re. I'm not sure this is the right way to do it in qtractor but initially it works and seems the only way to do this.
unfortunately, due to it's internal processing flow, connecting qtractor outs (sends) to any of its own ins (returns) directly is a no show.
in those situations behavior is undefined. fact is, it depends on each track/bus internal processing order which is not deterministic to be exactly the across sessions. yes, it might work once you're doing connections first time but might fail miserably next time you open that very session--evidence is no signal whatsoever passing through, going nowhere but dead silence.
please note that the send/return inserts are provided mostly for you to connect ports to/from external jack clients and not (ever) qtractor own ports--that's the big reason for your case.
re. how the firewire connnection is involved in an export of audio.
both ardour and qtractor make use of a special jack processing mode, so called freewheeling mode, when exporting audio. switching back and forward (internally) from that frewheeling mode might have issues with some drivers (firewire) and not with the vast majority of others (alsa).
all that to say the trouble might be on jack internals and firewire driver specifically, when in face to freewheeling mode switching. i'll advise you to report this issue to the jackaudio.org devs. either via jack-devel maillist or #jack irc channel at freenode.net.
i don't have a single firewire device any near me (never had tbh.) for me to test and repro.the issue, so that please accept my apologies.
re. I'm not sure this is the right way to do it in qtractor but initially it works and seems the only way to do this.
unfortunately, due to it's internal processing flow, connecting qtractor outs (sends) to any of its own ins (returns) directly is a no show.
in those situations behavior is undefined. fact is, it depends on each track/bus internal processing order which is not deterministic to be exactly the across sessions. yes, it might work once you're doing connections first time but might fail miserably next time you open that very session--evidence is no signal whatsoever passing through, going nowhere but dead silence.
please note that the send/return inserts are provided mostly for you to connect ports to/from external jack clients and not (ever) qtractor own ports--that's the big reason for your case.
re. how the firewire connnection is involved in an export of audio.
both ardour and qtractor make use of a special jack processing mode, so called freewheeling mode, when exporting audio. switching back and forward (internally) from that frewheeling mode might have issues with some drivers (firewire) and not with the vast majority of others (alsa).
all that to say the trouble might be on jack internals and firewire driver specifically, when in face to freewheeling mode switching. i'll advise you to report this issue to the jackaudio.org devs. either via jack-devel maillist or #jack irc channel at freenode.net.
i don't have a single firewire device any near me (never had tbh.) for me to test and repro.the issue, so that please accept my apologies.
cheers