Volume does not mount after BigSur 11.5 update.

@mgarrucho

Lets keep the two issues separate. if the volume does not mount at restart, run the terminal command to manually load the SoftRAID driver.

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

Note:
The "up" key in terminal will show prior commands, so next time you need to manually load SoftRAID, just hit the up arrow in the terminal window, and this command will be available without having to type it.

This is a big sur bug that should be fixed in the future by Apple. this cannot be "fixed" by using HFS/APFS, etc. the volume is not damaged, it is unable to mount if the SoftRAID driver is not loaded by macOS at startup time.

The Apple RAID 0 volumes appears to have a damaged Directory. You can get Disk Warrior from alsoft.com It is a commercial application, but generally (over 95%) able to rebuild the directory on a damaged volume.

@softraid-support I see, the apple volume raid0 iMacM42 I purposely made it as an apple volume to avoid any issues with softraid such as what is happening with my thunderbay6 volume. So far I don't have any problems with it and can easily back it up as its only 8TB. My main concern is the thunderbay6 as it has to be on raid5 since its a big volume. Hopefully the issue with BigSur and softraid gets an update soon. For now I can live with the terminal command. Thank again for the help.

After having had removed all those old/expired extensions and the recent macOs bump to x.2 I can confirm that it did not have any issue mounting the RAIDs.  So I think whether or not this happens for people boils down to there being any old or unsupported extension still configured on their system and then based on some race condition or exact order of macOs actually loading the extensions you get lucky if the SoftRaid just happens to be loaded before any of the the dated extensions.  I really don't see Apple ever actually fixing this issue since they tend to let obvious bugs fester for years without regard.  As long as it doesn't affect the engineer writing the responsible software for Apple I don't think it ever becomes prioritized in Jira.

@dfortney

Its one of the issues with Big Sur, it does not like obsolete extensions.

I think we have to wait until 13.0 for all these issues to get ironed out, but they will eventually get ironed out.

Posted by: @softraid-support

@dfortney

Its one of the issues with Big Sur, it does not like obsolete extensions.

 

I think we have to wait until 13.0 for all these issues to get ironed out, but they will eventually get ironed out.

Hopefully within a few years eh?

@dfortney

12-18 months, yes.

Finally! No longer an issue for me in Big Sur 11.6!! Has never been an issue in Monterey Beta versions and now fixed in the release 11.6(20G165). Guess the wrangling and finger pointing with Apple is finally at an end, eh? Well, congrats guys.

Posted by: @mgarrucho

@henry-in-florida 11.5.1 fixed this for a fortnight then it reverted back to not being able to mount.

11.6 fixed the issue. Hope you've seen the fix as well. 

@henry-in-florida

I don't think it is fixed. I have had cases where the SoftRAID driver was working fine, then an innocuous driver was loaded (anything from Parallels, DVD drivers or video drivers) and all the third party drivers stopped loading. Maybe they tried, but I do not thinks this is fixed.

thanks!

Posted by: @softraid-support

@henry-in-florida

I don't think it is fixed. I have had cases where the SoftRAID driver was working fine, then an innocuous driver was loaded (anything from Parallels, DVD drivers or video drivers) and all the third party drivers stopped loading. Maybe they tried, but I do not thinks this is fixed.

 

thanks!

Hope springs eternal. 😎 So, nothing done on your end? Maybe not on Apple's end either, then. Given your comments, change my comment to hopeful for a fix. I'm simply reporting that it's loading the RAID volumes at Startup in conditions where it didn't before, as in Monterey (where no update to Parallels has yet been applied). Maybe you're right about Parallels, then. There was a new release that I just installed. I haven't installed anything else lately that I am aware of. 

Thanks for your comments. Hopeful... 😦 

@henry-in-florida

We did do something on our end, which is to force manually load the driver every restart. Should help. We are essentially running the kmutil load command at startup, which is in the current 6.1 beta. It won't help for other third party drivers, but seems to work most of the time for SoftRAID. But we are waiting word for an actual fix from Apple.

Posted by: @softraid-support

@henry-in-florida

We did do something on our end, which is to force manually load the driver every restart. Should help. We are essentially running the kmutil load command at startup, which is in the current 6.1 beta. It won't help for other third party drivers, but seems to work most of the time for SoftRAID. But we are waiting word for an actual fix from Apple.

Most of the time, it seems with the latest MacOS release (Big Sur 11.6), as stated. I'm still running 6.0.5. Will have to get the 6.1 beta installed. 

@softraid-support

Where is your 6.1 beta located?

@henry-in-florida

http://www.softraid.com/sr_beta

this is pretty much a perma-link

Posted by: @softraid-support

@henry-in-florida

 

http://www.softraid.com/sr_beta

 

this is pretty much a perma-link

Thanks!! Will save for your SoftRAID product, in that case.