Audio equipment killed by software update

SLITHER99

Ill try and keep this simple.

I have an audio interface for my computer made by a company called Mackie. I bought it in 2008 for £900 and, while using Windows XP, it was great.

Upon moving to Windows 7, things were a little buggy at times and, instead of creating an up to date driver, Mackie discontinued the model. But it was still perfectly usable. Just before Xmas 2011, the company released a windows 7 driver including a firmware update. The result has rendered the interface completely useless; the interface cannot be used for more than 20 minutes without crackles and distortion in the signal.

The response from Mackie has been a flat zero! There are numerous complaints on their forums, trying to escalate the issue via their official support lines is met with a load of "someone will call back" but never does and that's about it. It seems to be affecting all users, both Windows 7 and OS Lion.

So, in short, a USA company has relesed firmware which renders a product useless and, six months down the line, show no signs of making things right, or even offering a downgrade path to the old firmware.

At this stage, I'm resigned to just buying again from a different manufacturer and lie to the loss of £900.

Any advice? Any official things I can complain to? Or am I stuffed.

arcon5

Why not downgrade to the 'usable' version?

wealdroam

arcon5 wrote: »

Why not downgrade to the 'usable' version?

It seems that that may not be possible...

SLITHER99 wrote: »

So, in short, a USA company has relesed firmware which renders a product useless and, six months down the line, show no signs of making things right, or even offering a downgrade path to the old firmware.

OP, it might be worth getting in touch with The Better Business Bureau.

Edited to add:
I guess you've seen this thread on Mackie forums.
No idea if it is your equipment, but if it is, there appears to be a way to backout the faulty firmware.
Haryy has made two posts there saying that he has downgraded the firmware, but you do need access to a mac with firewire.

arcon5

It's usually quite easy to find older versions of software on other websites than the manufactures. Although it depends on the product I guess.

prowla

That's what bittorrent is for!

SLITHER99

Sadly, this is a road fully investigated. I have a friend with several legacy and new Macs - and the same problem with his Mackie hardware.

The 5.6.3 device firmware prevents the hardware being seen by any of the older firmware tools, be it mac or PC. My suspicion on how the upgrade has been performed means that "the only way us up" so to speak.

Will the better business bureau listen to complainants from the UK?

SLITHER99

I lodged a compaint with BBB and let someone on the board know. It looks like some are following suit. We'll see what happens! Thanks for the tip!