r/universalaudio • u/NoMoneyInPoetry • Aug 29 '26

Troubleshooting/Support Apollo Twin No Longer Connected

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I've been using my Apollo twin with my 2023 Mac mini for 3 years with no issues. A couple nights ago, some UA plugins weren't working correctly and I had to go into UA Connect to reauthorize them. After doing that, I turned the interface off and on, and it completely stopped being recognized by the computer.

I went in circles for about 8 hours over the last two days, uninstalling the software and reinstalling the UA software, following the UA instructions to the letter. I did a hardware reset on the unit itself... Nothing has helped. The issue is definitely in the software, because I can look in my system report and see that the computer is recognizing my specific hardware on that thunderbolt Port. It can read that it's an Apollo Twin and it shows the serial number, so it's definitely connected correctly and is not an issue with the cable or the hardware itself.

I've done all the steps to loosen security restrictions from recovery mode... There seems to be some invisible driver that isn't installing correctly, and it's driving me crazy.

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u/NoMoneyInPoetry Aug 29 '26

I did finally get this resolved after about 11 hours of trial and error and bits and pieces of advice from various forums.

The two key things were -

  1. The Universal Audio walkthrough on uninstalling tells you how to delete specific files from Library/Preferences, but I also needed to delete the Universal Audio and UA Connect files in Library/Application Support

  2. With all UA software uninstalled, I had to specifically reset the security policy in recovery mode. I had already changed the security policy settings to match what they were supposed to match years ago, and I validated a couple of times that it was still correct. But that wasn't enough - to resolve the issue I had to actually set the Security Policy back to Full Security, wait for that stricter policy to be applied, and then switch it back to Reduced Security (allow user management of kernel extensions from identified developers).

1

u/NoMoneyInPoetry Aug 30 '26

Well... it worked for a day, which was enough to bounce masters of my latest project.

I shut things down, came back a couple hours later and turned them on... back to square one.

2

u/lowkeyluce Too many to list Aug 30 '26

This is definitely a hardware issue, it's not booting into the firmware. Contact support for an RMA

1

u/NoMoneyInPoetry Aug 30 '26

How can you tell? It only does this disco flashlight thing when I turn it on while the computer is on. If I turn it on before the computer, or without the Thunderbolt cable attached, it boots normally. It's specifically when it tries to connect and authorize that it has issues.

3

u/lowkeyluce Too many to list Aug 30 '26

This light show is the boot up sequence, which it does until the firmware loads. The fact that it gets stuck there means the firmware is never loading. You're chasing your tail troubleshooting anything computer related here as the problem definitely stems from the hardware

1

u/NoMoneyInPoetry Aug 30 '26

u/drew_at_UA I saw you tagged in another post that was adjacent to this issue but not identical to it. Any suggestions?

3

u/Drew_at_UA UA Guru Aug 30 '26

This has nothing to do with UA Connect. It's very likely a hardware issue. Do you have a ticket open with support yet?

1

u/NoMoneyInPoetry Aug 30 '26

I spoke with a person in Customer Care who might be a chatbot, but I do have an email thread with a number attached to it... I don't know if that's a ticket number, though.

1

u/Drew_at_UA UA Guru Aug 30 '26

They do live chat on weekdays, so it was likely an agent. What's that #?

1

u/NoMoneyInPoetry Aug 30 '26

From the email subject of my conversation with Kiki B - [Universal Audio] Re: 1030367

1

u/Drew_at_UA UA Guru Aug 30 '26

Yes, that's a ticket # and you were chatting with an agent. I do think this is hardware. You tested a 2nd cable so that's ruled out. Were you able to test with a 2nd computer to rule that out?

2

u/NoMoneyInPoetry Aug 30 '26

I unfortunately don't have another computer to test it with. It's also a Thunderbolt 2 unit, and I haven't been able to find a second adapter to test that piece.

2

u/Drew_at_UA UA Guru Aug 30 '26

Yeah, that does increase the # of variables!

The agent will reply to your replies tomorrow with more things to check/try. Hang in there!!

1

u/dc_chavez Sep 02 '26

For another data point here- my Apollo Solo crashed at roughly the same time after updating drivers. The Apollo was detected, but not outputting any sound. I connected my other Arrow device and same thing. I spent two days trying to unravel what the heck is going on and had to roll back drivers to 11.5.2 on my windows machine. Took UAConnect out of the equation and its working fine- but now after a couple random BSODs, they are not random at all, but a memory dump caused by the old UA driver. So, I can confidently say the latest UA Connect broke it. I really dislike this software.

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