[Sticky] Big Sur on M1 machines and SoftRAID issues

@tma-one

Can you attach a SoftRAID tech support file? Also, next crash, click "report to Apple", then more details and paste the results into a text edit file, and save it as .txt and attach it  also. thanks

@softraid-support

Please find attached the requested files below.

@tma-one

If you connect both enclosures a couple minutes after startup, do you still get the panics?

Are you willing to help me capture a macOS core dump? (troubleshooting onformation)

@softraid-support

There aren't two enclosures, there is one enclosure (a thunderbay 8) with two RAID5 volumes, i.e., one volume with 4x WD 4TB disks, and another volume with 4x WD 8TB disks.

Yes, as soon as there one volume mounted (the 4x8TB one) irrespectively if it was mounted during boot or even a few minutes after boot, the panics are guaranteed to occur (I've tried this as you suggested).

Yes, I'm happy to help out in capturing a coredump in order to troubleshoot this further. 

@tma-one

Great. It may take a day or two for me to know what we need to collect. It may just be a core dump, or we may create a debug version of the driver also.

@softraid-support

This is a suggestion not a bug. I am currently running MacOS 11.4 beta 3 on an M1 Mac mini and this morning I attempted to install SoftRAID 6.0.4. I won't bore you with all the various attempts to install 6.0.4 and uninstall 6.0.3 so cutting to the chase. The 6.0.4 app reported success every time, some times the necessity of a reboot was indicated. The necessity of approving the install in System Preferences > Security & Privacy was never indicated either by the installer or MacOS. I have no idea why MacOS did not throw a notification, but it would seem the SoftRAID app could at least warn the user of the necessity of approving the install and/or even open System Preferences > Security & Privacy automatically. 

@joemikeb

I do 100% agree with you. This has been a lower priority because of other fires we have had to address. but installation clarity and simplification is on the menu for the not far future. thanks for the feedback.

One problem is all these issues are from changes in macOS security and the SoftRAID driver methodology when designed assumed all the OS rules would be followed. Now that they are not, it is a relatively major effort to do this without writing special case code, which is hard to maintain over years. So we intend to try to redesign this so it is both easier on users and maintainable going forward.

thanks

al

m1 11.3.1
soft raid 6.0.4

the driver is installed
the same thing. restarting doesn't work

Could you help me plz ?

@antonyrock

Do you have this setting set:

https://support.apple.com/en-lk/guide/mac-help/mchl768f7291/mac
Select reduced security and enable this:
Select the “Allow user management of kernel extensions from identified developers” checkbox to allow installation of software that uses legacy kernel extensions.

Just got an M1 Mac mini in today. Had two kernel panics once I got the 6.0.4 installed and the volume actually mounted. Uninstalled and reinstalled and haven't had a kernel panic again, but performance is woeful. Drives take forever to spin up. It's noticeably slower than it was on my 2018 Intel MBP which was also running Big Sur. IDK. I'm going to keep messing with it. The kernel panics were super spooky on the brand new machine. 

@romanmf

Did you save any of the kernel panics?

Look in activity Monitor for anything taking up CPU's.

Your machine ought to be extremely snappy!

YOu can attach a support file from SoftRAID and I can take a look.

@softraid-support

Oh the machine itself is speedy, the RAID is not. I do have the kernel panic log. Would that be helpful to send?

Hello, I got the Error. It said: SoftRAID Error, An error occurred creating the volume ""Storage"". SoftRAID was unable to create a file system on this volume. The OWC Thunderbay 4 is connected to my Apple M1 Macbook Air on Big Sur 11.3.1. I uninstalled the software and tried again. I also changed the security to Reduced Security with both options enabled. I also added full disk access to SoftRAID.

So what can I do next. I cannot use it.

@softraid-support yes of course I have this check box... what could be the problem?

@romanmf

Yes a support file is helpful. Also check Activity Monitor to see what is using up either disk or CPU activity.

Even if you are still indexing, it would not make the disks that slow.

What could happen is if the directory of the volume is damaged, then volume performance would be very slow.