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El Capitan KILLS AlphaTrack USB Driver... back to Yosemite

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El Capitan KILLS AlphaTrack USB Driver... back to Yosemite

Postby James Steele » Wed Oct 07, 2015 10:45 pm

I threw caution to the wind a bit and upon seeing MOTU had posted public beta MIDI drivers, updated to El Capitan.

First thing I noticed is my AlphaTrack was dead. Not recognized. AlphaTrack Manager doesn't see it. Its driver apparently won't load and the installer comes back with an error. It appears that if you go to El Capitan, be aware that your AlphaTrack is sculpture and unlike in the past where we contacted the developer, I don't think there's anyway to resurrect it. Last time, AlphaTrack was given new life by updating the DP-specific "control surface bundle". This time, it's the actual USB driver that's broken, and I don't hold out any hope for it.

Another issue, but this one will probably be solved, is that even with the new public beta driver, my MTP/AV was sending MIDI out all MIDI outputs, when it was only supposed to be sending on the particular output to which a particular device was connected.

I'm restoring from a Carbon Copy Cloner backup as I write this. I'm sitting out El Cap for a while it looks like. Perhaps, I can take a look at a Behringer control surface, but the idea of doing all my mixing with a mouse is troubling to me and I can't give up my AlphaTrack just yet.
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Re: El Capitan KILLS AlphaTrack USB Driver... back to Yosemi

Postby HCMarkus » Wed Oct 07, 2015 11:07 pm

If you simply MUST have El Cap, why not just boot into a Yosemite partition when running DP? If your boot drive is an SSD, rebooting takes seconds.

I was getting worked up about El Cap, but have been rethinking… DP runs so well under Mountain Lion, why should I change? I'm sticking with the "DAW as Appliance" model, and loving it.

I have enough excitement in my life.
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Re: El Capitan KILLS AlphaTrack USB Driver... back to Yosemi

Postby James Steele » Wed Oct 07, 2015 11:16 pm

HCMarkus wrote:If you simply MUST have El Cap, why not just boot into a Yosemite partition when running DP? If your boot drive is an SSD, rebooting takes seconds.

I was getting worked up about El Cap, but have been rethinking… DP runs so well under Mountain Lion, why should I change? I'm sticking with the "DAW as Appliance" model, and loving it.

I have enough excitement in my life.


Nope... I don't simply have to have El Cap. :) I was curious. I'm not any longer. And I'm with you on Mountain Lion. I fantasize about going back to ML and staying there, but I'm just not up to all the plug reauthorizations and starting from scratch again. I think I'll just live on Yosemite for a while. I was hoping for that little extra bit of "zippiness" as described. :)
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Re: El Capitan KILLS AlphaTrack USB Driver... back to Yosemi

Postby Shooshie » Thu Oct 08, 2015 1:32 am

I'm pretty happy with DP9.01 and Yosemite for now. I'd love to move forward with El Cap, but I'm going to wait until they get at least the big, fat, juicy bugs squashed. No need to have to keep cleaning my windshield! I can pretty well speed down the highway with Yosemite, and my windshield so far is sparkling with clean. Transparent and tough!

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Re: El Capitan KILLS AlphaTrack USB Driver... back to Yosemi

Postby monkey man » Thu Oct 08, 2015 5:09 am

I heard Yosemite 10.10.5 is great. Can't wait to update to it... one day.

As for ill Capstan... surely it can wait.

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Re: El Capitan KILLS AlphaTrack USB Driver... back to Yosemi

Postby Morpheo » Thu Oct 08, 2015 6:36 am

James Steele wrote:I threw caution to the wind a bit and upon seeing MOTU had posted public beta MIDI drivers, updated to El Capitan.

First thing I noticed is my AlphaTrack was dead. Not recognized. AlphaTrack Manager doesn't see it. Its driver apparently won't load and the installer comes back with an error. It appears that if you go to El Capitan, be aware that your AlphaTrack is sculpture and unlike in the past where we contacted the developer, I don't think there's anyway to resurrect it. Last time, AlphaTrack was given new life by updating the DP-specific "control surface bundle". This time, it's the actual USB driver that's broken, and I don't hold out any hope for it.

Another issue, but this one will probably be solved, is that even with the new public beta driver, my MTP/AV was sending MIDI out all MIDI outputs, when it was only supposed to be sending on the particular output to which a particular device was connected.

I'm restoring from a Carbon Copy Cloner backup as I write this. I'm sitting out El Cap for a while it looks like. Perhaps, I can take a look at a Behringer control surface, but the idea of doing all my mixing with a mouse is troubling to me and I can't give up my AlphaTrack just yet.


Did you try disabling SIP ? My SSL driver wouldn't load nor show up in my sound preferences until I disabled SIP... Several so-called "incompatibilities" just come from the fact that the system integrity protection is enabled. I don't need it, I know what I'm doing even as root...
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Re: El Capitan KILLS AlphaTrack USB Driver... back to Yosemi

Postby James Steele » Thu Oct 08, 2015 9:49 am

Morpheo wrote:
James Steele wrote:I threw caution to the wind a bit and upon seeing MOTU had posted public beta MIDI drivers, updated to El Capitan.

First thing I noticed is my AlphaTrack was dead. Not recognized. AlphaTrack Manager doesn't see it. Its driver apparently won't load and the installer comes back with an error. It appears that if you go to El Capitan, be aware that your AlphaTrack is sculpture and unlike in the past where we contacted the developer, I don't think there's anyway to resurrect it. Last time, AlphaTrack was given new life by updating the DP-specific "control surface bundle". This time, it's the actual USB driver that's broken, and I don't hold out any hope for it.

Another issue, but this one will probably be solved, is that even with the new public beta driver, my MTP/AV was sending MIDI out all MIDI outputs, when it was only supposed to be sending on the particular output to which a particular device was connected.

I'm restoring from a Carbon Copy Cloner backup as I write this. I'm sitting out El Cap for a while it looks like. Perhaps, I can take a look at a Behringer control surface, but the idea of doing all my mixing with a mouse is troubling to me and I can't give up my AlphaTrack just yet.


Did you try disabling SIP ? My SSL driver wouldn't load nor show up in my sound preferences until I disabled SIP... Several so-called "incompatibilities" just come from the fact that the system integrity protection is enabled. I don't need it, I know what I'm doing even as root...


You know... that's a great idea! How do you do that again? No... I didn't do that, but what's still troubling is that the AlphaTrack installer refuses to run. I wish I had screen captured the error message as I don't remember what it was. I guess getting AlphaTrack working on El Capitan might still be possible. I'll have to set up a test partition and find out.
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Re: El Capitan KILLS AlphaTrack USB Driver... back to Yosemi

Postby dewdman42 » Thu Oct 08, 2015 11:06 am

I'm pretty happy on Mavericks. Yosemite had some interesting gotcha's too, but not like El Cap appears to be.
12 Core MacPro 3.33ghz, 10.11, 2408mk3, 1296, MTP/AV, DP9, Finale, Notion, MuseScore, Overture, Logic, Mainstage, IK Multimedia, Omnisphere, Recabinet, JamVox, LePou, Scarbee, Geist, Etch, Jamstix, StevenSlateDrums, TruePianos, AddictiveKeys, Superior Drums, Kirk Hunter, GForce, OPXPro, Stringer, Cobalt, Harmor, AAS, Komplete9, B4, GPO, KorgLegacy, RapturePro, Z3TA, Melodyne, Nomad British, S-gear, MVintageRotary, VKFX, K2500R, XV-5080, MP9000, EX-8000, S-90, Vox Tonelab, Jupiter-80
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Re: El Capitan KILLS AlphaTrack USB Driver... back to Yosemi

Postby James Steele » Thu Oct 22, 2015 7:24 pm

Just an update. I did a clean install of El Cap (10.11.1) on a test partition and after much hair pulling, it seems I figured out a process to get AlphaTrack working—at least as you can see from the graphic below, it is now recognized. The installer doesn't work, it involves manually copying components to the proper location, as well as a special way to install the FrontierDesignAlphaTrack.kext file.

I did disable SIP prior to working out this procedure. I'm not sure it is necessary. I'm going to try to repeat this with SIP enabled. If that doesn't work, with any luck SIP can be re-enabled AFTER successful install. I hope to follow up with specific instructions soon.

EDIT: I should hasten to add that I have not yet confirmed that it will work with DP 9.01 and the 64-bit control surface bundle, but I'm very optimistic.

Image
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Re: El Capitan KILLS AlphaTrack USB Driver... back to Yosemi

Postby dewdman42 » Thu Oct 22, 2015 9:20 pm

glad you got it working and perhaps this adventure will apply to other drivers and things that simply need to get around Apple's new draconian security.
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Re: El Capitan KILLS AlphaTrack USB Driver... back to Yosemi

Postby James Steele » Thu Oct 22, 2015 10:26 pm

dewdman42 wrote:glad you got it working and perhaps this adventure will apply to other drivers and things that simply need to get around Apple's new draconian security.


Yep... after the test worked I installed the latest beta MIDI driver on my main partition while it was still Yosemite, then installed El Cap over it, and it booted right up with the AlphaTrack icon in the menu bar. Apparently, disabling SIP "sticks" with the system itself, it's not associated with booting from a particular drive.

Only slight weirdness is first time I launched DP, I had to disconnect and then re-connect AlphaTrack for it to see track names, etc. and work as it should.
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Re: El Capitan KILLS AlphaTrack USB Driver... back to Yosemi

Postby James Steele » Thu Oct 22, 2015 11:26 pm

Okay... all seems to be fine now with DP 9.01 and AlphaTrack on El Cap 10.11.1. You do have to disable SIP for it to work. I installed El Cap onto my main Yosemite boot drive and it booted El Cap and the AlphaTrack icon appeared in the menu bar and it works, although after launching DP I had to disconnect and reconnect the AlphaTrack.

In my case all the AlphaTrack software had already been installed under a previous operating system and disabling SIP brought the existing AlphaTrack software back to life on the next boot. However, if you do a clean install, you will have to manually copy over the various components to your El Cap boot drive as the AlphaTrack installer will fail to install.

Here's what I did to get the AlphaTrack working on a clean install of El Cap just for reference:

Disable SIP by restarting your Mac, holding down Command + R to boot from the Restore volume. When booted, go the the Utilities menu up at the top and choose Terminal. Type in the following:

csrutil disable; reboot

Your Mac will reboot itself and SIP will be off.

Download the following archive: http://motunation.com/files/AlphaTrack_ ... lation.zip

This archive when expanded should be self explanatory. It has all the necessary files for AlphaTrack and shows where to copy them. It also contains what you'll need including an app called Kext Utility. (See: http://mac.softpedia.com/get/System-Uti ... lity.shtml for info)

You can't just copy the actual .kext file. Use the Kext Utility app to install the kext file so that the system will load it properly. Launch Kext Utility and drag the file, FrontierDesignAlphaTrack.kext onto its window and it will install. Wait till it is finished and then quit the app. On reboot, the AlphaTrack should work.

Keep in mind, this is dependent on also having the special 64-bit compatible control surface bundle for DP. The file is AlphaTrackDPUB.bundle and must be in Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/MOTU Control Surface/. If you do not already have this newer file you can get it here: http://www.synclavier.com/AlphaTrackPlugin.html You also have to add the control surface in DP under the Setup>Control Surface Setup... menu.

Please note! This worked for me, it should work for you. However, given the litigious nature of society these days, I must warn you to backup first and I can take no responsibility if it doesn't work right for you, etc. If you have problems post here, but again, you do this at your own risk.
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Re: El Capitan KILLS AlphaTrack USB Driver... back to Yosemi

Postby primeevolutionary » Tue Nov 03, 2015 9:13 pm

Great work, James!!!

Worked like a charm!

Thanks you!
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Re: El Capitan KILLS AlphaTrack USB Driver... back to Yosemi

Postby James Steele » Tue Nov 03, 2015 9:49 pm

Glad to hear it. Sometimes I find I have to disconnect and reconnect the AlphaTrack after loading my first DP project. After that the AlphaTrack is recognized consistently.
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Re: El Capitan KILLS AlphaTrack USB Driver... back to Yosemi

Postby jpetrisko » Fri Dec 04, 2015 6:24 am

Interesting. I upgraded to El Capitan yesterday and the Alphatrack worked without me doing or disabling anything. 2008 MacBook Pro if it matters.
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