Mac OS X 10.6.8 (Snow Leopard) README - Common Issues and Support

leagueofkruger

leagueofkruger

Inspired
I was wondering if it might be useful to have one thread for OS X 10.6.8 users to refer to since there have been several posts in several different threads with issues all related to 10.6.8.

USB audio on Snow Leopard 10.6.8 is NOT supported by Fractal, so the other threads should be left to issues on supported OS' so Fractal can concentrate on fixing those. Those of us still on 10.6.8 for various reasons can come here and maybe find some answers to some common problems.

What I've seen so far in various threads - common issues:

- USB audio with the updated USB driver (June 21, 2013) is NOT supported by Fractal - minimum OS is Lion - 10.7.4 for USB Audio.

- MIDI over USB (for firmware and patch updates via Fractal-Bot will work and is supported by Fractal - minimum OS is Leopard - 10.5.7 for MIDI-over-USB.

- after installing the new driver, the Axe FX II will disappear from System Preferences

- the driver is located in the user library at /Library/Application Support/Fractal Audio/AxeFxII

- you can find a copy of the previous driver (and pretty much everything else) here: http://axefx.fr

Perhaps if folks "like" this post we can give Fractal an idea of how many of us are still on 10.6.8 and maybe get some support.....

Thanks
hope this helps.
 
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My dilemma question is whether to upgrade to Mountain Lion - having Snow Leopard on my desktop where I do my music stuff, and Mountain Lion on a new laptop.

I realise this isn't the purpose of this thread, but on the other hand, it might be one solution. I lost my Rosetta PC-based MS suite so have had to buy that for the laptop, but I don't think Logic 9 would be affected.

Not being even slightly knowledgeable in this area, worries about my FAS software have stopped me from upgrading the desktop, so this is a great thread - but I hope i haven't gone off-topic.
 
i'm running 10.6.8 on a macbook and i updated the firmware in the axe the other day.

using the old drivers, fractalbot and axe edit work the same as before, but using audio through the usb causes the buffer in the axe fx to gradually fill up (i'm referring to the bar graph labelled "usb" in the utility status page) and then errors start to occur. this is noticeable as a slight degradation in audio quality. the higher the latency setting, the slower this happens.

i installed the new drivers, but the axe fx wouldn't show up in audio/midi setup on the mac, so i rolled back

considering updating to mountain lion
 
I would say unless there is some huge reason to stay on Snow Leopard, upgrade to the later cats as all you will be doing is doing workarounds. Logic 9 doesn't need Rosetta, but you may have some plugins to think about.

I last used a Mac about eighteen months ago, I may go back and see what Mavericks brings later in the year.
 
I'm sorry to say this guys but I'm afraid this is...

dead-horse_zps2ae29d23.gif


M@ made his comment on behalf of Fractal: It's not in their hands.

Apple hasn't released an update for 10.6 in 1-2 years.

Plus, Mavericks is coming out.

OS10.6; me thinks this cat's dead...

dead-cat.jpg
 
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Hugomack said:
My dilemma question is whether to upgrade to Mountain Lion - having Snow Leopard on my desktop where I do my music stuff, and Mountain Lion on a new laptop.

I realise this isn't the purpose of this thread, but on the other hand, it might be one solution. I lost my Rosetta PC-based MS suite so have had to buy that for the laptop, but I don't think Logic 9 would be affected.

Not being even slightly knowledgeable in this area, worries about my FAS software have stopped me from upgrading the desktop, so this is a great thread - but I hope i haven't gone off-topic.
Click to expand...

Not off topic at all. Shared experiences are the point of this thread! We might be able to save each other a little pain... after all we are guitar players first, computer geeks second right??
 
I haven't had a reason to upgrade (yet) from Snow Leopard from an OS perspective. My DAW is Pro Tools 9 which is not supported on Mountain Lion. So it just means reading a bunch of readmes and spending some cash for the upgrade (including upgraded instrument expansion pack and plugins). At this point I am not totally convinced the new features are necessary for me. My workaround now is to use the Axe XLR audio outs to my audio interface which works fine. Actually I never did get the audio over USB to work with PT9 even with the old driver but that was likely something I was doing....
 
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Lion ( 10.7.4 ) is not available on the Apple store as a direct download although someone mentioned in another forum that you can call them and request it. It seems like a cheap option. But also if you go through the other posts a couple people have had some bad experiences with Lion from a stability point of view. Snow Leopard has been pretty rock solid for me.
 
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Swedish Chef said:
Apple hasn't released an update for 10.6 in 1-2 years.
Click to expand...

This is actually not true!! which is one reason I thought a thread like this would be useful.... Apple continues to support Snow Leopard - the most recent update was this month. The OS is not officially EOL (at least from a security update point of view - hmm can we make audio drivers a security issue??). Here is the link to the update from Apple:

Security Update 2013-002 (Snow Leopard)
 
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leagueofkruger said:
I was wondering if it might be useful to have one thread for OS X 10.6.8 users to refer to since there have been several posts in several different threads with issues all related to 10.6.8.

USB audio on Snow Leopard 10.6.8 is NOT supported by Fractal, so the other threads should be left to issues on supported OS' so Fractal can concentrate on fixing those. Those of us still on 10.6.8 for various reasons can come here and maybe find some answers to some common problems.

What I've seen so far in various threads - common issues:

- USB audio with the updated USB driver (June 21, 2013) is NOT supported by Fractal - minimum OS is Lion - 10.7.4 for USB Audio.

- MIDI over USB (for firmware and patch updates via Fractal-Bot will work and is supported by Fractal - minimum OS is Leopard - 10.5.7 for MIDI-over-USB.

- after installing the new driver, the Axe FX II will disappear from System Preferences

- the driver is located in the user library at /Library/Application Support/Fractal Audio/AxeFxII

- you can find a copy of the previous driver (and pretty much everything else) here: http://axefx.fr

Perhaps if folks "like" this post we can give Fractal an idea of how many of us are still on 10.6.8 and maybe get some support.....

Thanks
hope this helps.
Click to expand...

Nice summary.
That's about all there is to say about it at this time.

I do agree with the guy who says that Fractal should have come up with a workaround USB audio driver that deals with the problems between the Axe and Apple's OS X drivers, but they should have done that when the Axe II first came out.
I was about to say how Lion wasn't even available yet when I bought my Axe II in March 2012 so Fractal should have had a good USB audio driver for Snow Leopard back then.
But that's totally wrong. Lion came out in 2011.
What year was the Axe II, with its USB audio i/o being a heavily advertised feature, released?
What was Apple's OS at that time?
At the very least, those two products should have behaved well together.

But what is is and what ain't ain't.
It is what it is now and if you want to use USB audio from the Axe II w/o problems on a Mac it looks like you'll need to upgrade the OS and, if you're like me, you'll need to upgrade the rest of your audio system as well.
It's only a minor problem for me, at this point because I don't do a lot of recording with the Axe.
But I suspect that for others here it's a bigger deal.
 
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I'm also still on 10.6.8 and have no real reason other than the AxeII to make the change. As long as the older driver gives me what I need, I have no intention of changing/upgrading either - everything is exactly as I need it, works flawlessly and there is no compelling reason to upgrade.

As far as I'm concerned about 10.6.8 - it's not 'broke', so I see no need to 'fix' it with an upgrade.

If FAS can find a workaround, that would be great, if not, well I will use the old driver till I absolutely HAVE to. The axe is the only reason to upgrade, and it's an upgrade I don't really want to make.
 
For what it's worth as well - I hardly upgrade the axe as well :) hahaha Unless I see the need for something in there - once it works, I will use it till I see a compelling reason to upgrade :p
 
leagueofkruger said:
Lion ( 10.7.4 ) is not available on the Apple store as a direct download although someone mentioned in another forum that you can call them and request it. It seems like a cheap option. But also if you go through the other posts a couple people have had some bad experiences with Lion from a stability point of view. Snow Leopard has been pretty rock solid for me.
Click to expand...

I just called Apple Canada and I can purchase Lion ( 10.7.4 ) for $19.99 by contacting them directly. This is an option but I'll have to doublecheck that all the PT stuff will still work. I wish I knew more people on Lion to get a warm and fuzzy feeling for it....
 
Is there some reason why anybody would want to upgrade to Lion vs Mountain Lion?
I know that in my own case it won't help anything because my audio interface, a Presonus Firebox, isn't compatible with either Lion or Mountain Lion.
And isn't the new Axe USB firmware made for ML as opposed to L?

There's all sorts of other things I didn't like about ML during the 2 times that I've installed it on my iMac, but they were minor issues.
If my Firebox still worked with ML I'd be using ML just for the better Axe USB/Mac OS compatibility.

But until I get another audio interface I'm stuck on Snow Leopard.
 
leagueofkruger said:
- you can find a copy of the previous driver (and pretty much everything else) here: http://axefx.fr

hope this helps.
Click to expand...
I am unable to access this site on my older mac. When I click on the the link, it takes me to a Google Sign in page rather than the downloads. I tried it on my newer mac and had no problem. I was thinking about upgrading my old computer to Mountain Lion, but with Mavericks right around the corner, I'd rather roll back to the old driver (I never had any issues with it anyway), and update both my macs to Mavericks when it becomes available. Till then, I need help accessing this link on my old mac, or a quick copy of the old (mac) driver. Any help would be greatly appreciated!
 
joegold said:
Is there some reason why anybody would want to upgrade to Lion vs Mountain Lion?
Click to expand...

I use Pro Tools 9 which is not supported on Mountain Lion. It appears to be supported on Lion (although again, I have a bunch of readmes to go through).

And the audio over USB minimum requirement for the Axe FX II is Lion.
 
sgplayer76 said:
I am unable to access this site on my older mac. When I click on the the link, it takes me to a Google Sign in page rather than the downloads. I tried it on my newer mac and had no problem. I was thinking about upgrading my old computer to Mountain Lion, but with Mavericks right around the corner, I'd rather roll back to the old driver (I never had any issues with it anyway), and update both my macs to Mavericks when it becomes available. Till then, I need help accessing this link on my old mac, or a quick copy of the old (mac) driver. Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Click to expand...

Looks like the guy who maintains that site is a forum member. Search for Algrenadine and you will find him. Might know why its not working for you - maybe send him a PM.
 
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