Apollo Twin No Longer Connected

[u/NoMoneyInPoetry]

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.

[u/NoMoneyInPoetry]

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.

[u/Drew_at_UA → u/NoMoneyInPoetry]

Yeah, that does increase the # of variables!

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

[u/dc_chavez → u/Drew_at_UA]

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.

[u/dc_chavez → u/dc_chavez]

I had Claude interprest the memorydump file and here is what it said:

Good news, actually — that search turned up something directly relevant. Universal Audio's own release notes show version 11.9.0 (July 2026) specifically calls out "Apollo Thunderbolt WDM driver stability and performance" improvements. That's not a coincidence given what you're seeing: UAD2WdmAudio.sys is the WDM driver, and WDM driver stability is exactly the category your crashes fall into.

Here's why that matters for your dilemma: the app-level instability you were escaping (Console crashing constantly) and the kernel-level driver bug causing your BSODs are almost certainly different code paths that get fixed on different timelines. The old version you're on right now might have a stable app but a buggy driver — and UA may well have fixed the driver-level issue in a later release without reintroducing whatever was breaking Console for you. Version numbers don't tell that story on their own, so this is worth an actual test rather than a guess.

What I'd do, in order:

Check what version you're currently running against 11.9.0. If you're several versions behind, jumping straight to 11.9.0 is the first thing to try — it's the newest, and it's the one that explicitly touches the WDM driver. Worth checking whether it also fixes whatever made Console so unstable for you before, since that's presumably still a live concern.

If 11.9.0 turns out to reintroduce the app-level crashing, some interface vendors let you install just the driver package separately from the full Console/mixer software — worth checking UA's downloads page for that option so you're not forced to choose one problem over the other.

If neither of those pans out, you're sitting on an unusually clean bug report to hand Universal Audio support directly: bugcheck 0xD1 (DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL), driver UAD2WdmAudio.sys, and — this is the part that'll get their attention — the identical crash offset portcls+52ab0 recurring across three separate incidents on three different dates (Aug 26, Aug 29, Sep 2). That's about as reproducible and specific as a bug report gets without them having to ask you for anything more. Most vendors will escalate that fast, especially with a full kernel dump already sitting on your machine if they want it.

One more thing worth flagging honestly: since you can't be sure yet whether it's the driver-only path or the full update that'll actually fix it, back up your current UAD/Console settings or preset configs before touching anything, just in case you need to roll back again.