Decklink Quad, Sonnet XMacMini Server thunderbolt chassis

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davesimon

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Decklink Quad, Sonnet XMacMini Server thunderbolt chassis

PostFri Oct 09, 2015 10:01 pm

Providing some background on a problem that is recently come up and the eventual conclusion that we've come to. Maybe you've run into this and have a better fix that mine outlined below.

tl;dr: When using a Thunderbolt to PCI chassis, a Decklink Quad card needs more time to initialize on warm-reboot. Unplugging/replugging Thunderbolt cable fixed problem.

Use case: Customer wants a compact solution to run Wirecast on OSX with 4 SDI sources while connected to a Xsan (Quantum StorNext)

We came up with the idea to use a Decklink Quad installed in a Sonnet XMacMini Server chassis. To fulfill the SAN requirement, we added a ATTO FC-82 card and additional Thunderbolt Ethernet dongle for metadata.

Everything was ok during the initial config of the machine, but soon the Decklink stopped responding. Desktop Video would not recognize the card, and OSX System Profiler had stopped seeing the card. Meanwhile, the ATTO FC-82 continued to work just fine, showing up each and every time during reboot.

We troubleshot the card to no end. We started by reseating the card (nope), moved it to the other slot in the Sonnet chassis (nope), removed the ATTO card thinking it was power related (nope), moved it a PC (yep, this worked), moved it to a Sonnet XMacPro Server chassis (yep), moved it to an older aluminum MacPro (yep, this worked too) - just never reliably in the MacMini chassis. We were all set to RMA the unit to Sonnet when I decided to try my MacBook Pro. With the chassis cover removed (exposing the card and the status lights), I was able to narrow the problem down and successfully recreate the problem (finally!)

With the card installed in the Sonnet Thunderbolt chassis, the card works until the host computer is warm-rebooted. Upon reboot, the card is no longer recognized by the host. It isn't until the thunderbolt chassis is powered down and the computer is cold-started does it return to normal operation.

The Sonnet chassis relies on the host computers’ thunderbolt bus to power the PCI slots; when the host computer is warm-rebooted, the thunderbolt buss looses power for a fraction of a second and causes the Decklink to lock up as opposed to properly initializing. If I manually plug the Thunderbolt cable into the chassis and let it reinitialize, the card starts working again. So it seems that the very short (>100ms) power cycling of the Thunderbolt buss during warm-reboot is the reason for the Decklink failing to work every time. Mind you, the ATTO FC-82 never suffered from this issue, so perhaps there's something the BMD Engineering team could take a look at.
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Matt Corke

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Re: Decklink Quad, Sonnet XMacMini Server thunderbolt chassi

PostFri Mar 04, 2016 12:58 pm

Hi, I'm resurrecting this topic since we've recently hit the same issue. In our case it's with a new MacPro and the Sonnet xMac Pro Thunderbolt Chassis. We're attempting to use a Decklink Quad card with this system. In our case, sometimes the card doesn't work after a cold restart either, even when the TB chassis is also disconnected from power. Seems like total luck of the draw that it works at all.

The other cards (Sonnet Tempo Pro SSD and Smalltree NIC) in the TB Chassis work fine and continue to work fine after reboots and restarts.

We did call Blackmagic Tech Support and were told that what we were trying to do was "unsupported usage." So my question is, what are owners of new Macs supposed to do for capture cards? We have a pretty major investment in Blackmagic cards (120+ of the Quad cards deployed on computers worldwide) and would prefer not to spend the time and money to move to an alternate vendor. But we can't suggest to our clients (who work in live entertainment) that they have to unplug and replug the Thunderbolt cable every time they reboot.

Has anyone found a solution to this issue? I'm waiting to hear back from another person at Blackmagic, to see if the answer we received from tech support was definitive or not. And in the meantime we're thinking about how we might be able to run a script to unload and reload the kext(s) upon reboot. Haven't tried that yet, so it might not work.

Thanks
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mstroven

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  • Real Name: Mike Stroven

Re: Decklink Quad, Sonnet XMacMini Server thunderbolt chassi

PostThu Dec 02, 2021 6:16 pm

I would also like to know the status of this issue, as my church is looking at doing the same setup with an M1 Mac Mini and a Decklink Quad 2 for multiple displays in ProPresenter

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