Softraid 6.0.5. + OWC accelsior 4m won't mount in Big Sur

Here is something you can try, but you may be seeing the Big Sur bug we are working on.

"uninstall SoftRAID" from utilities menu. restart

Disconnect your drives.

Run SoftRAID and install the driver.

Do not restart immediately

Go to System Preferences/ Security (you may get a dialog box pointing you there after a few seconds)

unlock and "Allow" OWC.

Click "not now" instead of restart. Go to SoftRAID and Click restart.

Connect your drives and check if the volume mounts.

If it does, great. If not, paste this command into terminal.app:

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

You may need to do this every restart.

This command worked for me (I also have an accelsior 4m with 2 tb sticks.) I presume that eventually you'll have a fix for this?

I'm also wondering if I can put it in my .bashrc (since I always have at least 1 terminal window open at startup...)

@francini

YOU can put it in your script, but you won't know if it was fixed. ;-)

Some users report it fixes itself or other inconsistent behavior.

We are waiting for news from Apple on this issue. We replicated it with a clean install of Monterey, so it is clearly an Apple macOS bug.

Very true. 

My Softraid RAID does not mount. I tried the suggested steps above without luck. When I tried that terminal command, I get the following: "Code=27 "Extension with identifiers com.softraid.driver.SoftRAID not approved to load. Please approve using System Preferences." UserInfo={NSLocalizedDescription=Extension with identifiers com.softraid.driver.SoftRAID not approved to load. Please approve using System Preferences.}"

This makes me believe its down to that securities permissions issue. I've approved softraid full drive access so many times. Reinstalled, restarted...

Big Sur 11.2.3

@sfitzloff

every time you install the driver, you need to "Allow" OWC as an identified developer or Big Sur will block the driver

Do you click Allow here?

@softraid-support Yes, I do.

@sfitzloff

Paste this into terminal and let me know if there is any output:

sudo xattr /Library/Extensions/SoftRAID.kext

After migrating from a 2010 Mac Pro running Big Sur 11.2.3 w/OpenCore, to a 2013 Mac Pro upgraded to Big Sur 11.4, I started having this issue as well. I began using the kmutil command above, and that allowed my RAID's to mount automagically. I did 2 things, so I don't know which one solved this issue: 1) I upgraded to Big Sur 11.5RC2, and 2) I disabled SIP. I ran the 2010 Mac Pro with SIP disabled, so that's one difference, as is the version of Big Sur. In any case, no longer have to use the kmutil command.

6.1b3 is broken. I tried various combinations to get the KEXT to load, and at least 10x reboots before going back to 6.0.5, which worked as soon as I rebooted after installing the driver (I had to manually delete the 6.1b3 driver first). I then tried upgrading to 6.1b3 again, and same thing - the driver will not load. Every time I use the terminal command to load the driver, "Security & Privacy" wants another reboot. This is a never ending loop. I was finally able to get the driver to load via terminal. SoftRAID is happy, my RAID's are loaded, but "Security & Privacy" STILL wants yet another reboot.

This is the error message in terminal:

Error Domain=KMErrorDomain Code=27 "Extension with identifiers com.softraid.driver.SoftRAID not approved to load. Please approve using System Preferences." UserInfo={NSLocalizedDescription=Extension with identifiers com.softraid.driver.SoftRAID not approved to load. Please approve using System Preferences.}

PS - I'm running Big Sur 11.5 - Maybe previous versions work fine, but 6.1b3 does not work properly in 11.5

Johns-Mac-Pro:Extensions jdegroof$ sudo xattr /Library/Extensions/SoftRAID.kext

Password:

com.apple.quarantine

@johnd

Long term not running with SIP is potentially hazardous, so enable it again. Let me know if the problem comes back immediately, however.

thanks

It is possible 11.5 fixed this, or it may have just changed a state that enables the driver to auto load. I do not think this was fixed in 11.5, but more testing and user feedback is required, as there was no announcement of a fix here by Apple not that we expected one.

@johnd

Quarantine issues should have been fixed with 10.15. My guess is you copied the application from another computer/system. That is at least the most common way quarantine happens.

You need to remove quarantine on the app and all components and see if this resolves things. the extensions are easy, the application will require "drag and drop" in terminal, as I do not know the path to the application on your system.

sudo xattr -r -d com.apple.quarantine

Make sure you add a space at the end

Find the SoftRAID application now and drop the SoftRAID application into the terminal window and hit enter.
(the full command should appear something like this if you have SoftRAID 6.0.5: "sudo xattr -r -d com.apple.quarantine /Applications/SoftRAID\ 6.0.5/SoftRAID\ 6.0.5.app")

To remove  on the extensions, just paste each command in:

sudo xattr -r -d com.apple.quarantine /Library/Extensions/SoftRAID.kext

sudo xattr -r -d com.apple.quarantine /Library/Extensions/OWC_SCSI_Device.kext

sudo xattr -r -d com.apple.quarantine /Library/Extensions/OWC_SATA_Command.kext

sudo xattr -r -d com.apple.quarantine /Library/Extensions/OWC_SCSI_Device_0E.kext

sudo xattr -r -d com.apple.quarantine /Library/Extensions/OWC_SMART_Library.plugin

I would now, "reinstall SoftRAID driver" from volumes menu (select your boot volume), then go to System Preferences/ Security and "Allow" OWC as an identified developer. restart.

Let me know if this fixes your problem.

Thanks for the reply. I did do a CCC bootable clone from my 2010/5,1 Mac Pro's SATA SSD running Big Sur 11.2.3 and SoftRAID 6.0.5, to my 2013/6,1 Mac Pro's NVMe. I then upgraded the OS to 11.4, and eventually 11.5RC2 (which became the release version). I upgraded SoftRAID to 6.1b3 and could not get macOS happy with the driver after many reboots and various attempts. I then deleted the SoftRAID KEXT, rolled back to 6.0.5, and the driver loaded fine, and macOS was happy. I then tried upgrading to 6.1b3 again, and still have the same issue - the KEXT is loaded, SoftRAID shows 6.1b3 driver active, but macOS is not happy with it. I will try your procedure above, after my next KP (IF I have one, as 6.1b3's driver is running and so far so good), but it's worth noting that 6.0.5 works fine, but 6.1b3 does not make macOS happy. I'll report back when I've needed to reboot (due to KP or other), and applied your steps above.