[Sticky] Monterey Other issues

@softraid-support  - Hi there - Despite your assistance, ten days on, and after numerous attempts to get access to my RAID drives with SoftRAID 6.2 I'm still stuck. I've removed and reinstalled everything many times and got absolutely no joy. I   upgraded to 6.2 on the basis that it would work with OS Monterey but there are obviously still teething problems. I have seen that there is a beta version of 6.2.1 - might that resolve my problems? 

I attach my latest terminal report in the hope that it might shed some light on the problem although it just seems to say

Failed to create directory /System/Library/Caches/com.apple.kext.caches/Directories/Library - Operation not permitted.

@mark-dobson

Can you attach another support file with the disks connected?

What is the output to this terminal.app command (paste it in, hit enter and enter your admin password)?

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

Hi, here is the output of the terminal.app command you posted - it didn't appear on the desktop to here it is:

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.}

Marks-iMac-2:~ Mark_MacPro$ 

SoftRaid 6.2 does have full disk access - I've just checked

As requested I will attach  another support file in next reply as I have to leave this page to look up the terminal command 

many thanks

@softraid-support

@mark-dobson

Full Disk Access is only for the application. the driver does not have permission to load.

My recommendation is Uninstall SoftRAID. Restart and run SoftRAID and install the driver. Before restarting, go to System Preferences/Security to "Allow" OWC as an identified developer. this ensures that macOS actually loads the driver, otherwise it will remain blocked.

If you do not see the option to "Allow", then there is another issue blocking the driver from loading. Let me know.

@softraid-support

Ok so I totally uninstalled and reinstalled and checked in Security and Privacy - Softraid was set up for full disk access and I added softraid to accessibility 

Restarted and get the same old message about ' an internal part of the SoftRaid Monitor etc etc '

So no further forward - Is there something else to do - I can see no other place in Security to allow the driver to load 

I reran your command from the previous message - Password:

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.}

Marks-iMac-2:~ Mark_MacPro$ 

many thanks

@mark-dobson

When we see this error it means in System Preferences/Security/General, OWC was not "Allow"d as an identified developer. This is very easy to miss as about when the dialog box from mac OS pops up to direct you there, you may already be restarting and miss it.

The fact you also have this issue "an internal part of the SoftRaid Monitor ...." means there is some preference/ownership problem on one of the folders the SoftRAID app accesses.

Usually the manual uninstall with terminal solves this. (instructions posted below in case you need them)

One different thing we can try is this in terminal:

sudo chown -R root /Library/Extensions/

Making sure the /Extensions folder has correct ownerships.

When you run SoftRAID and install the driver, if you do not see a dialog box pop up pointing you to System Preferences, then the driver will not be able to load. Wait for it a few minutes if necessary. Navigate to System Preferences/Security as soon as you see the SoftRAID driver install succeeded (restart) dialog, before restarting to be sure this setting is available.

How to manually Remove/uninstall the SoftRAID driver and components:

Paste each command line below into the terminal application. You will need your normal admin password for some steps.

Delete the SoftRAID driver:
sudo rm -r /Library/Extensions/SoftRAID.kext
sudo touch /Library/Extensions
sudo kextcache -fu /

Now, Restart your computer

Remove the daemon and SoftRAID Monitor:
sudo rm /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.softraid.softraidd.plist
sudo rm /Library/LaunchAgents/com.softraid.SoftRAIDMonitor.plist

Remove the SoftRAID application support directory:
sudo rm -r /Library/Application\ Support/SoftRAID

Remove all the SoftRAID preferences:
defaults delete com.softraid.SoftRAID

Remove preference files
sudo rm -r com.softraid.com

reset the extensions caches:
sudo kmutil clear-staging
sudo kextcache -i /

Restart the Mac. SoftRAID volumes will no longer mount on the desktop, but that is temporary, until you reinstall the driver.

When you run SoftRAID to install the driver, do not immediately restart. wait until the dialog box pops up to go to System Preferences/Security. "Allow" OWC as an Identified developer, now restart later when you quit System Preference, go to SoftRAID and restart.

@softraid-support

ok Many Thanks - I’ll try these procedures tomorrow as our office is now shut for the day (I’m in the Uk)

@mark-dobson

Not a problem, I am around a lot of hours.

@softraid-support

Ok - thanks for your continued assistance. I've still had no luck with OWC SoftRaid 6.2 - I've meticulously followed your instructions to no avail. 

I then totally removed all trace of SoftRaid 6.2 from my computer  ( using App Cleaner ) and reinstalled and whatever I do I always end up back at the same place 'an internal part of the SoftRAID Monitor etc etc'

There doesn't seem to be an easy solution to this problem - I'm hoping that the next mac software and OWC SoftRAID version will resolve the problem when ever that may be.

@mark-dobson

I do not see any third party software that would be causing this. I have run into occasional cases where "security" software changes the ownerships on some critical folders, like /Extensions.

Maybe you should do a "reinstall macOS". It will not affect your existing data, just replace the macOS components.

Startup in internet recovery mode. (command r)

select "reinstall macOS".

After restart, see if you can reinstall SoftRAID driver, allow OWC, and if after restart, the app can launch.

@softraid-support

thanks for that advice - I'l do some further research before doing a reinstall macOS - and let you know how i get on

@mark-dobson

Its pretty simple and does not delete anything. All you are really doing is replacing all the Apple system components with new ones. You don't even have to re-authorize any software or reinstall drivers, except for the bundled drivers, like SoftRAID. And totally safe. I have never seen a case where a user "lost" anything doing a reinstall in place.

Hello. I'm having issues similar to what @ericf was experiencing with the Thunderbay 4 drive spinning up and down and causing everything else to slow down on the Mac. I'm on a MacMini M1 with a Thunderbay 4 connected directly to the computer. My Thunderbay has 2 HGST drives. The other 2 drives are SSDs and based on the lights not going on, I do not think they are involved in this issue. Of course, it could just be more noticeable because of them being HDDs.

I have my Mac set to not put the drives to sleep, but I can tell they spin down, and then with random tasks, one drive spins up and then the next drive spins up. I don't use the drives as a working drive. They are my backup drives and the only thing that writes to it is my Adobe LR Catalog. If I insert an SD card to pull photos onto my Mac's hard drive, the Thunderbay will spin up each drive and there will be a delay in accessing my files, even though I'm not actively engaging the drives. Same with Adobe Lightroom. I will be exporting photos that reside on my Mac and after selecting export, the drives will spin up and delay being able to actually export. Same problem in Photoshop as @ericf was describing. I had this enclosure connected to a different Mac (intel based) and it never exhibited this spin up/spin down issue. It was fine on Catalina and Big Sur on the Intel based Mac. This will happen with non-Adobe products as well.  

I have attached a support file. 

Thank you!

@jeffjohnson 

Lets do an experiment, because you are only using a RAID 1 and RAID 0

Select each volume, one at a time, and "Convert" to Apple format.

You can convert back to SoftRAID later.

My prediction is the same behavior happens.