo0se]

On 9/25/2020 at 6:37 PM, DolurumMafikala said:

@MotherGo0se, so would you say you get the BSODs mostly when you are streaming Youtube and playing?

 

I'm wondering what you have already tried to isolate the problem. I've seen some of your older posts where you seemed to be using an oldish machine. Are you still using the same one?

 

Some thoughts: 

 

Have you tried setting the buffers very high? I know you won't want to do that permanently, because of the latency, but it might be worth trying to see if you can find a stable setup. I'm thinking if you try to minimize the load on your machine (and remove unneeded things, even temporarily) you may be able to isolate some of the key reasons for the BSODs and then remove them.

 

Does you get bluescreens if you just listen to Youtube but don't record your playing back to the DAW?

 

Do you get bluescreens if you are just running HD Edit and not streaming audio from the Pod to the PC via USB? i.e. you are listening using speakers or headphones connected to the Pod?

 

For that matter, how do you usually use the Pod? Do you monitor on speakers connected to the Pod or via your PC?

 

Just generating ideas. What have you already tried?

 

DM

 

 

 

Thank you for your reply. Yes I was using an old laptop before, but now I have my PC mainly for music. The problem is the third party plugins in Reaper. As soon as you add something, like let's say anything newer from Toontrack, after a while it's bound to happen. You cannot set driver to asio if you are using in standalone mode it will automatically go wasapi. As for your questions regarding POD. Mosty I'm listening trough headphones, rarely speakers, and when I'm monitoring yes it goes trough PC. I set bigger buffer size when I'm not playing (for youtube), but when I play/record I tend to go minimum to avoid latency of course. 

[DolurumMafikala]

Oh, interesting, so it is reliable if you are just recording into Reaper or listening/playing without third-party plugins? If so, it makes me think your setup might have a bottleneck somewhere.

 

Looking at the Toontrack website, they seem to be quite full-featured plugins. My experience with the Pod USB connection is that the driver stack doesn't seem to handle interruptions/stuttering very well when the PC / USB subsystem is busy. Ideally it should gracefully buffer, or discard if it can't, but there seem to be unhandled error conditions. This is all a bit speculative, but I wonder if, with the Toontrack stuff being heavyish, that it ties your machine up a bit too much, which means it can't service the USB audio stream from the Pod quickly enough, leading to the BSODs from the Pod drivers.

 

Googling "Toontrack CPU", I did find this thread https://www.toontrack.com/forums/topic/insane-cpu-usage/ , which talks about restricting Superior Drummer 3 to using 1 CPU core when used in a DAW. Some people had found that help them avoid clicks and pops. Might be worth looking into?

 

What actual Toontrack plugins are you using? I see some comments on their forums about SD3 maxing CPU on some machines while the older versions are ok.

 

Unrelated, but when using the Pod I am listening/monitoring with headphones connected to the Pod, rather than the phones connected to my PC sound card or my other audio interface. This means my Windows "Speakers" are set to the Pod. I felt it was better to keep things simple and be using one audio system at a time, and I suppose I also get the minimal-latency monitoring of my guitar playing. I don't disable those other audio interfaces, just don't use them at the same time.

 

DM