I initially thought my cable was faulty, so I bought a brand new one from ifi to see if it fixed the problem. It did not. The issue occurs even when the phone and DAC are motionless, so it’s not a physically loose connection. It also “reconnects” after just a second, and I see this message.
I tested with USB Audio Player Pro and satisfied myself after several minutes that UAPP was not going to randomly disconnect. I did once see a similar issue with the Pixel 7 Pro that affected all DACs with all apps. The DAC would disconnect whenever the screen turned off, but Google fixed this well documented issue with a patch.
I tried uninstalling UAPP to see if that was causing a conflict, but no use.
They’re saying UAPP works because it was patched to accommodate Google’s pixel update. So um… this is awkward. I hate to be a nag, but maybe you can look into updating ARC to hit this moving target?
Our QA team is investigating an issue with the iFi Hip DAC - unfortunately, it appears your symptoms might be consistent. Are you able to confirm the following?
Do you have any other apps open when this occurs?
Do you encounter this with different file types and content sources (ie. local files, streaming files, etc.)?
Do you have any DSP applied in MUSE when this occurs?
The team will follow up once we have a deeper look, and we’re working to resolve this issue as quickly as possible.
I swiped away all the apps in my app switcher to prevent them from running in the background as much as possible. I actually uninstalled UAPP just in case. I disabled all Muse features, disabled volume leveling and headroom management. Then, I tried that setup with Qobuz streamed files, then local files streamed from my core, and then a file that was downloaded to my phone in ARC. None of these interventions changed the behavior.
I tried another USB DAC, a Fiio BTR5, and found it was stable and worked perfectly in USB mode.
I have also observed that the Hip DAC seems to work reliably if it doesn’t have exclusive control, but then all the audio is resampled to 48khz and android system sounds are mixed into the music, so that’s not great. If I can’t properly use the Hip DAC losslessly, I’ll just use my BTR5 in Bluetooth mode.
I also tried firing up my old OnePlus 7 Pro to see if I’d get a different result. After everything updated, the glitches were WORSE. Once the Hip DAC took over the audio output, ARC was just a black screen. Couldn’t do anything. Even weirder, my OnePlus 7 Pro couldn’t even run ARC with the Brt5 over USB. At that point, I put the OnePlus back in the drawer.
iFi DACs have a separate and potentially subsidiary issue that you’re experiencing here. We have a separate tracked ticket - keep in mind EarlyAccess may not fully resolve your issue, but it may improve it, and it will help us further resolve the problem. Your participation is optional but much appreciated.
Thanks for the update @Jonathan_Black, I’ll pass this info along to QA and we’ll keep you updated on the progress of the ticket specific to your issue. We’re sorry to hear you’re still in the same position for now, but we’ll post here again soon.
Thank you for the info. We’ll pass this information along to QA.
It sounds like you might not have updated your Core to the #earlyaccess branch as well, which can trigger sync errors in ARC. If ARC is on the beta #earlyaccess branch, please also follow these instructions to move your Core:
I’m on early access no sync error on my side only USB issue and with latest early version i’ve had an exit of the application during playback. I hope it will be fully fixed soon.
So to sumup:
Pixel 6 Pro Android 13 June update:
We’re testing a fix internally for the USB driver issue - ARC is failing to recognize the capabilities of several USB DACs, resulting in the periodic failure you’re encountering.
FiiO and Topping units are known to cause this periodic USB driver failure at the moment. There are other DACs. We will be merging threads here to track and will keep you up to date as our efforts to fix this progress through the pipeline.
Thank you for your patience. We understand this is a key-feature block for ARC without a reliable workaround. It’s a high priority for the team.
It’s not a complete application crash/failure. Music playback halts, but ARC does not shutdown, and I see a “Error communicating with USB DAC” message in a red banner for a moment, then the prompt appears to reauthorize ARC to use the Mojo 2.
I just gave ARC 1.0, B200 a try on my Google Pixel 7 Pro. Unfortunately, the USB issue seems to be worse. I can only play for a few seconds before ARC reports that it list connection to the DAC.
