[Sticky] Big Sur on M1 machines and SoftRAID issues

@softraid-support Any ideas when the beta will work on 11.2? The RC is out, and the final will be here soon...

Try to avoid double posting. It confuses the threads. ;-)

I am not having any issue running 11.2. I need to be able to reproduce, so we can fix whatever is wrong. (unless it is a one off on your end)

What OS were you running when upgrading? Beta or release?

Yeah I apologize. I realized that this thread is probably more appropriate and forgot to delete the other one. :(

OK, I will test with the RC and see what happens. I will let you know.

OK, it is not working. The RAID does not mount. I will attach the report....

And tried some more stuff. The kexts are not loading, so not sure what is wrong. Here is something from Terminal...

Executing: /usr/bin/kmutil load -p /Users/admin/Desktop/OWC_SATA_Command.kext

Error Domain=KMErrorDomain Code=31 "Error occurred while building a collection: 

    1: One or more binaries has an error which prevented linking.  See other errors.

    2: Could not use 'com.softraid.driver.SoftRAID' because: Failed to bind '__ZN18IOMemoryDescriptor16setPreparationIDEv' in 'com.softraid.driver.SoftRAID' (at offset 0x128 in __DATA_CONST, __got) as could not find a kext which exports this symbol

com.softraid.driver.SoftRAID specific: 

    1: Failed to bind '__ZN18IOMemoryDescriptor16setPreparationIDEv' in 'com.softraid.driver.SoftRAID' (at offset 0x128 in __DATA_CONST, __got) as could not find a kext which exports this symbol

" UserInfo={NSLocalizedDescription=Error occurred while building a collection: 

    1: One or more binaries has an error which prevented linking.  See other errors.

    2: Could not use 'com.softraid.driver.SoftRAID' because: Failed to bind '__ZN18IOMemoryDescriptor16setPreparationIDEv' in 'com.softraid.driver.SoftRAID' (at offset 0x128 in __DATA_CONST, __got) as could not find a kext which exports this symbol

com.softraid.driver.SoftRAID specific: 

    1: Failed to bind '__ZN18IOMemoryDescriptor16setPreparationIDEv' in 'com.softraid.driver.SoftRAID' (at offset 0x128 in __DATA_CONST, __got) as could not find a kext which exports this symbol

}

admin@Ingos-M1 Desktop % sudo kextload ./OWC_SCSI_Device      

Executing: /usr/bin/kmutil load -p /Users/admin/Desktop/OWC_SCSI_Device

Error Domain=NSPOSIXErrorDomain Code=2 "No such file or directory"

admin@Ingos-M1 Desktop % sudo kextload ./OWC_SCSI_Device.kext 

Executing: /usr/bin/kmutil load -p /Users/admin/Desktop/OWC_SCSI_Device.kext

Error Domain=KMErrorDomain Code=31 "Error occurred while building a collection: 

    1: One or more binaries has an error which prevented linking.  See other errors.

    2: Could not use 'com.softraid.driver.SoftRAID' because: Failed to bind '__ZN18IOMemoryDescriptor16setPreparationIDEv' in 'com.softraid.driver.SoftRAID' (at offset 0x128 in __DATA_CONST, __got) as could not find a kext which exports this symbol

com.softraid.driver.SoftRAID specific: 

    1: Failed to bind '__ZN18IOMemoryDescriptor16setPreparationIDEv' in 'com.softraid.driver.SoftRAID' (at offset 0x128 in __DATA_CONST, __got) as could not find a kext which exports this symbol

" UserInfo={NSLocalizedDescription=Error occurred while building a collection: 

    1: One or more binaries has an error which prevented linking.  See other errors.

    2: Could not use 'com.softraid.driver.SoftRAID' because: Failed to bind '__ZN18IOMemoryDescriptor16setPreparationIDEv' in 'com.softraid.driver.SoftRAID' (at offset 0x128 in __DATA_CONST, __got) as could not find a kext which exports this symbol

com.softraid.driver.SoftRAID specific: 

    1: Failed to bind '__ZN18IOMemoryDescriptor16setPreparationIDEv' in 'com.softraid.driver.SoftRAID' (at offset 0x128 in __DATA_CONST, __got) as could not find a kext which exports this symbol

}

admin@Ingos-M1 Desktop % sudo kextload ./OWC_SCSI_Device_0E.kext 

Executing: /usr/bin/kmutil load -p /Users/admin/Desktop/OWC_SCSI_Device_0E.kext

Error Domain=KMErrorDomain Code=31 "Error occurred while building a collection: 

    1: One or more binaries has an error which prevented linking.  See other errors.

    2: Could not use 'com.softraid.driver.SoftRAID' because: Failed to bind '__ZN18IOMemoryDescriptor16setPreparationIDEv' in 'com.softraid.driver.SoftRAID' (at offset 0x128 in __DATA_CONST, __got) as could not find a kext which exports this symbol

com.softraid.driver.SoftRAID specific: 

    1: Failed to bind '__ZN18IOMemoryDescriptor16setPreparationIDEv' in 'com.softraid.driver.SoftRAID' (at offset 0x128 in __DATA_CONST, __got) as could not find a kext which exports this symbol

" UserInfo={NSLocalizedDescription=Error occurred while building a collection: 

    1: One or more binaries has an error which prevented linking.  See other errors.

    2: Could not use 'com.softraid.driver.SoftRAID' because: Failed to bind '__ZN18IOMemoryDescriptor16setPreparationIDEv' in 'com.softraid.driver.SoftRAID' (at offset 0x128 in __DATA_CONST, __got) as could not find a kext which exports this symbol

com.softraid.driver.SoftRAID specific: 

    1: Failed to bind '__ZN18IOMemoryDescriptor16setPreparationIDEv' in 'com.softraid.driver.SoftRAID' (at offset 0x128 in __DATA_CONST, __got) as could not find a kext which exports this symbol

}

admin@Ingos-M1 Desktop % 

Just went back to 11.1, and all is working immediately.

@sunstarfire

Did you go back to internet recovery mode and allow third party developers? I wonder if that is it, you need to do this to every volume. It si no longer a global setting. That seems most likely.

@softraid-support That might have been it, but in recovery mode I only see one volume, the boot volume:

And for that, security is totally disabled (csrutil):

(sorry, actual photos, since I can not screenshot in recovery afaik)

It must be a change from 11.1 to 11.2, since it works fine when I go back to 11.1...

If you run SoftRAID and uninstall SoftRAID (Utilities menu), then install it again, do you see the "Sytem Preferences" dialog box pop up?

Another idea, what if you fresh download from this booted system. Big Sur is very tight on where apps come from and can quarantine them if you copy them around.

@softraid-support That's the point. The "System Extension Blocked" dialog does not pop up. The fresh download I tried, no luck. I am seriously out of ideas, I spent about four hours yesterday with 11.2 and Softraid, the only thing I could see was the error I posted above when forcing to load the kext with kextload. I tried uninstalling Softraid, endless reboots, just uninstalling the driver, reinstalling the driver, I always get an OK for the driver, just the Sytem Extension seems not to load.

I even deleted some of the potentially offending kexts from /System/Library/Extensions (huge effort with mounting as writeable and such).

Attach a new SoftRAID support file. DO you have two systems, or just one, that you are reverting?

@softraid-support

I started over one more time

1. erased the entire boot drive
2. installed macOS 11.1
3. set the security settings to permit third party extensions, etc.
4. installed SoftRAID 6.0.1b48
5. rebooted
6. the array appears and SoftRAID reports it is using the 6.0.1b48 driver
7. the array refuses to mount

As a reminder the array is in an OWC Thunderbay Mini TB2 attached via an OWC TB4 hub. 

@joemikeb

Step 4: Did you get the System Preferences dialog box to pop up?

I supect if you paste this into terminal.app you will get no result (meaning the driver is blocked/not loading)

sudo kextstat -b com.softraid.driver.SoftRAID

@softraid-support Unfortunately I have only one, and I will be stuck once Apple releases 11.2 officially, because I can not go back so easily. I attached a support file running 11.2 a little bit further up in my post from Jan 26, 2021 3:50 am. That is my system running 11.2 with the drive visible, driver installed, SoftRAID software running, but the drive not mounting.

@sunstarfire

A trick to learn then, which will help both of us. You can add a startup volume into your APFS container. APFS looks like a volume, but is somewhat different, so you can do things like add volumes inside your volume, and they share all space. So it only takes up 20-30GB, no more.

i.e, create a new volume on your internal disk using Disk Utility.

Apple gives the steps:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208891

Now startup in internet recovery mode. (Power button on an M1)

Choose install MacOS (or reinstall).

Select your new volume as the volume to install into.

Install Big Sur. I am not sure if you need to run the developer tool or not.

Upgrade to 11.2. Now you have two volumes, one clean install of 11.2 and the other is your working 11.1.

A simple option boot can select which one.

You need to Allow third party developers again, as this is a volume by volume restriction now.

I also recommend downloading a new SoftRAID beta from this volume. (avoids some Big Sur Security gottcha's.)

When you install SoftRAID, if you do not see the System Preferences dialog box pop up, let me know immediately. If you do not get that dialog box, the driver will not be installed correctly.