[Sticky] Big Sur on M1 machines and SoftRAID issues

@softraid-support

I haven't changed anything. What exactly should I send you? which file? I have all permissions

@antonyrock

A SoftRAID tech support file. While I am looking at it, restart into internet recovery mode and make sure you have

"Reduced security" selected and enabled this:
Select the “Allow user management of kernel extensions from identified developers” checkbox to allow installation of software that uses legacy kernel extensions.

Bad news here too: I'm running Big Sur 11.4 on a brand-new MacMini. Installing Softraid 6.0.5 works fine, verifying and initialising disks as well – BUT whenever I try to CREATE a new volume I get an error message: "An error occured creating the volume [...]. Softraid was unable to create a file system on this volume". According to the log it's ERROR NUMBER = 125. 

Can you help, please? Thanks!

The driver is not loading, so it cannot call macOS to create the file system.

Did you do this?
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.

When you did the driver update, did you go to System Preferences / Security to "Allow" OWC as an identified developer?

Lets start there.

@softraid-support

I just did as you suggested (checked “Allow user management of kernel extensions from identified developers” in recovery mode), but the error persists. 

OWC is allowed as an "identified developer" on my mac, yeah. I'm using SoftRaid 6.0.5. XT. 

How to go from here? :/

@softraid-support

P.S. I uninstalled Softraid XL 6.0.5. and reinstalled it on my mac mini running on Big Sur 11.4.  Didn't help. Please see latest tech report attached.

@jdsatb

If you manually load the driver using the terminal, does it load?

Paste this line into the terminal and see if you can erase the volume with SoftRAID:

sudo kmutil load -p /Library/Extensions/SoftRAID.kext

@softraid-support

I put "sudo kmutil load -p /Library/Extensions/SoftRAID.kext" into the terminal. After inserting password the terminal response is: "2 unexpected arguments: 'load up-p', '/Library/Extensions/SoftRAID.kext'

Help please!

@jdsatb

I do not know this error, have not encountered it before.

You are sure you enabled reduced third party security for this system volume, as per here?

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.

@softraid-support

that's right, I did exactly as you described earlier. Boot OS in recovery mode, then select "Allow user management of kernel extensions from identified developers". You say you don't know the error, but you can surely find out what the error means, no? ( ERROR NUMBER = 125. ). Also, doesn't the tech report which I attached help you to figure out what's going on? Just to say, this is a brand new mac mini, with the only software I installed being SoftRAID 6.0.5. 

Frankly this is extremely annoying.

@jdsatb

It is annoying. ARM was a relatively excellent transition, but there are many issues still in the transition. Big Sur has its own problems implementing the new security protocols, as behavior is inconsistent on similar Systems, even to the point of drivers loading one day not the next, etc. There are issues we have reported, where Big Sur does not clear the "Staged Exensions" cache, i.e, it is loading drivers different than the currently installed drivers. Apple has a lot of cleanup here, still.

No, I do not know the macOS error you are getting in terminal. I googled it, and could not find anything.

Did you type the command in, or copy/paste?

Could you perhaps and did not have a space after load -p?

sudo kmutil load -p /Library/Extensions/SoftRAID.kext

It kind of matches the error:

2 unexpected arguments: 'load up-p', '/Library/Extensions/SoftRAID.kext'

Let me know if you did a copy/paste.

The SoftRAID driver is not loading is the issue. Why, is the question. If you have enabled third party extensions and also "Allowed" OWC as an identified developer, it should be loadable. You do not have any extensions migrated from an intel installation, either, which can cause problems.

I have never seen a report of this load up-p error.

If you pasted the command (so we know a typo was not the cause), lets try clearing staged extensions:

sudo kmutil clear-staging

restart and try again.

@softraid-support I have a check mark to allow the installation of software that uses outdated kernel extensions.

@antonyrock

Outdated extensions?
where is that?

You do not want outdated extensions, but I may be misunderstanding you. Let me know.

we are walking in a circle. I meant that I allowed everything to the system.

@jdsatb

Installing third party kernel extensions in macOS 11 on M1 Macs can be frustrating, but after I have no idea how many failures, I have successfully installed SoftRAID 6.0.5 on three different machines and I know where I made mistakes (some of them over and over) until I finally figured out what I was missing. This is the process I finally ended up using and it has been successful on multiple occasions. Hopefully this will help.

1. I am assuming that you have already successfully selected reduced security and chose “Allow user management of kernel extensions from identified developers”

2. Launch SoftRAID 6.0.5 and on the menu bar select Utilities > Uninstall SoftRAID. This will force a reboot. 

3. Just to be sure everything has been cleaned out, after the reboot Launch Terminal then copy and paste the following command

              sudo kmutil clear-staging

     press return

     enter your password when prompted

     press return

     Copy and paste the following command

             sudo kextcache -i /

     press return

     enter your password if prompted

     Quit terminal

4. Launch SoftRAID and allow it to install the driver

5. If it does not happen automatically, launch System Preferences > Security & Privacy >  General

     Click on the padlock at the bottom of the window and enter your password

     Below “Allow apps downloaded from” a message should appear indicating OWC is attempting to install a driver, 

     Click on the message and approve OWC as a developer. 

     At that point a message should appear that the cache is being built and when that completes the system will reboot.

 6. Launch Terminal the copy and past the following command:

                sudo kextstat -b com.softraid.driver.SoftRAID

     press return

     enter your password when prompted

     press return

     you should see something like this that tells you what version of the driver has been installed:

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>

  243    0 0xfffffe0006eb4000 0x4000     0x4000     com.softraid.driver.SoftRAID (6.0.5) 49B1BBDE-E9CE-36CC-8C01-19B861E807C8 <15 5 4 3>

NOTE: The SoftRAID app may or may not mount the array, but that doesn’t mean the system won’t mount it/

Apple is working on a new kit that will permit third party extensions such as SoftRAID to be entirely installed in the data volume which will make this entire process much easier and eliminate the necessity of reducing the security settings as well. Hopefully they will get that finished before the full release of macOS 12 later this year.