Get MBox2 working again on Ubuntu 14.04
These days I am working in my small personal lab to get the impedance of a woofer measured. I am using Room EQ Wizard, which is a small, nice, multiplatform program that can do really a lot of things (and very well). So the thing is that you need a decent audio interface to have this impedance curve measured, and my internal card is awefully noisy (don’t know why, but that the truth). I searched in my “storage” (disaster) room because I knew I had a semi-broken MBox2 (one of the preamps is broken) that I could use for the task and used to work smoothly on Linux. Long stoy short, I plugged it and the card wasn’t coming alive, but dmesg said:
[ 567.788050] usb 3-2: new full-speed USB device number 2 using ohci-pci
[ 568.022082] usb 3-2: config 1 interface 2 has no altsetting 1
[ 568.022088] usb 3-2: config 1 interface 3 has no altsetting 1
[ 568.022091] usb 3-2: config 1 interface 4 has no altsetting 1
[ 568.022094] usb 3-2: config 1 interface 5 has no altsetting 1
[ 568.032071] usb 3-2: New USB device found, idVendor=0dba, idProduct=3000
[ 568.032075] usb 3-2: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=0
[ 568.032078] usb 3-2: Product: Mbox 2
[ 568.032081] usb 3-2: Manufacturer: Digidesign
[ 568.060061] usb-audio: Sending Digidesign Mbox 2 boot sequence...
[ 568.566077] usb-audio: device not ready, resending boot sequence...
[ 568.566083] usb-audio: Unknown bootresponse=0, or timed out, ignoring device.
[ 568.566098] snd-usb-audio: probe of 3-2:1.0 failed with error -5
[ 568.566123] usb-audio: Sending Digidesign Mbox 2 boot sequence...
[ 569.070079] usb-audio: device not ready, resending boot sequence...
[ 569.574081] usb-audio: device not ready, resending boot sequence...
[ 569.574087] usb-audio: Unknown bootresponse=0, or timed out, ignoring device.
[ 569.574102] snd-usb-audio: probe of 3-2:1.1 failed with error -5
[ 569.574126] usb-audio: Sending Digidesign Mbox 2 boot sequence...
[ 570.078081] usb-audio: device not ready, resending boot sequence...
[ 570.582064] usb-audio: device not ready, resending boot sequence...
[ 570.582070] usb-audio: Unknown bootresponse=0, or timed out, ignoring device.
[ 570.582085] snd-usb-audio: probe of 3-2:1.2 failed with error -5
[ 570.582112] usb-audio: Sending Digidesign Mbox 2 boot sequence...
[ 571.086078] usb-audio: device not ready, resending boot sequence...
[ 571.086084] usb-audio: Unknown bootresponse=0, or timed out, ignoring device.
[ 571.086099] snd-usb-audio: probe of 3-2:1.3 failed with error -5
[ 571.086125] usb-audio: Sending Digidesign Mbox 2 boot sequence...
[ 571.590082] usb-audio: device not ready, resending boot sequence...
[ 572.094074] usb-audio: device not ready, resending boot sequence...
[ 572.598083] usb-audio: device not ready, resending boot sequence...
[ 572.598089] usb-audio: Unknown bootresponse=0, or timed out, ignoring device.
[ 572.598103] snd-usb-audio: probe of 3-2:1.4 failed with error -5
[ 572.598128] usb-audio: Sending Digidesign Mbox 2 boot sequence...
[ 573.102082] usb-audio: device not ready, resending boot sequence...
[ 573.102088] usb-audio: Unknown bootresponse=0, or timed out, ignoring device.
[ 573.102102] snd-usb-audio: probe of 3-2:1.5 failed with error -5
[ 573.102127] usb-audio: Sending Digidesign Mbox 2 boot sequence...
[ 573.606080] usb-audio: device not ready, resending boot sequence...
[ 574.110084] usb-audio: device not ready, resending boot sequence...
[ 574.110091] usb-audio: Unknown bootresponse=0, or timed out, ignoring device.
[ 574.110106] snd-usb-audio: probe of 3-2:1.6 failed with error -5
[ 574.110143] usbcore: registered new interface driver snd-usb-audioGoogling around didn’t give much answers… someone reinstalled linux and magically worked and someone updated the MBox2 firmware and claimed that the interface revived in Linux. Neither of the two options made sense to me. My Linux installation is pretty clean and I am not going to mode from 14.04 LTS until 16.04 LTS. Just no f*****g way. I used that very same MBox2 on my old 12.04 LTS with no problems, so why update the firmware?
The third option would be invest some money for a new interface (and move the shitty interface I have at home in the lab and put a shiny new interface at home… nice plan but it’s not the moment for spending random money now).
I went for the firmware update. Thanks to the dual boot on my partner’s PC (WinXP/Ubuntu) I was able to update the firmware on the MBox2. Once updated, I connected back to Linux and the greed led of the interface started shining.
Saved 200€ on a new interface. For some time.
HTH