Zoom H6 ASIO as main device blinking red - audio engine restart not working

[toSvenson]

Hi All,

I have a Zoom H6 with Multi channel ASIO drivers installed, which is selected as A1 main device.
The Zoom H6 has to be powered on and activated as audio interface everytime the PC is booted.
This means Windows (and Voicemeeter) is already started before the device is activated as audio interface.
This results in the Hardware OUT "ZOOM H and F Series Multi ASIO" blinking RED (and thus any of the devices are working as expected).

The issue is, manual and (auto) "Restart Audio Engine" does not solve the issue. In my understanding this should work right?
I need to "Shut Down Voicemeeter" and restart the application again to solve the issue.

Any suggestions or debug info I could provide to troubleshoot?

Thanks in advance.

[Vincent Burel]

yes "restart audio engine" should work in your case.

it's more a question for ZOOM manufacturer. you ay invite them to reproduct the problem with Voicemeeter and ask for explanation or solution.

[toSvenson]

A shut down of Voicemeeter and launching Voicemeeter again does solve the issue.

So I was more looking towards the difference in Voicemeeter in activating the audio devices between restart of audio engine and a full restart of the Voicemeeter application.
I'm afraid Zoom will have the same question from a troubleshooting point of view, since there is no issue when starting Voicemeeter after the audio interface is active in Windows.

[xcasxcursex]

Just to clarify, what do you mean by "activated as audio interface"

Anyway, for the time being, perhaps a workaround for the hardware limitation: Use Windows' Task Scheduler, to start VM;

Set VM not to start at boot
Create a task which runs VM
Set a trigger to run the task at boot, with a delay long enough for your device to power up.

[toSvenson]

Just to clarify, what do you mean by "activated as audio interface"

When powering up the Zoom H6 while connected to USB, you need to choose between "SD Card Reader" and "Audio Interface".
When selecting "audio interface", 2 more choices have to be selected (stereo mix / multi track and with/without use of battery power) before the Zoom H6 "activates itself as audio interface" to the USB-connected PC.

The delayed startup of VM is indeed a possible workaround, but not really solving the issue.

My intent was more to provide (debug) info to help improve Voicemeeter with the "(auto) Restart Audio Engine" catching this situation.

[xcasxcursex]

If the audio interface requires manual intervention on every bootup, it's probably a pretty bad workaround Sorry about that! Maybe you could assign a keyboard shortcut to an icon, and hit the shortcut when the device is ready.

Yes, I deliberately used the term workaround, not to be confused with a solution. You're wise to note the difference between the two concepts Just trying to give you something to make life a little easier while you and Vincent figure out what's different between exiting and restarting VM, and 'restart audio engine'.

[toSvenson]

Indeed no show stopper, just an annoying daily processes.

So @Vincent, feel free to reach out if you want. I just wanting to help make VM even better than it already is.