S4 MK3 Rebooting randomly

digitalred

In the past couple weeks, I started having massive issues with reliability with Traktor.

I play about 5-10 gigs a months. A couple weeks ago, I ran into an issue, where the sound would completely stop out of no where, and then start playing again in 3-5 seconds. This is obviously a problem if you have a crowd thats in the groove, and the music stops.

Last night, the music either froze and stopped playing, or the decks reset completely. This happened at least 5-6 times in a two hour span.

I noticed that when the decks stopped playing, the audio driver switched from S4Mk3 Asio (Exclusive) to (Shared). This was characterized by much lower volume, and all of this happened automatically within 3-5 seconds. Also, in a very odd occurence, the lights on the actual decks were either completely missing for a period of a couple minutes after the restart, or partially showing. ALl of the lights on the headphone cue buttons were gone. The 4 quick effect buttons were not lighting up at all, The LED screens on each side that show loops etc were completely off, but turned back on after a couple minutes.

I can't attribute this to any change in the system directly. I updated windows 11 yesterday, but this problem was occuring two weeks prior.

Even though the decks werent reflecting the availability of the effects, I could still use the knobs and buttons, and eventually (after 3-5 minutes) lights would start coming back online.

I don't really know the proper questions to ask, so maybe you guys can help me uncover whats causing this. I have used traktor for years and years with no issue, and can't have this effect my business.

Sûlherokhh

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/35454/s4-mk3-rebooting-randomly

This sounds like the USB connection from your computer to your s4 (and it's audio interface) gets interrupted. Bad cable? Loose connection at the computer end? Those would be the main error sources i would look at first. Your S4 connection could have something loose inside as well. To me this really looks like a hardware issue.

lord-carlos

What Sulh said.

Try to make sure the USB and power cable sits tights. Could be cable, connector but maybe also something internal.

If you have any other type of controller, you could try to play a few test sessions at home to see if the problems go away. Just to rule out software issues.

MrCee

So I come at this from a different angle after the above.

Although you mentioned "I can't attribute this to any change in the system directly"… What was the very last thing you installed prior, and did it contain audio drivers that potentially embedded files in the OS?

If it wasn't for the fact that I have had this happen before I wouldn't mention it.

And then my next question would be, did you clean install Windows 11 or did you UPGRADE an older version potentially retaining driver files and therefore this current problem?

innerdrum

another sound application taking control maybe?

MrCee

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/175390#Comment_175390

Exactly that as it usually is.

lord-carlos

I don't think another application can take away the ASIO connection.

MrCee

Yes definitely worthy of consideration. What system processes are trying to connect to which devices. I used to run Traktor on a Thinkpad and the wireless and bluetooth would wreak havoc. I had to especially set them off for consistency.