macOS High Sierra (10.13) FTDI Driver Bug Workaround

Posted on
Wed Aug 08, 2018 6:58 pm
sgtwicki offline
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Re: macOS High Sierra (10.13) FTDI Driver Bug Workaround

Not that I expected any change, but I just installed the 10.14 Beta (18A353d) update and all my serial ports went stupid again.

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Posted on
Thu Aug 16, 2018 2:28 pm
jay (support) offline
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Re: macOS High Sierra (10.13) FTDI Driver Bug Workaround

Hey guys, can someone confirm that the current Mac mini (2014) doesn't have the driver issue but the version before that (2011 I think) does? I'm trying to confirm so we can get one to continue testing OS releases for the bug.

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Posted on
Fri Aug 17, 2018 10:50 am
rgspb offline
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Re: macOS High Sierra (10.13) FTDI Driver Bug Workaround

I'm using a Mid 2011 Mac Mini. 2.3 GHz i5, 16GB RAM, running High Sierra (updated) and haven't had to install anything extra to get Indigo to work. Using a 2412U interface. Is that what you needed?

Posted on
Sun Aug 26, 2018 9:52 pm
dduff617 offline
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Re: macOS High Sierra (10.13) FTDI Driver Bug Workaround

I'm way behind the herd here, I suspect. Upgrading my server from Sierra to High Sierra (HS). I'm contributing these notes in hope someone else might benefit from some of the confusion I went through trying to work around the serial driver bug problem.

Here are a couple of finer points that tripped me up for a while trying to get through the upgrade:

1. After first installing HS update, I opened Indigo briefly and took a peek and it seemed the both the interfaces were working. I thought I had "dodged a bullet" on the whole serial driver thing. My advice: don't get your hopes up at this point.

2. After working within HS for a little while, including the inevitable barrage of upgrades that you get prompted for, I installed an Apple system update and that seems to have wiped out my serial driver, I realized later.

3. I dug up the blog-post instructions, I had saved and set about executing the fix. In my first time attempting to execute the instructions, my machine was running very, very slow. Anyway, I attempted to follow the instructions precisely. I thing somehow with the slowness of my machine, very UI laggy response, spinning beachballs, etc. I think I managed to miss seeing the warning that you get when running the downloaded FTDI installers.

4. Strangely (and this is really the key point that cost me a lot of time) the FTDI installer WILL COMPLETE and REPORT SUCCESS even if you don't respond to the security prompt that (I think) is supposed to guide you to System Preferences>Security & Privacy to over-ride the warning. Also, at this point you can check the directories for the drivers in the correct places - that is the FTDI drivers being where they are supposed to be and the Apple drivers not being where they aren't supposed to be, but this is (apparently) NOT SUFFICIENT to make things work properly. (see my comment #6, specifically).

5. For me at least, after the first time that I apparently "missed" the prompt to over-ride the security prohibition on installing the new drivers, I never received any such requests subsequently. Even when I completely attempted to re-execute the instructions from scratch, deleting everything and starting over. I don't understand this, but I re-tried several times so I'm quite sure that I was not seeing any further "warnings" about the system prohibitions, yet each time the FTDI install process would complete and report that it succeeded.

6. I eventually realized (by luck or really just bumbling around) that if i went to System Preferences>Security & Privacy and observed that I could actually see a button there waiting to be pressed (even though there was no accompanying notification) to allow the FTDI driver to be installed. Finally on my third attempt to execute the instructions, I stumbled across this, pressed it, and then got back on track. I presume (but don't know exactly) that pressing this button at this point somehow "blesses" the extension (which is already present in /Library/Extensions/) and allows the system to load it. Conversely, without this step, all the files can be in the right place, but things still won't work.

Posted on
Mon Aug 27, 2018 8:58 am
jay (support) offline
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Re: macOS High Sierra (10.13) FTDI Driver Bug Workaround

Just FYI, step #2 in the blog post mentions that you can go to that pref to enable later if it times out (or you miss it in some other way)... ;)

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Posted on
Thu Aug 30, 2018 6:49 pm
sgtwicki offline
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Re: macOS High Sierra (10.13) FTDI Driver Bug Workaround

Just upgraded to the latest Mojave beta, and I decided to try playing around before I applied the workaround. I tried just rebooting a couple of times. I tried unplugging the USB serial devices then plugging them back in. Nothing worked at first.
Finally I tried disabling the interfaces for both my 2412U & W800RF32 and also disabling the DigiTemp plugin. I then unplugged them all, plugged them all back in, then re-enabled them. All 3 serial devices now work with Indigo.
I'll keep an eye on them to see if the 2412U disconnects randomly like it did with High Sierra.

Posted on
Fri Aug 31, 2018 8:54 am
jay (support) offline
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Re: macOS High Sierra (10.13) FTDI Driver Bug Workaround

sgtwicki wrote:
Just upgraded to the latest Mojave beta, and I decided to try playing around before I applied the workaround. I tried just rebooting a couple of times. I tried unplugging the USB serial devices then plugging them back in. Nothing worked at first.
Finally I tried disabling the interfaces for both my 2412U & W800RF32 and also disabling the DigiTemp plugin. I then unplugged them all, plugged them all back in, then re-enabled them. All 3 serial devices now work with Indigo.
I'll keep an eye on them to see if the 2412U disconnects randomly like it did with High Sierra.


Did you try rebooting again after your last tests? I ask because there are actually 2 bugs: one is that the FTDI driver included with HS (and maybe with Mojave) is broken. If you had applied the fix to HS and then upgraded to Mojave, then you'd still have the FTDI driver that you installed using their installer - the one that works. This will cause the FTDI devices to work correctly once you unplug/replug after a reboot. And subsequent unplug/replugs will also work.

The second bug is the load order bug after a reboot. At boot time, if you have an FTDI device plugged in, Apple's built-in driver will claim the device before the FTDI driver that you installed does. So your devices will be broken until you unplug/replug them, which will cause the good FTDI driver to claim them and they'll then work.

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Posted on
Sun Sep 09, 2018 10:44 am
dscottbuch offline
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Re: macOS High Sierra (10.13) FTDI Driver Bug Workaround

I have been using the same approach as mentioned and it works 100% of the time, without hacking anything. I don't know if this is truly a driver bug or a conflict. I've read all the explanations and the fact that driver A works and driver B doesn't is not an indication of a bug in driver B. There may just be a hack/workaround in driver A for a bug in the device.

After a reboot, what I have to do is the following

1) unplug the 2413U USB, either directly or through a hub. The connection path does not matter. This process works every time for me and I've tried it with the connection both ways..
2) turn off the interface in Indigo - this appears to release the interface name. I believe the driver is trying to create a new interface with the same name and failing.
3) plug the 2413U US back in, with the interface in Indigo disabled/unchecked
4) re-enable the 2413U interface in Indigo and the connection succeeds.

Scott

Posted on
Sun Sep 09, 2018 6:11 pm
matt (support) offline
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Re: macOS High Sierra (10.13) FTDI Driver Bug Workaround

It is a driver bug – Apple has acknowledged it. There are actually two bugs, one is a bug in the driver on some Macs the other is a driver matching problem that prevents the non-Apple FTDI driver from being used unless you unplug the PowerLinc and plug it back in. We explain in pretty good detail on our blog post.

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Posted on
Thu Oct 04, 2018 12:24 pm
eme jota ce offline
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Re: macOS High Sierra (10.13) FTDI Driver Bug Workaround

Need a little guidance to understand the Terminal messages when trying the workaround commands in Mojave.

after typing," mv System/Library/Extensions/AppleUSBFTDI.kext ."
the follow message appears "Directory not empty"

after typing "rm AppleUSBFTDI.kext"
the follow message appears: "AppleUSBSFTDI.kext is a directory"

Is that an indication that the workaround procedure is unsuccessful?
Any suggestions?

Thanks,
mjc

Posted on
Thu Oct 04, 2018 2:02 pm
matt (support) offline
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Re: macOS High Sierra (10.13) FTDI Driver Bug Workaround

On the "mv" line you are missing a space before the period:

Code: Select all
mv System/Library/Extensions/AppleUSBFTDI.kext .

Be sure and repeat the steps leading up to that line or it won't work.

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Posted on
Thu Oct 04, 2018 2:56 pm
eme jota ce offline
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Re: macOS High Sierra (10.13) FTDI Driver Bug Workaround

matt (support) wrote:
On the "mv" line you are missing a space before the period:

Code: Select all
mv System/Library/Extensions/AppleUSBFTDI.kext .

Be sure and repeat the steps leading up to that line or it won't work.


Thanks for the reply Matt.

The space is in there. Just one space between the "t" and the period. Went back and retried the whole series of steps twice after your post, just to be certain. Same messages.

Any other suggestions?

Thanks,
mjc

Posted on
Thu Oct 04, 2018 3:21 pm
jay (support) offline
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Re: macOS High Sierra (10.13) FTDI Driver Bug Workaround

eme jota ce wrote:
after typing "rm AppleUSBFTDI.kext"
the follow message appears: "AppleUSBSFTDI.kext is a directory"


Sorry, I missed a flag that should be there. I've updated the post with the correct command to delete the old one:

Code: Select all
 rm -r AppleUSBFTDI.kext


I think maybe the first error is because an older version of the driver already exists from a previous "fix". Do the command above first, then do the move command and see if that works.

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Posted on
Thu Oct 04, 2018 6:10 pm
eme jota ce offline
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Re: macOS High Sierra (10.13) FTDI Driver Bug Workaround

jay (support) wrote:
eme jota ce wrote:
after typing "rm AppleUSBFTDI.kext"
the follow message appears: "AppleUSBSFTDI.kext is a directory"


Sorry, I missed a flag that should be there. I've updated the post with the correct command to delete the old one:

Code: Select all
 rm -r AppleUSBFTDI.kext


I think maybe the first error is because an older version of the driver already exists from a previous "fix". Do the command above first, then do the move command and see if that works.


OK. Thanks, Jay.

Will give that a try. Have already started a clean install, so the older version of the driver is likely gone...


Thanks,
mjc

Posted on
Fri Oct 05, 2018 7:48 am
jay (support) offline
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Re: macOS High Sierra (10.13) FTDI Driver Bug Workaround

I reset your machine id after reading the RSS version of your post which requested it. I now see you edited your post to remove the request. So, you may need to reauthenticate, sorry... ;)

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