macOS 15.6 - Issues with Raid5 and non-Raid drives

Yes, please attach a SoftRAID tech support file. This has to be a hardware issue somewhere.

Please find the logs below. I don’t necessarily think this is a hardware issue as I am seeing this behavior on two different machines with different Raids attached. Would be quite a coincidence to occur after upgrading both machines to macOS 15.6. I am also seeing issues with an iodyne Pro Data which is a hardware Raid, but using a System extension for their multipathing feature.

On one of my systems I have a couple of external Samsung T7 drives attached, they don’t show up when the Thunderbay Flex 8 is attached, once I remove it the drives come online. Same thing happens when I attach a Thunderbay 4.

The screenshots show a before/after of Softraid attaching the Thunderbay Flex 8. As soon as the Thunderbay Flex 8 is attached with a Softraid Stripe volume I am unable to generate a report.

Let me know if you need additional information.

After further testing I can pretty much rule out a hardware issue.

Connecting a single Raid enclosure works fine. Connecting a second one or mixed Raid types (1x Raid5 and 1x Stripe) will cause issues. Whatever enclosure is added second won't show up in Finder.

All enclosures (Thunderbay Flex 8, Thunderbay 4, Mercury Elite Pro Dual U.2) will show up just fine if only one of them is connected at a time.

@sampl_e 
Clearly a hardware issue. Maybe a dock/cable issue?
The SoftRAID driver is a filter driver, working just like Disk Utility and Apple RAID.

If SoftRAID does not see disks, then Disk Utility does not see disks. Hence, MacOS does not see any disks. They are 1-1 aligned.

The Mac does see the Flex8 enclosure. I would suspect the cable. Is this a Thunderbolt cable? (It has the lightning bolt on it and a 3 or 4?)
What about a different port on the Mini?
Also try the other port on the Flex8. 

Something is wrong in the hardware setup. Its NOT a SoftRAID caused issue, cannot be. You can put "Apple formatted" drives in the bays and they won't show up either. 

@softraid-support I will try changing cables and see if that brings any change - for reference it's a Thunderbolt 3 cable. I've been using this setup for well over a year. Hardly a coincidence that issues start appearing after upgrading to macOS 15.6. As I said before there are no issues when either (raid) drive is attached individually, but things get messy when multiple Softraid drives are attached at the same time. I've tested all drives individually on two different machines and they show up just fine.

There's been other reports of System extensions ( https://www.reddit.com/r/MacOS/comments/1mdv3pq/be_careful_out_there_156_update/) failing after the update, what makes you certain that this is a hardware issue? Why would the drive show up fine and when attaching a second one make it fail?

Nevertheless I will switch cables to rule out other factors.

@sampl_e 

Because drives are not showing up. That can only be caused by hardware issues.

That means macOS is not seeing them. It only happens when the hardware has a problem.

@softraid-support Ok, but I don't understand this issue in the screenshot then. Why would all drives show as unmounted, even the internal Macintosh HD, while the machine is running?

@sampl_e 

Because MacOS is preventing the SoftRAID app from accessing the disks directly.

Give SoftRAID full disk access and that will fix this.

According to https://support.apple.com/en-us/101653

• Manually grant Full Disk Access: choose Apple menu  > System Preferences, click Security & Privacy, then select the Privacy tab. Scroll down and click Full Disk Access, then add the parent process (in this case, SoftRAID)

@softraid-support I get that, but Full Disk Access has been granted. This only occurs when two Raids are connected at the same time. If I attach them one by one, everything is fine. And again it was working fine before updating from macOS 15.5 to 15.6. It’s definitely not unheard of that a .x update broke something in drivers or system extensions.

I’m trying to understand and be as helpful as possible in finding what might have caused this, but it doesn’t feel like it’s even being considered. Sorry to say that, but I’ve been given much better and helpful answers from other companies that seem to care and understand the underlying issue. Has there been any information in the logs I provided? Or is there anything else I can provide to figure out if this is indeed a hardware issue?

@sampl_e 

The first issue was SoftRAID seeing the disks but not in SoftRAID format. However, they are actually in SoftRAID format. So it is the application that is unable to read the disks partition maps. (in that earlier support file, where the disks showed up, but had "Apple icons".

Now when the disks are not showing at all, like in that screen capture, that is 100% absoultely, totally, definitively a hardware issue. It has to be the cable (most likely), or perhaps the enclosure. But is a failure for drives not to show up in MacOS, and a hardware failure, as if the disks are "connected" to MacOS, they will show up in Disk Utility (AND SoftRAID)

You said you had multiple enclosures? do they all show the same behavior?

@softraid-support Ok, so it seems I've found the culprit. One port on my OWC Thunderbolt Hub (TB4) is probably broken. Whenever something is attached to that port, the drives won't show up and Softraid is doing all kinds of funky stuff. Will create a support request with the reseller or via OWC Europe.

@softraid-support Update on my previous post about a broken port.

This does not seem to be the issue, as I've tested another OWC Thunderbolt Dock and got the same result. Whatever changed in the macOS update seems to have broken something with multiple connections on the Hub. Here's my setup:

mac mini > Thunderbolt Hub > Port 1: Thunderbay Flex // Port 2: Mercury Elite Pro Dual // Port 3: -

Only one port can be used at a time. The second device will not be recognised no matter the cable or port configuration. This setup was working fine up until the macOS update.

@sampl_e 

Maybe you need to test on another Mac, or bring the mini to an Apple store. its possible the Mini is the issue. I don't know what else to think.