SoftRAID Volume Locked error

@steve223

macOS does not report the problem, but corruption is less possible with "single disk" enclosures (hardware RAID is a single disk to MacOS),  but it less likely. Its one of the several reasons HFS directories get damaged.  Glad you are working in any case, I was trying to help you figure this out.

Just updated to 11.6.3 from 11.6.1 a week ago and have noticed that SoftRAID has since reported the "Drive Locked" message a couple dozen times since. Digging through this thread and checking everything mentioned and noticed that my "Put hard disks to sleep when possible" checkbox had been re-checked (it was off prior to update). I wasn't aware of Apple modifying settings like this during routine minor updates, but thought I'd note it here. Before I found this setting reset, I grabbed a support update to see if that might provide any insights. 

At this point, would you recommend updating to Monterey? Has Apple stopped providing low level driver-related bug fixes to Big Sur by now?

Thanks for the detailed attention to this problem. Our setup is just an M1 Mini running 11.6.3 just doing mirroring over USB 3.1 connected SSD (not thunderbolt, I don't think)

@michaelprichard 

Can you test 6.2.1 b12? It may help this issue. Let me know. Uninstall SoftRAID driver first, then run the beta and install the driver (and Allow OWC again)

http://www.softraid.com/sr_beta

I'll install as soon as I can be sure someone near the site can jump in if something goes awry, but do you think it's possible this was caused by something other than the hard disk sleep issue? I was hoping just turning that setting off in Energy Saver would largely fix this as the disks shouldn't go to sleep at all. I'll send results regardless. 

What about Monterey? Do you think that's better, worse or basically the same as far as this issue goes? I worry that Apple stops putting a lot of resources patching older bugs in non-current OS releases...

@michaelprichard 

I will be fully available Friday.

Monterey does fix lots of issues, but introduces one where during sleep, drives can power up on their own, while the computer is sleeping. That is the main new issue.

Hi all, 

I am also having problems with an OWC Thunderbay 4 enclosure and sleep / eject / drive locking issues.

I'm running a 2019 Mac Pro with the latest version of macOS (Monterey 12.2) and would really like to be able to put it to sleep at night since it consumes a lot of energy (from 300-900W) while it is on.

I would also really like to be able to sleep my Mac rather than shut it down so I can simply continue working where I left off the previous day, rather than have to reopen apps, position windows, and restore the state of my work.

I have managed to eliminate most problems preventing sleep by running pmset -g and configuring scripts to run before sleep that disconnect bluetooth, schedule TimeMachine backups during daytime hours, etc. 

The only problem remaining is that when I wake up my Mac from sleep, there is a SoftRAID window saying that the drive is locked and I need to restart, which defeats the point of sleep in the first place (i.e. avoiding a reboot).

I read that ejecting a volume before sleep can prevent issues but I am unable to eject the Thunderbay 4 using SoftRAID, Disk Utility, diskutil unmount, and third party apps that run before sleep.

I have tried multiple Thunderbolt ports but no luck... the problem persists.

Attached is a SoftRAID support file.

 Any help would be appreciated!

If I'm not able to resolve this, unfortunately I will have to look into other enclosures as a long term solution and scheduled shutdown instead of sleep in the meantime.

Regards.

@tarantula 

There are two possible issues here, one where the volume is disconnecting when sleeping, which is a hardware issue a Thunderbolt chip is resetting. This renumbers the disks and the volume is locked to prevent data corruption.

The other issue (to be short) is a false alarm. The current beta may help if this is the case. Try it and let me know. To install the beta, "uninstall SoftRAID driver (utilities menu), restart and run SoftRAID, making sure to "Allow" OWC as a developer.

http://www.softraid.com/sr_beta

@softraid-support 

I installed the beta but I'm unable to launch the SoftRAID application. 

I'm getting an error:

"An internal part of the SoftRAID Monitor has stopped functioning properly. Please quit SoftRAID and relaunch it."

I've tried to relaunch it a couple of times and restarted too but no luck.

Any suggestions?

@tarantula 

What is the driver version that is loading (in terminal)

sudo kextstat -b com.softraid.driver.SoftRAID

Is the driver quarantined?

sudo xattr /Library/Extensions/SoftRAID.kext

(recently I have seen multiple issues where the driver is quarantined.)

@softraid-support 

It shows this version:

com.softraid.driver.SoftRAID (6.2.1b12)

The drive was quarantined so I ran this command to remove it from quarantine:

sudo xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Library/Extensions/SoftRAID.kext

Then I restarted the Mac and tried to launch SoftRAID again but I got the same error:

 The volume is showing up in Finder, however.

Any more suggestions? :-) 

@tarantula 

Quarantine has been a pest recently. It was a big problem in Catalina/Mojave, disappeared as an issue, now is showing up again. Must be some new security patch triggering this.

Is the SoftRAID Monitor working? (in the menu bar)

I suspect it is crashing and not working correctly.

@softraid-support 

I guess I disabled the menu bar icon in the app before I upgraded because I don't see it anymore and there are no SoftRAID processes running.

I am unable to add it back because the SoftRAID app blocks with the modal error dialog and prevents me from accessing the preferences or utilities menus.

Even keyboard shortcuts like ⌘, are disabled while the error is shown.

The app just quits and I can't do anything about it... 

Is there a way to completely uninstall SoftRAID from the command line and try again?

I'd at least like to downgrade to the generally useful 6.2 version, but not sure how I'll do that now.

[Edit] I forgot to mention, I tried to run the previous version of SoftRAID (6.2) but it also throws the same error.

@tarantula 

These are the steps:

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 

Thanks for the instructions.

I followed the steps and was able to uninstall the 6.2.1 b12 driver and reinstall 6.2.

I only had to change this command:

Posted by: @softraid-support

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

to this:

Posted by: @softraid-support

Remove preference files
sudo rm -r ~/Library/Preferences/com.softraid.*

After allowing the driver in System Preferences and restarting, I confirmed the 6.2 driver is not quarantined, however I am still getting the "internal part not working" error when I launch SoftRAID 6.2.

It looks like something got corrupted on my system and I'm not sure where to look at this point.

@tarantula 

Can you turn wifi on your phone and use it to download a fresh copy of the DMG? (to try to get around quarantine)