SoftRAID 6 does not keep the licence information / activation

@jgoldberg

I do not have anything specific no. Did you ever try manually removing the driver and all SoftRAID components via the terminal.app? I can see I asked about a debug version, it may require that, but maybe there is a brute force way.

Here are the steps (again) if I already asked, let me know and ignore.

How to manually Remove/uninstall the SoftRAID driver and components:

Paste each command line below into the terminal application. You will need your normal admin password for some steps.

Delete the SoftRAID driver:
sudo rm -r /Library/Extensions/SoftRAID.kext
sudo touch /Library/Extensions
sudo kextcache -fu /

Now, Restart your computer

Remove the daemon and SoftRAID Monitor:
sudo rm /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.softraid.softraidd.plist
sudo rm /Library/LaunchAgents/com.softraid.SoftRAIDMonitor.plist

Remove the SoftRAID application support directory:
sudo rm -r /Library/Application\ Support/SoftRAID

Remove all the SoftRAID preferences:
defaults delete com.softraid.SoftRAID

Remove preference files
sudo rm -r com.softraid.com

reset the extensions caches:
sudo kmutil clear-staging
sudo kextcache -i /

Restart the Mac. SoftRAID volumes will no longer mount on the desktop, but that is temporary, until you reinstall the driver.

When you run SoftRAID to install the driver, do not immediately restart. wait until the dialog box pops up to go to System Preferences/Security. "Allow" OWC as an Identified developer, now restart later when you quit System Preference, go to SoftRAID and restart.

@softraid-support

I don't recall having followed the brute force method of removal. I followed all the steps, except removing the preference files (sudo rm -r com.softraid.com), since that file/directory did not exist (at least in that location) on my machine. I tried searching for a com.softraid.com but came up empty. Could the preference files live somewhere else? No progress in serializing my copy after following this procedure.

@jgoldberg

Strange that it still does not keep. I would have thought it was a permissions thing.

Can you send one more support file, I have to have engineering look at this.

Create the file immediately after entering the license one more time.

@softraid-support

Getting back from a trip, sorry for the delay. Here's the support file.

@jgoldberg

Thanks, this is a bug, I do not have a fix, you can try removing all SoftRAID components by terminal, but I don't think this will fix it.

We hope to fix this in the next release after we get out 6.2.

Does your volume mount? It looks newly created. If there is no data on it, just erase it with SoftRAID, which should fix it.

@softraid-support

OK, I will standby and wait for the release of 6.2. When should I expect that release?

Since the upgrade to SoftRAID 6.x, SoftRAID has been temperamental about one my volumes in particular (RAID 1+0). It frequently reports one or more disks as out of sync, says they need rebuilding and sometimes fails to mount. After boot up to generate this tech support file, it reported the same errors, but seemed like it was going to start the rebuilding process, but hung on some fairly early offset (266,141 or somewhere abouts). After a restart, volume mounted with the usual warnings about needing rebuilding. I have been using DiskWarrior to rebuild and ensure that the volume doesn't have any file system errors and that my data is safe. I expect a lot of this unwanted behavior will resolve once I can serialize SoftRAID, correct?

@jgoldberg

No, 6.2 won't fix this. It should be out Tuesday AM.

I suspect you have a bad disk, perhaps.

Try "validate" the volume.

You can use the latest 6.2 beta for this:

http://www.softraid.com/sr_beta

See if it passes the validate.

@softraid-support

Right, I misread the previous post.  I will look forward to subsequent updates that might address my failure to serialize.

I installed 6.2 beta and have tried to validate the volume by right-clicking and choosing validate from the pop-up menu. Nothing seems to happen, though. In general, my impression has been that SoftRAID seems pretty unresponsive since the upgrade to 6.x and my issues with serializing. How should I proceed? Or am I left just waiting for further software updates? For what it's worth, DiskWarrior reports no issues with the disks.

@jgoldberg

Paste this into terminal:

sudo kextstat -b com.softraid.driver.SoftRAID

See what driver version is actually loading.

We rarely and carefully make changes to the SoftRAID driver. It is rarely the actual culprit.

@softraid-support

It looks like the correct driver version is loading. Here's the output from Terminal.

Executing: /usr/bin/kmutil showloaded --bundle-identifier com.softraid.driver.SoftRAID
No variant specified, falling back to release
Index Refs Address            Size       Wired      Name (Version) UUID <Linked Against>
  192    0 0xffffff7f9cd25000 0x2f000    0x2f000    com.softraid.driver.SoftRAID (6.2b6) E4F5F8C6-EC52-3956-815F-5D12ECD17504 <30 6 5 3>

Still no luck with validating (or other operations) through SoftRAID.

And if you uninstall SoftRAID all components,then run 6.2, can you enter your license yet? (we did not fix anything here, fyi)

I just want you you check.

Do the beta versions let you validate a mounted volume?

Does your River volume mount?

@softraid-support

I ran a manual uninstall through terminal as described above (also with the same issues removing preference files, described above). I then ran 6.2 beta to install drivers, but it does not accept my license. Nor can I validate a mounted volume. All volumes mount, although SoftRAID still report that River is degraded and needs rebuilding. Rebuilding the volume with DiskWarrior shows only minimal, if any, issues (related to directory structure). I guess I'll look forward to a potential solution in the next release?

@jgoldberg

I do not understand this one, but yes, iets see in 6.3 or whatever, if we can find out the cause and fix it.

Keep using beta versions, so you have all functionality.

@softraid-support

OK. I will continue to use beta versions, but it seems like I have had almost no functionality for some time. At least my volumes mount, which is the most important bit. Thanks for your help!

@jgoldberg

Nothing will happen in the next 10 days (engineering is taking a break), but lets re-examine again. This is in our bug database, so it is an issue that ultimately needs to be addressed. We are changing the activation code also, so that could fix it.