macOS upgrade killed my firewire interfaces?

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Level 1

4 points

macOS upgrade killed my firewire interfaces?

I just bought a Mac Pro 5,1 and upgraded to Mojave.

Tested my Saffire Pro 40 and it didn't work so I tried my old trusty 1,1 and it worked fine so I went back to the 5,1 and tried it again and it didn't work so I tried my Saffire 56 Pro on the 5,1 and it didn't work either so I went back to the trusty 1,1 and neither worked.

I tried my 2,1 my 3,1 and nothing.

I spent days trying to install different drivers but nothing works.

I changed cables and tried windows and nothing works!

Before this debacle, my Saffire's have been working like tanks with no issues what so ever and now they are not recognizing anything? Not even on a windows 7 machine? Geez...

You've gotta be kidding me, what a joke.

Apple has a lot of explaining to do...

After High Sierra, it seems as if it will kill your firmware of the audio interfaces?

Hopefully that's not the case.

As soon as I get my hands on a Lion install, anything above El Capitan is GONE!

Has anyone managed to get their Saffire's to work with a clean install of macOS newer than El Capitan?

Any help would be appreciated!

Mac Pro

Posted on Oct 27, 2022 03:14 AM

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Answer 1

IraWard Author

Level 1

4 points

Nov 24, 2022 11:59 AM in response to HWTech

I thought that too...

I did try every solution I could find.

Nothing worked so I bought another Saffire Pro 56, connected it and it booted immediately!

The computer and all of its ports work perfectly.

I should have known when the FW drivers would not boot with the Saffires connected and turned on restart. It showed the "Warning: unable to list firewire devices..."

I should have known then that the units chipsets have been compromised.

It would have saved me 5 - 6 weeks of down time and rebooting every computer I own and loads of PCIe's and DVD's LOL.

Lesson learned :)

Thanks for your help!

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Answer 2

BDAqua

Level 10

250,007 points

Oct 27, 2022 04:58 AM in response to IraWard

What Interface does the 1.1 use?

Applies to: Pro 14, Pro 24, Pro 24 DSP, Pro 26, Pro 40, Liquid Saffire 56

As of October 2019, Saffire interfaces are no longer under development support, therefore we recommend Saffire owners do not upgrade their operating system beyond:

macOS Catalina
Windows 10 build 1809.

To confirm, the Saffire's are compatible with Windows 10 1809 and macOS Catalina 10.15 (see this article for further information) but they will not work on newer versions.

Saffire FireWire Range - end of development support – Focusrite Audio Engineering

So, it should be working on anything the Mac Pro 5,1 can run.

Reset the Firewire bus

If your Firewire or USB isn't recognizing any device.

1.. Shut the machine down.

2.. UNPLUG the power lead to the computer and any peripheral devices.

3.. leave it for 10 minutes.

4.. Hold power Button in for 10 seconds

5.. Connect everything back up and restart

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Answer 3

HWTech

Level 9

66,692 points

Oct 28, 2022 09:50 AM in response to IraWard

It appears you have not considered the possibility that the used hardware you purchased (Mac Pro 5,1) may have a hardware issue with one of its ports? A hardware issue with the computer is a much more likely reason, especially since you have no clue to the computer's history having just purchased it used.

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Answer 4

IraWard Author

Level 1

4 points

Nov 24, 2022 11:48 AM in response to BDAqua

Now I have done everything with no success so I bought another Saffire Pro 56 and plug it in and it connected immediately.

My conclusion is, that somewhere during the up grade, the chipset of bpth my Saffire Pro 56 and 40 got reset or damaged.

Which upgrade and macOS that caused this is still unclear.

Maybe it was malware?

Something caused it.

Summary: If your Saffire 56/40 are giving the no connection warning, restart the computer with a Saffire connected and powered on. If the FW800/400 driver is not loading in system report then you have a faulty Saffire.

I will return once I have repaired the broken units.

Thanks for the help!

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macOS upgrade killed my firewire interfaces?

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