New MOTU MIDI Drivers are up. 6-8-21

[Michael Canavan]

As the title says, Big Sur ready, so presumably Apple Silicon support as well.
Whether it's a universal binary or not, they don't mention.

https://motu.com/download

https://motu.com/en-us/news/motu-and-macos-big-sur/

No news about older MIDI devices and Big Sur. I don't have a compatible computer so I can't check..

[apanacci]

I think Audio drivers also.

[monkey man]

The older MIDI driver from 2019 for OS 10.13.x -> 10.15.x is still up, so it looks like that'll be the final build for OSX.

Thank you for the heads-up, Mike.

[mothra]

I think Audio drivers also.

Ran into issues from square one with my 828x over USB. Just upgraded from the previous driver, the installer had me give the extension permission again (the docs claim if you've already done this you dont have to again). Rebooted and nothing. Completely turned off the security (still on an Intel Mac), still nothing. System info sees my '828TBT' and the kext is there totally legit, notarized, etc, but doesn't want to load. Wiped out everything MOTU I could find. Several reinstalls later, still not showing up. Decided to manually load the kext and it does work, but not without being forced. Should've just left the older driver installed hah.


EDIT: After 2 hours of fussing with reinstalling/deleting/etc. Went back to the Catalina driver. Installed right over the top of the Big Sur one, gave it permission to load, rebooted, now my 828x is back. The new one works but for some reason my system doesn't want to load it without manually doing it.

[jiewjif]

Not only did this make my 828mk3 hybrid not show up, but it also somehow, against all odds, made it so my Universal Audio and Roland gear no longer show up. Avoid this "update" at all costs!

[cuttime]

Has tech support had anything to say about this?

[mothra]

I emailed them this morning but I was pretty busy at work and didn't get to respond until after (Im west coast, they're in Massachusetts). So far all they've asked was if I had the chance to try it over Thunderbolt, and my response was 'Not paying $100 for a cable and adapter'.

I dont know about the Roland or UAD stuff, but the driver actually works, you just have to sudo kextload it. For whatever reason it doesn't load when you connect the interface like its supposed to. But if you load it manually, everything is great. Go figure the Catalina driver is working perfectly still. If the new one broke your setup, just reinstall the Catalina driver over it and you should be up and running again (unless you're on an M1 of course). VirtualBox ran into the same thing months ago with their beta Big Sur versions. Everyone had a hell of a time getting one to install right. Took alot of installing, removing, rebooting, running their uninstaller script, rebooting, etc.


EDIT - Got a response back this morning. They've reproduced it there so they told me to keep using the Catalina driver for now until they fix it basically.

[jiewjif]

They replied promptly, but in terms of my issue, had no suggestions. For the past several years I've found the drivers getting increasingly buggy - which I half blame Apple for changing the OS solely to stay on a yearly release cycle (give me Snow Leopard!), and MOTU for being among the slowest hardware vendors to release drivers. It sucks because I love my 828 hardware, but if the drivers don't work, it doesn't matter. :-/

Also, rolling back to Catalina driver didn't help me, whatever got broken, got really broken.

[mothra]

Well oddly enough, mine is working now. For whatever reason, just randomly decided to try the install again and was going to reset the NVRAM after installing this time. After the reboot, MOTU Audio Setup didn't pop up, but the MOTU was detected. Double checked the driver version, played back some audio out of Apple Music.. Rebooted again just to be sure, this time, MOTU Audio Setup opened right up, everything seems to be working now. No idea why/how/what/where/when.. Havent touched anything on my system at all but for some reason, this time it worked.

[primeevolutionary]

I am able to get my 896mk3 hybrid going USB, or, USB to Thunderbolt 3 with adaptor. Has there been any word as to whether FireWire to Thunderbolt 3 (My adaptors are actually FW to Thunderbolt 2 to TB 3) will work, or, should I give up on trying with FireWire?

[Tritonemusic]

The latest drivers completely fixed my M4 "stuttering" problem (when listening to YouTube or Soundcloud via Safari, for example).

[monkey man]

[NestaMann]

I think Audio drivers also.

Ran into issues from square one with my 828x over USB. Just upgraded from the previous driver, the installer had me give the extension permission again (the docs claim if you've already done this you dont have to again). Rebooted and nothing. Completely turned off the security (still on an Intel Mac), still nothing. System info sees my '828TBT' and the kext is there totally legit, notarized, etc,

EDIT: After 2 hours of fussing with reinstalling/deleting/etc. Went back to the Catalina driver. Installed right over the top of the Big Sur one, gave it permission to load, rebooted, now my 828x is back. The new one works but for some reason my system doesn't want to load it without manually doing it.

I had the same issues. I have my Mac Mini running off an external NVMe Drive. The Internal drive showed my 828x showing up, but not the external which ran the 11.2+ MOTU driver. funnily it worked for a few days then stopped working.

After days of manually cleaning the system, back & forth. I saw your post & reinstalled the Catalina driver & bingo. All working again

Thanks for sharing. Sometimes the simplest things you miss are the corrections you need.

[mikehalloran]

(the docs claim if you've already done this you dont have to again).

Yea but that’s a MacOS issue, not MOTU. Sometimes it’s correct and other times it isn’t.


Otherwise. Do not reboot after installation. Shut down, then reboot instead. I’ve discovered that a number of drivers and plugins do not load properly if this is not done.

[mothra]

I had the same issues. I have my Mac Mini running off an external NVMe Drive. The Internal drive showed my 828x showing up, but not the external which ran the 11.2+ MOTU driver. funnily it worked for a few days then stopped working.

After days of manually cleaning the system, back & forth. I saw your post & reinstalled the Catalina driver & bingo. All working again

Thanks for sharing. Sometimes the simplest things you miss are the corrections you need.

Three months later and I still haven't heard back if they ever figured it out or not. I have no clue how mine started working, maybe it took a few reboots before it kicked in or something. Knock on wood the Big Sur driver is still working here, and if it does crap out again on me, at least I have a class compliant Behringer UMC1820 I can fall back on (its hooked up to my MPC at the moment). So far so good once the weird installation issues were 'fixed'.