Running SoftRaid on Apple Silicon (M1) Macs including 2020 Mac Mini with M1

@softraid-support

Correct, I didn't see the "Allow OWC" dialog nor checked system startup security was set (multitasking and didn't want to get too distracted)....I can check those if you'd like.

@traveler

No, this is the confirmation I needed. It appears that the fix was not in the public beta, which you confirmed.

I am not sure why. I have no further information, but now we can send out a "critical update" email on this and post it on the web site tomorrow.

thanks!

@softraid-support I am seeing the same pattern on the latest public beta (20E5186d), no prompt to approve OWC and the drives fail to mount.

@softraid-support  Any update on timing for a fix?  It's been a few weeks and I haven't seen anything new.  Apologies if an announcement came out, I didn't see it.

Thanks!

@traveler @Softraid-support Can anybody confirm whether the newly released 11.3 public beta either works or does not work?

From what I can gather, Apple have decided to do away with kexts. They now have new system extensions. The Software must be re-written. . .

Surely this is on Softraid to ensure compatibility with the very OS and Hardware they design for? Seems a bit strange they are expecting Apple to conform to third party hardware. That's never going to happen.

Anybody?

@christianfitzpatrick

Apple did announce they are moving away from kexts in the system and moving extensions to "user land". However, they are a year behind schedule, as the driver kit for this is not released yet, so it won't make it into 12.0. Probably delayed until 13.

the problem with 11.2 is not SoftRAID.

11.2 "lost" the software hook that allows SoftRAID to connect to the OS. Like removing the gears in a transmission on a new car. Everything looks OK, but there is no way for the engine to connect to the tires.

11.3 is working for most, so try it. We will announce compatibility when we are sure we can get everyone working, when the driver is not loading.

I just updated to the latest 11.3 public beta (20E5196f) and SoftRAID is working, the first time I've had my SoftRAID volumes mount in many weeks.  

@effndc

Great news. We have a theory why some users are not getting the beta to work, it may involve users with multiple startup volumes. i.e, there is a fix in beta 3, but there is still an issue.

We will be announcing that 11.3 public beta is working shortly.

As a heads up, I just received the following response from Apple on a feedback item I filed early on:

As a result of your feedback, there are changes in the latest update, build 20E5210c, that have resolved this issue. You can see the software build your device is running and check for the latest update by clicking on the Apple logo in the upper left hand corner > About This Mac. If the build is not visible, click on the macOS version, e.g. 10.15.x, to reveal it.

I recently received a new M1 MacBook Air that I set up as a clean install. I read through most of this thread and followed the suggested advice - install macOS 11.3 public beta (build 20E5210c) and the latest beta of SoftRaid (6.0.1 b53). While SoftRaid does run and shows my drive as connected, the drive does not mount.

In SoftRaid, it does show the individual drives and the full RAID drive but says that it's unmounted. Right-clicking and choosing "Mount" fails to mount it. In Disk Utility I can see the individual drives but not the full RAID.

I've made sure SoftRaid shows up as a login item in System Preferences and I've confirmed that SoftRaid has been "Allowed" in System Preferences and has full disk access, etc.

Just for the heck of it I decided to uninstall the SoftRaid beta and reinstall it. This time I confirmed I "Allowed" SoftRaid in system preferences and restarted my computer. Guess what - the RAID mounts in Finder and Disk Utility now! So I can confirm the macOS 11.3 beta and the latest beta of SoftRaid fixes the problem.

@softraid-support Sadly, it seems that 11.3 public beta 4 (20E5210c) broke things again.  Back to silent failure to mount the drive, which likely means the driver is being blocked from loading again.

@effndc

This is an exception, as there was no change in status on this. Also, System updates do not "downgrade" the driver, so when you update macOS, everything should be as it was, without needing to run SoftRAID and update the driver again.

Here is what to check:

1. Is there a "disk identifier" in the volumes tile? (expand it, it should have a number)

if it does, then perhaps this is a directory issue, as the volume was published to macOS for mounting.

Then do you have a copy of Disk Warrior to rebuild the Directory?

2. If not, is SoftRAID listed as loaded in System report under extensions? (or you can run kextstat in terminal and see if SoftRAID is listed)

if SoftRAID is listed, then either 1 above is the issue, or the volume directory is too damaged to mount.

3. If the driver is not loading, run this command in terminal and let me know what the output from terminal is (text, not a screen shot)

kextload -v /Library/Extensions/SoftRAID.kext

@softraid-support interestingly, it auto-mounted after "some time".  I had selected to mount it in the SoftRAID GUI as it didn't mount on boot, it failed to mount and went back to "unmounted" state.  I tried that a few times with the same pattern of it not mounting.  I left my computer for a while and came back to find my SoftRAID volume mounted. 🤷‍♂️