Crackling Noise On Recording Track

Ok, the behaviour seems a bit tricky to reproduce, so here’s my “what I did” log:

– After building the uTrack-x32 back into the x32-Rack again, I immediately connected it to the computer via USB.
– Turned on the console, it started in 48 kHz and the uTrack sends audio to the computer *without* crackling. It’s doing this for the last hour straight without an issue.

So only using it as USB interface seems to work fine. The bug has to be triggered, here’s how:

– With the console still on 48 kHz and the computer still connected, I connected an external USB hard drive (WD Elements). Waited for the light to turn green, and pressed the physical record button on the uTrack-x32. I let it record to the hard drive for about 2 minutes, then stopped the recording by holding the record button a couple of seconds.
– I disconnected the USB hard drive. The computer, which was still connected that whole time, got audio again — but this time *with* the crackling.

A couple more observations:

– Turning the console off and on after this does *not* get rid of the crackling.
– Switching to 44.1 kHz gets rid of the issue.
– Switching back to 48 kHz (even after a couple of minutes operating at 44.1kHz) immediately brings back the crackling.
– Disconnecting the whole console from power, waiting a couple of minutes and turning everything back on again *does* get rid of the crackling.

I hope that helps. Again: if there’s something else I can help with, just let me know.