CQ20B USB, and other anomalous problems

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I have a support ticket opened and have contacted the retailer to initiate a warranty return as I believe the root cause is the CQ20B. Posting for posterity here and in case others are having similar issues.

M2 Max, Ventura, Luna, CQ20B ethernet connected, no recent major infrastructure or other changes

The scenario is recording multitrack band rehearsals over USB whilst supporting individual monitor mixes and of course mixing live sound. As well, playing back audio from the Mac to the CQ over the USB connector. During a playback session the USB started dropping out and I was hearing buzzing, glitchy noises, sometimes accompanied by a loud tone. The playback head in the DAW would stop and start without any input from me. Testing a recording of 20 channels resulted in WAV files that exhibited the same audio issues. To be clear I recorded several minutes of audio through the CQ and then played the recording back on studio monitors that are not connected to the CQ and found the glitches and buzzing were present in the WAVs.

We had a band rehearsal (last night) wherein I recorded to the SD card. During this session we needed to play something over Bluetooth. Immediately after a bluetooth connection was established, the CQ disappeared from the network. It was still producing mixed audio so we were able to finish out the rehearsal. I reset the network connection however still did not see it appear on the network after several minutes. I hard rebooted the CQ with the power plug and unfortunately as a result look to have lost the recordings on the SD card. They are all 0 byte files. These issues appeared about a week ago without any major changes to my setup, and prior to this everything has been working as expected since April.

I have also experienced… just weird anomalous issues that come and go for instance audio levels in monitor mixes fluctuate. I’ve checked all the usual suspects (AMM, Auto gain, feedback EQ, faders pre-send). The drummer sends a click through one of the channels, unmuted but volume down so he can hear that as part of his CQ4YOU mix. Somehow this signal got routed to the main outs and wouldn’t go away until the unit was power cycled.

Just having a really unreliable experience here and I always initially assume it’s operator error. I don’t think that’s the case here.

The troubleshooting steps I have taken:

Replace the USB cable, twice
Repair OS
Complete uninstall/reinstall of DAW software
Flash firmware to the CQ

I will install a DAW on another MAC with a fresh OS today in an attempt to isolate the issue occurences. If you have any other troubleshooting procedures to recommend I’m all ears. Keep in mind all this was working great and at one point. There were no changes made to any settings or connections – the issue appeared mid rehearsal, in fact mid song, and has been present since.

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