MacBook Pro M1 crash while Raid drive mounting (Softraid 6.0.5 and Mac OS 11.6)

@rduaslsbeyll

It is the symptom I have been seeing. The best way to capture a crash log is let it crash, at restart, "report to Apple", then "more details" and copy/paste that text into text edit.

@softraid-support

You are right, dart-apciec1 is in the first line...

is there anything I can do to fix this?

thanks!

@rduaslsbeyll

Please try this:

Do a clean install of macOS on this computer and see if the crash still happens.

Run Disk Utility and add a volume to your startup disk (It shares space with the existing volume, so both can co-exist)

Then shut down. Hit, release, then Hold the power key until you get the options screen.

Click on settings and install macOS. Select the new volume.

Both will share space on your volume, and not interfere with your existing volume.

Startup with the new volume. Do you get the panic? I suspect not, but lets find out.

@softraid-support

Ok so far this is working! is this a temporary fix do you think?

Thanks very much!!!

@rduaslsbeyll

This confirms this is a bug in macOS. the problem is it is not caused by any third party apps, (you do not have any), so it is difficult to figure out.

We are getting a crashing system in from a user, but it will be another week it looks like.

@softraid-support

Ok good to know, thanks for all of your help, you're a lifesaver!!

Russell

Hi Softraid support, 

I have installed Softraid 6.2 and the new driver, and I'm still getting a kernel panic when I power up my Thunderbay 4 (pink flash, automatic reboot)

I have attached the report.

The drive is now mounted since I'm doing the "remove one of the 4 drives, plug the thunderbolt cable to the computer, let it mount, re-insert the drive and sync". But it's getting old!

@softraid-support

Hey all! For what its worth: updated my M1 Mac Mini to Monterey 12.0.1 today, running Softraid 6.2 and it seems to have fixed the issue for me. My 3x Thunderbay's all went through a rebuild (since they were mounted with 3 drives while the issue was persisting) and all seem to be mounted and performing just fine now. Will post any updates if it comes back but fingers crossed this might have been fixed with the OS update.

@rustrx

Thanks for the feedback. Only took 9 months, but at least Apple fixed it.

@craignos

I understand it is getting old and I am sorry for that. We are in process of getting a user system in. (we ordered it, but it was a custom configuration that is taking some time to get to us, when we do, we will swap out the system with them)

Once we have that, we can try to fix it, or bring it to Apple engineering for a deep dive.

@softraid-support

Well it was too good to be true, after restarting today the pink screen is back. For whatever reason I was able to mount all three drives and work off them no problem for the last day or so. Restarted for the first time since then today and it crashes after briefly mounting the drives, same exact as before. If anyone else manages to get a thunderbay mounted in a new Monterey install/update, just FYI you should try not to risk any restarts...

Let me know if you need any logs, but i'm assuming its the same issue. Please keep us updated on your investigation, hopefully it can be sorted out soon! 

@rustrx

I wish we had an example in house, but we have ordered a system and when it comes in, will swap it with a users system with this problem.

We expect the purchased system to show up by Nov 1 (it was a custom configuration) and then we can do the swap and figure out the cause of this issue.

@softraid-support

I updated to Monterey but I installed it on the separate volume as suggested, and it is working just fine!

@rduaslsbeyll

Thanks, this is another piece of evidence that this is a macOS bug of some kind. I have pored over the System Profiler reports of these and have not found anything obvious that could be triggering the panics. When we get the system in house, we should be able to figure it out, it is only a few days away now. (probably over a week before we get the users system in exchange)

@softraid-support

Man this is the weirdest most inconsistent bug I've ever had to deal with. Just tried a bunch of different configurations to see what I could get to work. I have one display running off one of the Thunderbolt ports, the drive chain running off the other, and HDMI driving my other display. Decided to pull the display Thunderbolt, leaving the HDMI. Plug in one drive, and it mounts! I reconnect the other TB display and all is well! At this point I have one display on HDMI, one on TB, and one Thunderbay mounted. All is well.

I chain in the next drive, and that mounts! Chain in the last drive - which is an older Thunderbay with TB2, using an Apple TB2->TB3 adapter - and it crashes. I think "no problem as I can live with the two TB3 drives for now", strip the chain back down to the first Thunderbay and one display via HDMI. And where it worked fine literally minutes earlier - now crashes again!

To make matters worse (or at least more complex), now when I attempt to mount the drives, I get a completely new behavior when I power on:

- Power Light goes from Amber to Blue, fans spin up.

- After just 1 second, power seems to "cut" briefly, fan/drive sounds die, Blue light blinks off, then back on. Drives never appear in SoftRAID or mount in OS.

- Repeats cycle above until I power the drive off.

Thinking this was a new hardware issue, I gave OWC support a call. They had me boot into safe mode and try to power on the Thunderbays and while they did not mount, they did power on and spin up as normal. According to them this would confirm that it isn't related to hardware as I was concerned all the constant power cycling may have contributed to damaging some of the power systems. I informed them that I was in touch with support on the SoftRAID forums and they basically told me to stick with you through to resolution and not use the Thunderbays in the meantime.