[Sticky] Important notes regarding Big Sur and SoftRAID

@darcy

I will start recommending this and see if it makes a difference.

Can I recommend that when a major macOS release comes out that there is clear information conveniently linked to from the home page as to whether the new release is supported (and what issues, limitations etc there might be), and if not then when the release is expected.  It seems really odd that the Compatibility Notes page doesn't even mention Big Sur.

I understand that software like this is complex, I understand that you don't recommend people upgrade to Big Sur on day one if they have critical systems in operation etc - but the majority of users will either just go ahead and upgrade to the latest macOS and discover the issues later, or they'll think to go to your compatibility notes page.

Sorry, we are waiting for the next beta. We were caught flat footed when the release M1 did not work the same as the prototype M1 and decided to wait until we had a fully informative announcement rather than multiple announcements.

This should be posted first of the week.

hm, that does not instil confidence give that there is a bug since September last year which will lock the external HD and requires to restart. When will this be fixed?

Today feels like b43... 🤓

@softraid-support Any update on this. I have a new M1 and cannot access my thunderbay!

See above. We hope it will be fixed in a forthcoming version of Big Sur.

I hope so. Its any day now.

@nicksyrett

We will be announcing here:

https://srforums.wpengine.com/support/important-notices/

And sign up for important notices, and you will get notified immediately.

@softraid-support

Here is the process we used to remove the kexts and reset the cache.

It worked for us, FWIW.

## original error (clue), ran the command below as suggested by softraid-support

sudo kextload -v 6 /Library/Extensions/SoftRAID.kext  

## Output & error message pointed to tap extension and tun by association as its related to tap and also obsolete. It's not clear if tun was not removed if the SoftRAID extension would also fail, didn't test this case.

Kext user-space log filter changed from 0xff2 to 0xfff.
Kext kernel-space log filter changed from 0xff2 to 0xfff.
Kext library architecture set to x86_64.

Executing: /usr/bin/kmutil load -p /Library/Extensions/SoftRAID.kext

Error occurred while building a collection: could not use '/Library/StagedExtensions/Library/Extensions/tap.kext/Contents/MacOS/tap' because it is not a dylib, bundle, or executable, filetype=0x00000001

## STEPS FOLLOWED TO REMOVE TAP & TUN extensions

## create a directory to backup the obsolete kexts (extensions) and move the kexts

sudo mkdir /Library/Extensions/Obsolete
sudo mv tap.kext /Library/Extensions/Obsolete
sudo mv tun.kext /Library/Extensions/Obsolete

## also move tap and tun out of StartItems

cd /Library/StartupItems
sudo mkdir /Library/StartupItems/Obsolete
sudo mv tap /Library/StartupItems/Obsolete
sudo mv tun /Library/StartupItems/Obsolete

## rebuild cache (system reboots during this step)

sudo kextcache --clear-staging

## finally test loading of SoftRAID extension (successful)

sudo kextload -v 6 /Library/Extensions/SoftRAID.kext

@sterno

thanks, I will try this with a couple users.

@sterno Having same issue regarding unmounted and failure to mount.  Seems limited to APFS volumes on my RAID though.  Deleted my original volume and created an HFS+ one and it is working.  Problem is I cannot have CarbonCopyCloner create a bootable boot disk clone to a non-APFS volume.

@softraid-support Installed the beta but it's warning me on every launch that it will expire in a few weeks.  what then?

Respectfully requesting that all the users involved in this BigSur upgrade fiasco (and really all v5 users) be given the upgrade to v6 as a free upgrade considering there is no way to continue using the purchased v5 on the currently shipping macOs.

@dfortney

SoftRAID volumes cannot be boot volumes. Apple prevents it now. CCC should be able to clone to a SoftRAID volume, but it will not be a bootable clone.

APFS volumes should mount, however the SoftRAID UI should show them as unmounted, even when mounted on the desktop,  as we do not support APFS yet in the 6.0 user interface.