Kernel Panics Softraid 7.5

@Ron Inabinett

Please for others to be able to read the forum, do not post long kernel panics. Only attach them as text files if you want to show them. (In text edit "make plain text" to save as text file)

This is the DART Io controller crashing on the Apple Silicon processor.

Since it is caused by a hardware problem, we can not work around it, we have to wait for Apple. Users with the MacOS 13.4 beta are reporting it is finally fixed, however.

There are three possible workarounds until this gets fixed.

In Ventura, the most permanent solution is option 3, but here are the the three that can work, in reverse order of effectiveness:

1. when you restart, have your unit disconnected for about 5 minutes, then plug it in.
2. Pull out one drive slightly, so your system starts, then after 5 minutes, push it in.
3. Delete your volume (erases all data) and create it again, selecting 64k Stripe unit size when prompted.
This works almost all of the time.

Let me know if you need more information.

Sorry about the log being in the post directly. I tried to upload it as an attachment as a doc, rtf, pdf, txt, and docx- it said all of the formats were invalid. 

@ron-inabinett 

the trick is in Text Edit, you have to "make plain text", or it will always save the file as .rtf.

(or check out BBEdit, which is free for most purposes and fantastic)

@softraid-support I just tried to copy and paste into a txt file, but oh well. Shouldn’t be that hard to attach a file, or allow a rtf. I get it though, we are sometimes stuck with the tools given to us.

@ron-inabinett 

I know. .rtf has been deemed to have "risk", so it is text only. Did you make the file in text edit, then use the "Make Plain text" command? I hae attached many a file, never an issue, as long as it is truly text.

Also, get info on the file you are attaching and see if it has a hidden .rtf ending.

I had for an year a maxed out MAC STUDIO with M1 Ultra chip. I had 4 Thunderblades of 8tb each connected to an individual Thunderbolt port of the back of the Mac Studio. I created a Raid0 in Softraid version 7.5 with stripe 128kb and everything was working perfectly! I had 32tb in total (I bought a Pro License)

Yesterday I bought the new Mac Studio mith the M2 Ultra chip and migrated all my data from the old Mac Studio to the new one. What a disaster!  I am having KERNEL PANICS and gets into a boot loop at startup. The only way I can boot my new computer is disconnecting one of the 4 Thunderblades thunderbolt cables from behind my Mac Studio. It boots, once I get to Desktop I connect the drive and again the screen freezes and Kernel Panic, Mac Studio turns off. I've been checking your support page and have tried all the steps:

After several tries I have been able to delete and initialize all drives and tried to set up anew Ride0 setting the stripe to 64kb. It worked once, after that, Kernel Panics again after a restart. I cannot use the drives!

I have also changed the Security from my computer, holding the computer button until I get intro recovery mode and changed it as you said in your help page.

I have unistalled SoftRaid and reinstall it again. The problem is that I never get the popup message asking to open the Security settings in my computer to give permission to SOFTRAID. I have also checked in System Information if I have the extension enabled and I don't, it says is OFF.

I really need help to make my 4 Thunderblades to work properly again in Raid0 being able to boot my computer as normal without having constantly Kernel Panics. Please ket me know what can I do to get again the popup message to give permissions to SoftRaid in my Security Panel or how to enable the Softraid extension in my new computer!

I have also tried to boot into Recovery Mode and reinstalled MacOs Ventura 13.4 without luck!!

Right now I cannot use the drives. They won't let me even create a new volume in Softraid using 2 Thunderblades instead of 4! It always freezes when I try to, with both 64 and 128kb stripes. I rally need Raid0 to get the maximum speed.

Please help me how to solve my problem.

Thanks!

@ajpro 

Note: with 13.4, you no longer need to reduce security or "allow" OWC as a third party developer for SoftRAID. the SoftRAID driver is always loading.

We just got a couple reports of this. We did not have access to this computer before it shipped. It appears to only affect the Ultra so far.

Can I summarize, please correct me if I am wrong:

Your configuration is a 16 drive RAID 0

If the drives are all connected at startup, you get a panic.

if you remove one of the 4 enclosures, it boots (as it should), and you can usually connect the 4th and it will let the volume mount without a panic.

Questions:

Since you have been recreating the volume, I assume there is no data on this confuguration any longer?
what are you doing to be able to set up the drives/create volumes? connecting after startup?

Do you still have the m1 Studio, so you can try a couple things?

A RAID 4 or RAID 5 volume works, with one enclosure or all 4?

the stripe unit size does not affect the panics, or if you select 64K or 16K or 1M, do you get panics?

I may have a terminal command to help this work, but it reduces security on the computer, so would like to find another option.

Last, if you "report to Apple" next panic, and click details, does the top line of the panic mention "dart"?

@softraid-support Hi, thanks for your quick response. No, I no longer have the M1 Mac Studio to test. The problem is that yes if I boot the computer with one Thunderblade cable disconnected it boots but once I get to Desktop, sometimes it works once I connect the 4th Thunderblade and some freezes and I get Kernel Panic... so no luck.

I've also tried Raid 4 and 5 and same problem with Kernels. The stripe size doesn't help. I've tried 128kb, 64kb and 16kb and somtimes it lt me set up the Raid correctly but afet I restart the computer again it won't boot with all Thunderbolt cables connected.

Yes, I get DART on the Apple Report...  could you please make some tests with a M2 Ultra Mac Studio when possible? 

For your interest, I tried unistalling SoftRaid and then creating a Raid0 with Apple Raid in Disk Utility with the 16 drives and it worked perfectly. I can restart and boot without problems and withour Kernel Panics.

Can it be something about SoftRaid that has to be updated for the new M2 Ultra? It's weird!

Please let me know. 

Thanks in advance

@ajpro 

Can you try also, as one user had luck with this, which I do not understand. If you "uninstall SoftRAID - all components" from Utilities menu, restart, do you still get the panic?

@softraid-support Yes I do, If I have all 4 Thunderblades connected to the Mac Studio I get kernel panics always if SoftRaid is installed. Once I uninstall Softraid and restart, computer boots normal. It seems something's going on with M2 Ultra chip and maybe an extension of SoftRaid, maybe you should talk with Apple to figure out what's causing the problem...

@ajpro 

Can you send me a System Profiler when all disks are connected?
Also, see if you can generate a SoftRAID tech support file in terminal. Paste this in and send the file to your support case.

sudo softraidtool generatereport ~/Desktop/ajpro.6.19.23.sr_supt

Its a little more complex than you think, and yes, we are talking with Apple. I am hoping we can find a solution more quickly than the m1 problem.

if it is indeed replicatable that this does not happen with the SoftRAID support files uninstalled, that would be very interesting. (the driver is loading, as your volume is mounting)

thanks!

I will be getting my Mac Studio M2 Ultra in a few days. I'm currently using 2 Mercury pro U.2 Dual enclosures with Raid 0 volumes (SR 7.5), and they are going to move to the new Mac Studio.

Does it mean I'll probably get the kernel panics too ?

Should it work if I don't install SR 7.5 and simply use the SR kernel extension provided with the system ? I know I couldn't manage my volumes but at least I could use them.

Can I uninstall Softraid from my raid 0 volumes without having to reformat them ?

Sorry I know that's a lot of questions but I'm very worried about this issue...

@micheloupatrick 

Totally understand the concerns, but I do not have enough information yet. As of this writing, I have 8 cases.

Its clear it only affects NVMe so far.

Keep your old computer for a couple days and report back either way.

@softraid-support 

The real problem here is that RAID software is a very serious matter, as it involves data integrity.

Not sure I even want to try connecting my valuable data to a computer knowing that it will probably crash, potentially leaving my data in un unknown, possibly corrupted state. And restoring big backups takes hours.

You're doing a great job but you seem to have a limited connection to Apple, or should I say Apple doesn't care for niche product developers, even those working on such technical and important matters.

It's unbelievable that you don't get early access to new computers when iJustine does...

I have been a very happy Softraid user for years and never had any serious issue with your software. Right now it's working flawlessly on my 2020 iMac and my M1 Max MBP.

But the recurring problems since the introduction of Apple Silicon macs are worrying to say the least.

Anyway, thank you for trying to figure out what's happening.