So you would assert that I have both a faulty iMac and a faulty OWC dock?
I don't know what component is causing your problems.
What I can say is that, over many years, many customers, and many backs we find that when connectivity issues are reported:
- Many cables that have gone bad, or errant settings or software version [very common]
- Quite a few problematic iMac USB ports [common]
- A handful of problematic ports on other computers such as Mac Pro towers [uncommon]
- An occasional problematic back [very uncommon, but of course possible]
I've never had a back where P1 tested the back's USB and found it working in spec, but it turned out (after extensive troubleshooting) that the back's USB was in fact the source of the problem. However, circa 2008 or 2009 I remember having a back that P1 tested the FireWire and found that it was working in spec, but it turned out (after extensive troubleshooting) the back's FireWire was the problem.
As a random aside, I remember a troubleshooting case back when I was in the support department, where we couldn't figure out why a customer's back was disconnecting mid shoot (the customer had been using it with zero issues for half a year). We had him send us the back and it tested fine. It still disconnected on him. We sent it to P1 and it tested fine. It still disconnected on him. We had him send his laptop to us where we ran every test and every maintenance program we could and his laptop worked
great. We sent him several new cables, new batteries, and a second digital back to help him test in situ. I ended up flying out to his location and joining him on a mock shoot where we insisted he wear the same shoes, eat the same breakfast, pack the car, drive to the same kind of location and do the same kind of shooting he would for a client. It worked flawlessly for the first couple hours (as it had in all the cases where it gave him problems) and then suddenly stopped working. Turns out it was the laptop; that early model MacBookPro had heat-dissipation issues, and as the hot southern sun came out and that heat combined with the stress of the laptop processing big raw files, the firewire port started misbehaving. I installed a little app called SMC Fan Control that forced the fan to run at full power 100% of the time and shows the internal temperature of the laptop in realtime, and all his symptoms vanished. Since our testing of his laptop was done in our air conditioned studio, it hadn't previously revealed the issue.
We've also had cases where three cables in a row were bad, directly out of the package, despite our broad experience that the dud-rate out of the package is
really low, so three in a row should be nearly statistically impossible (to the point where I assume that there was some cause that effected all three cables like a bad manufacturing batch, or the way that box of cables was stored/transported).
When you handle enough cases, you see strange things on a routine basis.
The issue could be your back, or a setting, or the software (you said you had updated to Mojave earlier; don't know if you downgraded, as this OS is not yet supported in C1), a cable (even if you've tried two), or some yet-unknown variable as we found with the client in the hot Southern Sun. Work with your dealer to test until you find the cause. As long as you insist on this conspiracy theory that P1 backs require high-powered USB ports you will only waste your time and bang your head against the wall. P1 IQ backs strictly comply with the USB spec, and do not require high-powered USB ports. I don't say that because P1 says that; I say that because I have more than seven years of experience with many many many IQ backs being used by many many many customers with many many many computers with many many many ports.
