Focusrite Saffire LE - FURY AND RAGE

[Chris Wenn]

The saga continues.

Having purchased an Expresscard/34 with Texas Instruments ieee1394a
(Firewire 400) chipset, as recommended here:
http://www.ffado.org/?q=node/251 for my Focusrite Saffire LE, which has
been reported by many users as working perfectly with Ubuntu - and other
distros (and naturally, adding to my costs after the FAILED experiment
with a TI-based Firewire800 card) I find that the card is detected, the
Saffire LE is detected, but jackd either aborts or produces no sound at
all.

:~$ lspci -v

0e:00.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Texas Instruments XIO2200(A)
IEEE-1394a-2000 Controller (PHY/Link) (rev 01) (prog-if 10 [OHCI])
	Flags: bus master, 66MHz, medium devsel, latency 64, IRQ 18
	Memory at ecc04000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=2K]
	Memory at ecc00000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K]
	Capabilities: [44] Power Management version 2


JACK output

:~$ jackd -R -v -d freebob
getting driver descriptor from /usr/lib/jack/jack_dummy.so
getting driver descriptor from /usr/lib/jack/jack_oss.so
getting driver descriptor from /usr/lib/jack/jack_freebob.so
getting driver descriptor from /usr/lib/jack/jack_alsa.so
jackd 0.109.2
Copyright 2001-2005 Paul Davis and others.
jackd comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY
This is free software, and you are welcome to redistribute it
under certain conditions; see the file COPYING for details

JACK compiled with System V SHM support.
server `default' registered
registered builtin port type 32 bit float mono audio
registered builtin port type 8 bit raw midi
clock source = system clock via clock_gettime
loading driver ..
new client: freebob_pcm, id = 1 type 1 @ 0x806ff40 fd = -1
Freebob using Firewire port 0, node -1
new buffer size 1024
LibFreeBoB MSG: FreeBoB Streaming Device Init
LibFreeBoB MSG:  Using FreeBoB lib version libfreebob 1.0.7
LibFreeBoB MSG:  Device information:
LibFreeBoB MSG:  Device options:
LibFreeBoB MSG:   Port                     : 0
LibFreeBoB MSG:   Device Node Id           : -1
LibFreeBoB MSG:   Samplerate               : 48000
LibFreeBoB MSG:   Period Size              : 1024
LibFreeBoB MSG:   Nb Buffers               : 3
LibFreeBoB MSG:   Directions               : 0
showDevice: not implemented
FreeBoB MSG: Register MIDI IN port dev1c_Midi In
FreeBoB MSG: Register MIDI OUT port dev1p_Midi Out
FreeBoB MSG: Streaming thread running with Realtime scheduling, priority
14
FreeBoB MSG: Registering audio capture port C0_dev1c_Rec 1
FreeBoB MSG: Registering audio capture port C1_dev1c_Rec 2
FreeBoB MSG: Registering audio capture port C2_dev1c_Rec 3
FreeBoB MSG: Registering audio capture port C3_dev1c_Rec 4
FreeBoB MSG: Registering audio capture port C4_dev1c_Rec 5
FreeBoB MSG: Registering audio capture port C5_dev1c_Rec 6
registered port system:capture_1, offset = 4096
registered port system:capture_2, offset = 8192
registered port system:capture_3, offset = 12288
registered port system:capture_4, offset = 16384
registered port system:capture_5, offset = 20480
registered port system:capture_6, offset = 24576
FreeBoB MSG: Don't register capture port for dev1c_Midi In
FreeBoB MSG: Registering playback audio port P0_dev1p_Play 1
FreeBoB MSG: Registering playback audio port P1_dev1p_Play 2
FreeBoB MSG: Registering playback audio port P2_dev1p_Play 3
FreeBoB MSG: Registering playback audio port P3_dev1p_Play 4
FreeBoB MSG: Registering playback audio port P4_dev1p_Play 5
FreeBoB MSG: Registering playback audio port P5_dev1p_Play 6
FreeBoB MSG: Registering playback audio port P6_dev1p_Play 7
FreeBoB MSG: Registering playback audio port P7_dev1p_Play 8
FreeBoB MSG: Don't register playback port dev1p_Midi Out
registered port system:playback_1, offset = 0
registered port system:playback_2, offset = 0
registered port system:playback_3, offset = 0
registered port system:playback_4, offset = 0
registered port system:playback_5, offset = 0
registered port system:playback_6, offset = 0
registered port system:playback_7, offset = 0
registered port system:playback_8, offset = 0
++ jack_rechain_graph():
client freebob_pcm: internal client, execution_order=0.
-- jack_rechain_graph()
FreeBoB MSG: MIDI threads running with Realtime scheduling, priority 13
FreeBoB MSG: MIDI queue thread started
libiec61883 warning: Established connection on channel 0.
You may need to manually set the channel on the receiving node.
libiec61883 warning: Established connection on channel 1.
You may need to manually set the channel on the transmitting node.
20268 waiting for signals
Aborted

I cannot begin to describe how vexing this problem is. I have spent a
fantastic amount - for someone on a student's budget - on hardware that
is supposed to be working. And before you ask, the cables are fine. I
have tested the Saffire LE on Windows and OS X, with a variety of
cables, and IT WORKS. I've tried THREE different Firewire devices. I'm
now down nearly $800 Australian dollars on this project, and I need some
answers, some help or something.

Seriously. Do I need to offer a prize?