Audiobus: Use your music apps together.

What is Audiobus?Audiobus is an award-winning music app for iPhone and iPad which lets you use your other music apps together. Chain effects on your favourite synth, run the output of apps or Audio Units into an app like GarageBand or Loopy, or select a different audio interface output for each app. Route MIDI between apps — drive a synth from a MIDI sequencer, or add an arpeggiator to your MIDI keyboard — or sync with your external MIDI gear. And control your entire setup from a MIDI controller.

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Audiobus is the app that makes the rest of your setup better.

IDAM/SMUX/MusicIO users [macOS] USB charging issues

Assuming your devices are not faulty and your cables are original Apple taxed products...

What do you guys/gals do when your iPad starts fritzing between on/off charging states while connected to USB? I've seen the suggestion to kill the 'usbd' process in the Activity Monitor...sometimes works, often doesn't...

From what I can gather it seems to be more of a thing when your iOS device is under 80% battery level but that's just an intuition. I have not been able to find a decent answer to this. I use a mid-2015 MacBook Pro Retina mostly and I think it may be an issue with the software/hardware of this particular computer as I've never had any issues with the old mid-2011 iMac.

Thoughts? Feelings? Hard data? :)

Comments

  • @Vaultnaemsae

    What do you use to monitor iOS Activity?
    Can you stop processes in iOS?
    If so, how?

    Thank you in advance.

  • @Gravitas said:
    @Vaultnaemsae

    What do you use to monitor iOS Activity?
    Can you stop processes in iOS?
    If so, how?

    Thank you in advance.

    He means the process from his Mac ;)

  • @Korakios

    That's what I thought since I've been looking at
    how to do that since jumping onboard the iOS platform.

    Thank you for confirming it. 😉

  • Well I abuse my old rooted android phone (as WiFi repeater, remote torrent client, adblocker, fileserver), and tweaking Linux , so never messed jailbreaking on iOS , but I don’t think it’s even possible to kill a task on iOS ....

  • Is your MacBook running on mains or battery when this happens?

  • @Korakios

    I've done similar trying to access the camera 2 mode on my Android.
    then I started learning Linux and thought to myself errmmm why?

    Yep, agree I haven't tried jailbreaking also.

    @Vaultnaemsae
    It will be interesting to find out what causes the intermittent usb on iOS.

  • @BiancaNeve said:
    Is your MacBook running on mains or battery when this happens?

    It happens on both mains and battery power.

    Of course, I clearly meant to kill the 'usbd' process in macOS' Activity Monitor.

  • @Vaultnaemsae
    It will be interesting to find out what causes the intermittent usb on iOS.

    There are so many variables...I've tried to rule everything out and I still have no idea. iPad's currently charging without issue but 15 minutes ago it was freaking out and it's been like that for as long as I've had an iPad.

  • @Vaultnaemsae

    Is the laptop - iPad combination the same?
    Have you checked grounding???
    The USB port on the laptop itself???

  • @Gravitas said:
    @Vaultnaemsae

    Is the laptop - iPad combination the same?

    The same as what? I’ve tested with the same iPads (a Pro and a Mini) on 2 different computers. I only have problems with the laptop.

    Have you checked grounding???

    I’m not sure I understand why/how to do this...

    The USB port on the laptop itself???

    Possible but unlikely and I do not know how to verify the issue diagnostically speaking. Anyway, the laptop USB ports work fine for other devices in general...they just seems to hate the iPads - sometimes.

  • @Vaultnaemsae

    I omitted the word ,'always' from the sentence, my apologies.
    You answered my question for me.
    Different iPad models and the problem is the same.

    Okay, sometimes there could be a problem with the USB port physically and
    it would only show up under certain situations such as charging the iPad's
    which can be quite particular about where they draw power from at times.

    The reason why I asked about grounding is because if your setup isn't grounded
    then it could well be creating electric spikes as the current is trying to find ground.

    You could simply unplug everything and have only the laptop and an iPad connected to the same outlet and see if the problem is still there with nothing else drawing current from the some point.

    If that doesn't work then try from two different electric sockets.

    After that then have the USB port seen to by an engineer.

    On route you may find that it was something really
    simple that has been causing the problem.

  • @Vaultnaemsae said:
    Assuming your devices are not faulty and your cables are original Apple taxed products...

    What do you guys/gals do when your iPad starts fritzing between on/off charging states while connected to USB? I've seen the suggestion to kill the 'usbd' process in the Activity Monitor...sometimes works, often doesn't...

    From what I can gather it seems to be more of a thing when your iOS device is under 80% battery level but that's just an intuition. I have not been able to find a decent answer to this. I use a mid-2015 MacBook Pro Retina mostly and I think it may be an issue with the software/hardware of this particular computer as I've never had any issues with the old mid-2011 iMac.

    Thoughts? Feelings? Hard data? :)

    Well...this is not a new issue for me.....I had a board replaced....fixed it I think....but happened in Sierra again...iFunbox not working w Audiocopy either....totally useless and actually wondering what the point is lately.

  • Ah, ok. Gotcha now - thanks for responding so thoroughly.

    Regarding the grounding thing, I've tried isolating things powerwise but it makes no difference. The iPad is connected via USB so there's only one power supply -- the laptop adaptor. I've also taken it out of the equation and there's no difference in behaviour. I guess I need to get the device professionally assessed but it seems like that could be opening a can of worms for this somewhat intermittent issue. Knowing my luck it'll probably start working when I get to the repair joint then die again when I leave!

    You search the Apple forums and there's all this nonsense advice. Other people have the same problems but nobody knows the answers - just 'restart', 'reset NVRAM', 'SMC reset'. None of it helps except sometimes (very sometimes!) if you kill the 'usbd' process it stops the iPad charging on/off cycle so you can at least get a stable albeit chargeless connection.

    I thought since probably the people it would affect most are iOS musicians (solid USB connection is critical for IDAM/SMUX etc.) that maybe somebody here had experienced the same thing.

  • Well...this is not a new issue for me.....I had a board replaced....fixed it I think....but happened in Sierra again...iFunbox not working w Audiocopy either....totally useless and actually wondering what the point is lately.

    Board replaced in your computer or iOS device?

    It certainly does feel like hammering square pegs into round holes sometimes...and then it all works for a few minutes...

  • @Vaultnaemsae

    I used to build and setup studios and stopped about a decade ago.
    Mixture of analog and digital before mid range professional studios
    became dinosaurs and headed for extinction
    so I'm used to thinking outside of the box.

    Only one power cable and the problem is still there
    when you disconnect the power supply?
    Okay then that sounds like the USB port or the motherboard.
    An independent engineer could track that down for you
    but Apple will most probably hit you for a replacement.

    You can change the board in the laptop but not in the iPad.

    There is one thing you could do.
    Get some canned air and blow both the ports on the laptop and
    the iPad because they may have grit or fluff in the ports.

    @RUST( i )K
    iFunbox haven't updated their software in quite awhile.
    Considering the constraints that iOS have put in place for accessing
    the data on our machines I'm not surprised.

  • If it’s going between those states, try cleaning out the Lightning port with a toothpick or paper clip, that’s fixed the issue for me many times.

  • edited October 2019

    The ports are clean. I'm kinda a stickler for that stuff. I blasted some air and then some contact cleaner as a first line of defense weeks ago. I occasionally give the USB/lightning ports a little gentle toothpick action when needed. No effect whatsoever.

    So, I guess the obvious (easy?) solution until I get somebody to take a deep dive into the USB system is to keep the iPads on 100% charge at all times. They never have an issue when they're fully charged.

    FWIW I just plugged my 48% charged iPhone 7+ into the laptop and it started the same intermittent crap the iPad does. I reconnected it on a hub (unpowered) and it's suddenly now ok...unreliable as hell.

  • @Vaultnaemsae said:
    Assuming your devices are not faulty and your cables are original Apple taxed products...

    What do you guys/gals do when your iPad starts fritzing between on/off charging states while connected to USB? I've seen the suggestion to kill the 'usbd' process in the Activity Monitor...sometimes works, often doesn't...

    From what I can gather it seems to be more of a thing when your iOS device is under 80% battery level but that's just an intuition. I have not been able to find a decent answer to this. I use a mid-2015 MacBook Pro Retina mostly and I think it may be an issue with the software/hardware of this particular computer as I've never had any issues with the old mid-2011 iMac.

    Thoughts? Feelings? Hard data? :)

    Same happens here from time to time and here's what usually helps:
    1. Re-plug the lightning connector on the iDevice, also try turning the Lightning plug by 180 degrees
    or
    2. Use a different Lightning cable. You say you're using the original one but that does not mean it's not faulty.
    or
    3. Try a different USB port on the MBP. Got the same model btw.

  • @rs2000 said:
    Same happens here from time to time and here's what usually helps:
    1. Re-plug the lightning connector on the iDevice, also try turning the Lightning plug by 180 degrees
    or
    2. Use a different Lightning cable. You say you're using the original one but that does not mean it's not faulty.
    or
    3. Try a different USB port on the MBP. Got the same model btw.

    1. I have a crap cable or two that only work in one orientation and I don't use them for IDAM/SMUX applications; just for charging on a wall adapters.
    2. While this is a fair statement I can assure you that it's virtually a new cable. It works on everything else it's plugged into.
    3. It only has two USB ports! Sometimes this works -- mostly they do the same thing. Maybe it's just this model MacBook?
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