Information on 2013 iMac FD issue / USB2-3 Issue and Driver Incompatibility issue

Thank you for making this thread! Just to add:

*Late 2012 Fusion Drive users are experiencing the same issues!*

Sad to know this issue is a year old.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5484036?start=0&tstart=0

cohenmatt

Toni Montana

The Art Of Sound wrote:

Issue #1 - If you own a 2013 iMac with a Fusion Drive fitted then you wil get audio dropouts, clicks and other audio issues.

I only wish this was the extent of it.

Plug an iPhone into a Late 2013 iMac with a Fusion Drive either directly, though a USB hub or a USB port of another device attached to the machine and it will randomly freeze. You may hear a sound or see the iPhone's screen light up or you may not but the keyboard and mouse will no longer respond to input and the only option will be to hard reset the machine by pressing and holding the power button.

Upon restarting you will find an error similar to the following at the moment of the freeze:

12/15/13 8:07:16.000 PM kernel[0]: vtd[0] fault: device 0:20:0 reason 0x6 R:0x12bd000

12/15/13 8:07:16.000 PM kernel[0]: USBF: 17276.645 AppleUSBXHCI::UIMCheckForTimeouts - HSE bit set:5 (1)

The same freeze, with the same error can be induced by using USB headphones as the audio ouput device in an app like Plex.

And yes, there are audio quality issues as well. For example, while I can choose the USB headset as the audio input device, it will stop recording audio after a few moments.

adam swink wrote:

Thank you for making this thread! Just to add:

*Late 2012 Fusion Drive users are experiencing the same issues!*

Sad to know this issue is a year old.

Looks like the latest OS update slightly improved the audio situation, didn't fix though and seems to be causing some other problems. Just had a former client email me saying both his keyboard and audio interface are no longer recognized. (10.9.1)

One thing to mention... when performing an operating system update... whether incremental or not, it's always best to unplug all external peripherals except for keyboard and mouse.

The reason being: During the upgrade process the ports (USB/Firewire) will reset and often a bit of garbage data can be sent out as they re-initialize. It used to cause MOTU 828MkII's to stop working until a factory reset was performed.

Hi Art,

Thanks for being so thorough as per the usual!

Just thought I would update, I just installed crApple's latest OS updates and guess what??

IT'S MADE THE ISSUE EVEN BLOODY WORSE!!!!!

This time, When I turn on my Motu 828mk3 interface, it loads up Cuemix (the graphical interface of the interface) automatically but now instead of me getting 1-2 mins of any audio, hearing a snap crackle and pop followed by a "weeeee" and then lights 3&4 of analogue out light up, I merely get the lights of Analogue Out 3&4 lighting up with no sound at all.....

Art how do you think such a catastrophic error occurred with these iMacs? Do you think Apple knew about it and decided to follow the "f**k the consumer let's make loads of money" route? It starts to seem that way.

Imagine if this was BMW, they would have issued a world wide recall or advised to bring to local dealership to sort the issue out. S'pose that's the difference between Deutsche quality and American/Chinese build quality.....

Hi Nigel,

No worries, you seem to be one of the most helpful people on the internet!!! 🙂

Thanks for the suggestion, but yeah I did try that this afternoon after the update took place. No dice!

I have now emailed Apple Store in Southampton UK where I bought mine from including details of issues, hyperlinks to Support on here and screen captures in the hope that they will stop selling all affected Macs until a fix is found. I highlighted to them that now I have written in and they know about the issues, they will be selling products deemed unfit for sale under the The Sale of Goods Act 1979. Any such breaches can land penalties, prison sentances or combinatiosns of both!

I suggest people do the same for their own local stores. If you have sales people scared of selling broken products, Apple will not be making as much money and should come out with a fix sooner rather than later.

::James pushes his queen to Apple's king pawn 3, check, Apple your move::

Oh BTW Nigel,

Have you heard any issues thus far with Mac Pros? I haven't so am thinking this is purely iMac, MacMini and MacBook Pro related. Please tell me if I am wrong as I am pushing for them to upgrade me to one of those if they are unaffectied and no solution is provided by beginning 2014!

Is the logicboard different on the Mac Pro? I kinda get the feeling that the iMac logicboard is scaled down for Macbooks and Minis, again let me know if this is completely wrong but would be under the impression that the logicboard would be the only main difference between all other models experienceing issues.

All the best Captain N!

James

Hi All,

I have been watching and reading all the post related to this issue.

I have a late 2013 with 1T FD and I wanted to thank all the people here, especially Nigel, for all the information sharing,

I wanted to share with you my experience with this issue.

I had the pops/crackling/noise issue.

had it on ML and Mav, on any audio software, when used Line6 UX1, and Motu MicroBook ii/Audio Express.

it took my some time and effort until I finally realized the problem is with my machine.

the first solution I tried: booting from external HD, did not worked well for me - I still got the pops.

I don't know why, maybe my system was still using the FD somehow.. I did not erase it.

the second solution I tried : splitting the FD worked for me.

I no longer get the pops! there is a nice article how to do it with the Terminal:

http://www.macworld.com/article/2015664/how-to-split-up-a-fusion-drive.html

Unfortunately, I can not get a refund/fix/replacement from my local authorized seller (iMac was sent to lab and passed all tests), nor a solution,

Apple support help was poor because I am outside of US.

imagine that - spent a nice amount on iMac and interface, and I can get a decent sound.

really sad.

One more point : I got a few application crashes, it happened twice with Logic Pro X, and once more with another application - I don't know if it is even related to the issue.

so, my current state is: FD was spitted, I do get a decent sound now, nobody (local authorized seller/Apple)

really helped me, I am crossing my finger and waiting to Apple fix.

Peace, love and Rock'n'Roll,

Yo-C

I'm just noticing a similar issue on my new iMac (all maxed out with Fusion drive and 32GB RAM), with a M-Audio ProFire 610 interface hooked up with FireWire (using the Thunderbolt adapter), as well as a couple of external FW drives daisy chained to it.

The kernel error is very clearly a FireWire problem though. Is anybody here experiencing these kinds of issues with a non-FireWire interface, i.e. USB? I highly doubt that the Fusion drive is in any way directly related to this issue (maybe tangentially).

I'm betting that this is more likely a problem with the Apple Thunderbolt-to-FW adapter or its drivers in Mavericks and the way it interacts with FW audio interfaces. This may be fixable with an Apple software update if that's the case, but I may just have to consider switching to a USB3 interface for Christmas if this is indeed a FW issue...

Interesting... Funny thing is I was using this interface just fine till a few days ago. I had to reinstall my Mac and maybe the 10.9.1 OS X update made things worse... But I'm starting to shop for a suitable non-FW replacement.