DVS dropouts

[Rich Walsh]

Starting to have issues with basic playback machines all of a sudden. Audio drops out without generating any logs in QLab or Dante Controller…

Has the latest version of DVS become unusable? We’re using the built-in NICs on M2 Mac minis (I think) as recommended: https://support.getdante.com/hc/en-gb/articles/5484806190367-DVS-USB-Ethernet-Adaptor-Choice-for-macOS-Systems.

Rich

[Dominic Bilkey]

Hi Rich

DVS and Mac OS has become a little bit of a nightmare recently. Depending on exactly which OS X you are using means there are a few variations on the problem. 

It’s very likely a multicast clock sync issue that, as you say, goes undetected as it’s within the OS. 

Try and external USB-C adaptor and see if it goes away. The issue seems more prevalent on the internal one. 

We’ve moved away from using DVS at the moment due to this issue and it sporadically popping up. 

On a show I did a month ago it was quite a gnarly moment but luckily could obtain a Digiface Dante. 

Dom

On 9 Jun 2026, at 21:25, 'Rich Walsh' via QLab <ql...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

Starting to have issues with basic playback machines all of a sudden. Audio drops out without generating any logs in QLab or Dante Controller…

Has the latest version of DVS become unusable? We’re using the built-in NICs on M2 Mac minis (I think) as recommended: https://support.getdante.com/hc/en-gb/articles/5484806190367-DVS-USB-Ethernet-Adaptor-Choice-for-macOS-Systems.

Rich

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[Rich Walsh]

It is helpfully intermittent – and didn’t occur during production week of course. It did happen in the rehearsal room though, where we were using the SSS standard USB-C adaptor – out of habit.

It feels like time to upgrade to an actual interface, doesn’t it? I wonder if Orbital make a two-computer Dante interface with USB-C ports and switchover… Like the MIDI ones, but for Dante. Milan on the next job instead?

Rich

[Simon VB]

Hi Rich

I've also recently experienced problems with DVS on two different productions. 

In both cases, Dante was sent out of the built-in NICs on Mac Minis - and M1 and M2 on one production, and an M4 on another (so generation doesn't seem to matter). 

In the first production, we sometimes had short audio drop-outs, but more often random hardware crashes. A sort of pink flash - I had never seen that one before! - followed by a black screen and an automatic reboot of the Mac. A nightmare to have this happen during one of the try-out shows, especially as this show depended on music playback from QLab. QLab didn't log anything, but after some digging, the 'Log reports' section in Console showed several entries pointing to DVS. Maybe you can check there aswell. 

On the current production, the same thing happened, minus the pink flash (and already during rehearsals, thank goodness). 

It seems that the chipset used is causing the problem. 

Audinate points toward 2.5Gb Ethernet dongles / hubs as the solution, as these most often use the 'right' Realtek chipset. So it appears that 'just' an external dongle isn't necessarily better, if it's not 2.5Gb. 

I decided to buy a Startech 10G2A1C25EPD USB hub, and so far, so good ... YMMV! 

[Rich Walsh]

I’m thinking it might be easier to revert DVS to the version we used last time – just need to figure out how to track down that information.

Never expected to have to start capturing software and firmware version info for every device on a show! Going to add it to the paperwork going forward though.

Rich

[Rich Walsh]

Toured successfully with version 4.5.1.1; there was an update issued in October to 4.5.2.3 – which is what we have now. Not sure about macOS version changes yet.

Has anyone tried rolling back DVS on what is otherwise an ostensibly identical setup to a version that worked? I’m assuming that QLab updates are unlikely to have caused audio dropouts…? We would have gone out with 5.4.10 and now have 5.5.10.

I can't remember the nifty trick to find out which version of QLab a workspace was saved with – or which versions you can’t go backwards from?

Rich

[Drew]

Hey Rich, I have found that when I get intermittent dropout via DVS and both the QLab logs and Dante Controller logs show nothing then it seems to be a sign of a network switch awaiting the smoke to leave it.  I am sure you probably have tried different switches and network cables so this probably is not helpful.  

My dante network runs through two Luminex 20T switches and one Netgear GS724T switch.  All short cat (under 30m) cable is Cat8 and anything longer is Cat6a.  My playback machines are both M1 Mac Minis on latest OS and latest DVS versions.  I have not had any issues. Saying that, I have been running RME Madifaces alot more as DVS's latency is too much for some realtime plugins I like to run.  

I have also ceased using the DVS transferrable licenses due to them wanting to poll the internet regularly.  I have written a bash script to run the DVS license update though if anyone wants it.  

I am a big fan of Dante but Audinate has poor customer service and is going to subscription based for my liking. Was great when it was still run out of Australia.  

Drew

[Rich Walsh]

Same problem on two completely different setups: totally incomparable switches (basic HP vs four NETGEAR M4250-26G4XF-PoE+ with 10G fibre trunks). No problem with these kits last year. Only changes we’re aware of are DVS, macOS and QLab versions. My brilliant PSE records the firmware versions of the switches in the config filenames – so we know this hasn’t changed. It’s possible macOS was 14.7.5 last year and now 14.7.6.

We even tried a new cable direct from the Mac mini to the QL1 in rehearsals… Looks like we were on QLab 5.5.9 at that point though. Touring QLab version 5.5.10. 5.4.9 last year.

Incidentally, Audinate say "Generally, built-in Ethernet adaptors are recommended for use with Dante Virtual Soundcard (DVS).” – https://support.getdante.com/hc/en-gb/articles/5484806190367-DVS-USB-Ethernet-Adaptor-Choice-for-macOS-Systems.

This is my best bet to find out what version saved a workspace (after opening it):

log show --last 24h --predicate 'process == "QLab" AND (eventMessage CONTAINS "Opening workspace" OR eventMessage CONTAINS "Loading workspace”)'

No joy with parsing the xml in the .qlab5 file… “5.5.10” only appears in the current file in relation to the definition used on a network patch device.

It looks like 5.4 was the most recent version that stopped you going backwards: https://qlab.app/release-notes/5.4.1. 5.5 files should open in 5.4 (?), but without the new bits… which we aren’t using…

Rich

[Sam Kusnetz]

I am taking off my Figure 53 hat and badge now!

Speaking only as a sound designer…

DVS has done too many spooky things lately for me to trust it on a serious show.

I put an RME DigiFace Dante on my last major show, and once we learned to set TotalMix to “DAW mode” it worked completely perfectly. I plan to use either that or a Focusite RedNet TNX for the foreseeable future.

Yours

Sam

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[Kyle Jensen]

Just chiming in to say I'm having the same problem on this show that I'm in tech for. Using DVS to multitrack to Reaper and we constantly have full audio drops. Even downgrading to DVS 4.5.0.5 didn't fix it. On a 2.5G USB dongle and internal Ethernet cards.

Kyle Jensen (He/Him/His)

Sound Designer

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[John Huntington-Zircon]

Dumb question: Were you able to look at the latency performance graphs in Dante controller while this was happening?  

John

[Rich Walsh]

The dropouts last less than a second and are decidedly quantum – in that as soon as you start trying to observe them they stop happening. None at all at the last venue, as far as I know.

Rich

[Paul]

My recent experience with DVS has been ok with no audible dropouts over 9 shows in last 5 weeks. This was running DVS ver 4.5.1 under MacOS Sequoia 15.3 and using QLab 5.5.10 going into Yamaha QL5 with firmware 5.95 and Dante firmware 4.2.4.1

With a very intermittent problem like this generally the route is to try changing one thing at a time, keep very good records and leave it sufficient time for problems occur. Unfortunately with short theatre runs that is not always possible.