Anybody using the new Mac OS Catalina?

Finally, I can confirm that it's possible to use the FireWire interface from the Catalina, and further from a 2019 Mac Pro (aka 7,1). I'm using the Apple TB3->Tb and TB->FW800 adaptors. Even without the kext installed, you should be able to check "About This Mac" and see the card connected when you check FireWire. But it won't show up in Audio MIDI Setup or your favorite DAW without the kext.

Don't use the driver installer, or at least avoid it. If you don't have a copy of the drive itself (IFFWDMmkII.kext), you could install it and then retrieve it, probably the easiest way to get it out of the installer, but might need to do some work to back it out and put it in correctly.

The bottom line is that if the Mac hasn't popped up a dialog telling you that if would really want to install it, you'll need to do it in Security & Privacy panel, then it hasn't been installed right.

You could copy and transfer IFFWDMmkII.kext from /Library/Extensions in your old computer. Don't install it yourself, though. If the command shell makes you nervous, there is a tool for Hackintosh use, Hackintool, that will do these same steps for you plus a few more just in case.

You need to disable Gate Keeper and mount the System Partition as read/write; in Terminal:

sudo spctl --master-disable
sudo mount -uw
sudo killall Finder

Then copy the kext. you can type "sudo cp -R " and fill in the path to the kext by dragging it into the Terminal window, then finish typing the rest of the copy command (/Library/Extensions); here I've assumed you put it in your user Downloads folder:

sudo cp -R ~/Downloads/IFFWDMmkII.kext /Library/Extensions

Here are some safety things, the most useful being to make sure the user:group is root:wheel (this will hit all extensions), and ensure the permissions are right too:

sudo chmod -v -R 755 /Library/Extensions
sudo chown -v -R root:wheel /Library/Extensions
sudo touch /Library/Extensions

Then, you need to rebuild the kext cache:

sudo kextcache -I /

Finally, restart your Mac.

If anything goes bad, or you tried to installed in a way that didn't work before, you'll get errors until you back it out. Removing the kext from /Library/Extensions is not sufficient, you'll need to remove it and run the kextcache command. Extensions are staged in /Library/StagedExtension/Library/Extensions, which looks like a copy of the /L/E directory, except that you can't remove the files directly. So, if it gets built with the wrong status, all attempts at installing the kext will fail. I initially got most of this info from https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/...an-sierra-high-sierra-mojave-catalina.268964/ but was stuck at that point with it failing till I figured the rest out. Note that link is largely Hackintosh oriented, so it might be confusing.
 
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Great. Thanks for the sharing! Did you get also the MIDI driver works for remote control?
 
I've never used the MIDI on the FW card. It shows up in Audio MIDI Setup, though. If you have a simple setup you'd like me to try, I could. But you reminded me I still need to install a driver for my motu interface...

The "TASCAM IF-FW/DM mk II" shows up both in AM Setup and my DAW, sure appears to be fine. Everything is in disarray here, so I don't have a quick test, don't know how to engage my DAW with the transport controls. I normally do all my mixing in the box, the DM-3200 is mainly a monitoring and routing vehicle.
 
Last edited:
Hello fellow DM users,

At the risk of asking too much, would it be possible for experienced members of our community to post video tutorials detailing these steps/processes? Those of us lacking experience with kext files, Terminal, etc. would be forever indebted.

Thank you, in advance, for your consideration!
 
Sorry, I'm buried in my "to do" list, including finishing an instructional video, so it's hard to justify holding that off to make a video. But maybe I can give you some assurances that will help.

You need to open Terminal and type these commands (the first sudo—"superuser do"— will force you to enter your password); simply type these one at a time, hitting return:

sudo spctl --master-disable
sudo mount -uw
sudo killall Finder

The first line bypasses GateKeeper to allow any code to be loaded. Look at the screen shots here, and check against your Security and Privacy panel, just to make you feel more comfortable with what it does. When you're done installing the FW driver and happy that it works, you can switch GateKeeper back on with "sudo spctl --master-enable".

The second line allows the system partition to be written to, otherwise you won't be able to install the kext driver. When you reboot, this will no revert to normal.

The third line just re-launches Finder, completely harmless.

Put the kext from your IFFWDMmkII.kext from you old system's /Library/Extensions folder (get there from the root of your boot drive) into your user Downloads folder on the new system. If you don't have that, and need to get the kext from an installer, the conversation is a little longer. For now, we'll assume you have the kext file.

Next, copy it to your new system's extensions folder with the copy command:

sudo cp -R ~/Downloads/IFFWDMmkII.kext /Library/Extensions

OK, it's in your Extensions folder. But it may not have the correct file permissions and group, and if it doesn't the system will refuse to use it. These commands make sure all your extensions have the right authority (the others no doubt already do, but what the heck):

sudo chmod -v -R 755 /Library/Extensions
sudo chown -v -R root:wheel /Library/Extensions
sudo touch /Library/Extensions

Now, rebuild the extensions cache:

sudo kextcache -I /

Restart your Mac. You should see your mixer interface when you run Audio MIDI Setup.

Again, you can go back to terminal and turn GateKeeper back on, if you'd like:

sudo spctl --master-enable

I think you need to restart for that to take effect. Now everything is back to normal except that you have IFFWDMmkII.kext installed. There are no other permanent side effects, and if you mistype you'll most likely get an error and it won't do anything, just type it again correctly.
 
Last edited:
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earlevel said:
Sorry, I'm buried in my "to do" list, including finishing an instructional video, so it's hard to justify holding that off to make a video. But maybe I can give you some assurances that will help.

You need to open Terminal and type these commands (the first sudo—"superuser do"— will force you to enter your password); simply type these one at a time, hitting return:

sudo spctl --master-disable
sudo mount -uw
sudo killall Finder

The first line bypasses GateKeeper to allow any code to be loaded. Look at the screen shots here, and check against your Security and Privacy panel, just to make you feel more comfortable with what it does. When you're done installing the FW driver and happy that it works, you can switch GateKeeper back on with "sudo spctl --master-enable".

The second line allows the system partition to be written to, otherwise you won't be able to install the kext driver. When you reboot, this will no revert to normal.

The third line just re-launches Finder, completely harmless.

Put the kext from your IFFWDMmkII.kext from you old system's /Library/Extensions folder (get there from the root of your boot drive) into your user Downloads folder on the new system. If you don't have that, and need to get the kext from an installer, the conversation is a little longer. For now, we'll assume you have the kext file.

Next, copy it to your new system's extensions folder with the copy command:

sudo cp -R ~/Downloads/IFFWDMmkII.kext /Library/Extensions

OK, it's in your Extensions folder. But it may not have the correct file permissions and group, and if it doesn't the system will refuse to use it. These commands make sure all your extensions have the right authority (the others no doubt already do, but what the heck):

sudo chmod -v -R 755 /Library/Extensions
sudo chown -v -R root:wheel /Library/Extensions
sudo touch /Library/Extensions

Now, rebuild the extensions cache:

sudo kextcache -I /

Restart your Mac. You should see your mixer interface when you run Audio MIDI Setup.

Again, you can go back to terminal and turn GateKeeper back on, if you'd like:

sudo spctl --master-enable

I think you need to restart for that to take effect. Now everything is back to normal except that you have IFFWDMmkII.kext installed. There are no other permanent side effects, and if you mistype you'll most likely get an error and it won't do anything, just type it again correctly.
Click to expand...
Did you succed running your tascam us 1800 on Catalina with this? I have the same interface
 
I have a DM-3200 with IF-FW/DM mkII interface. Yes, it works fine after installing the kext.
 
Jerry Lumpkins said:
I have a Tascam US-1800 that I just unplugged and put in a drawer. The driver appears to load with Catalina, but, no sound is produced. It doesn't appear that they have any intention of updating the driver, so, it's probably a dead product.
Click to expand...
Have you succed?
 
earlevel said:
Finally, I can confirm that it's possible to use the FireWire interface from the Catalina, and further from a 2019 Mac Pro (aka 7,1). I'm using the Apple TB3->Tb and TB->FW800 adaptors. Even without the kext installed, you should be able to check "About This Mac" and see the card connected when you check FireWire. But it won't show up in Audio MIDI Setup or your favorite DAW without the kext.

Don't use the driver installer, or at least avoid it. If you don't have a copy of the drive itself (IFFWDMmkII.kext), you could install it and then retrieve it, probably the easiest way to get it out of the installer, but might need to do some work to back it out and put it in correctly.

The bottom line is that if the Mac hasn't popped up a dialog telling you that if would really want to install it, you'll need to do it in Security & Privacy panel, then it hasn't been installed right.

You could copy and transfer IFFWDMmkII.kext from /Library/Extensions in your old computer. Don't install it yourself, though. If the command shell makes you nervous, there is a tool for Hackintosh use, Hackintool, that will do these same steps for you plus a few more just in case.

You need to disable Gate Keeper and mount the System Partition as read/write; in Terminal:

sudo spctl --master-disable
sudo mount -uw
sudo killall Finder

Then copy the kext. you can type "sudo cp -R " and fill in the path to the kext by dragging it into the Terminal window, then finish typing the rest of the copy command (/Library/Extensions); here I've assumed you put it in your user Downloads folder:

sudo cp -R ~/Downloads/IFFWDMmkII.kext /Library/Extensions

Here are some safety things, the most useful being to make sure the user:group is root:wheel (this will hit all extensions), and ensure the permissions are right too:

sudo chmod -v -R 755 /Library/Extensions
sudo chown -v -R root:wheel /Library/Extensions
sudo touch /Library/Extensions

Then, you need to rebuild the kext cache:

sudo kextcache -I /

Finally, restart your Mac.

If anything goes bad, or you tried to installed in a way that didn't work before, you'll get errors until you back it out. Removing the kext from /Library/Extensions is not sufficient, you'll need to remove it and run the kextcache command. Extensions are staged in /Library/StagedExtension/Library/Extensions, which looks like a copy of the /L/E directory, except that you can't remove the files directly. So, if it gets built with the wrong status, all attempts at installing the kext will fail. I initially got most of this info from https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/...an-sierra-high-sierra-mojave-catalina.268964/ but was stuck at that point with it failing till I figured the rest out. Note that link is largely Hackintosh oriented, so it might be confusing.
Click to expand...

Thanks for your instructions!

I am trying to install the IFFWDMmkII of my DM3200 on a 16 "MacBook. Catalina was already pre-installed, so a downgrade to Mojave is not possible. I restored my data from a Time Machine backup and the migration assistant. So, the kext was already in the extensions folder after restore. So far, a lot has worked, but unfortunately the DM3200 or the interface does not want to. I have adapters the same as you.

The kext was already in the extensions folder I followed your steps with the terminal and the kext. This doesn't work. Unfortunately - before I found this forum post and your instructions - I already used IF-FWDM_MKII_188754_Installer.dmg. What could I do now to uninstall the installer? do you know the terminal commands for it? or what other options do I have?
 
Last edited:
I suspect your problem with the kext is that it doesn't have the right user:group, and possibly permissions. That's what I found when I ran the installer before figuring out the issues.

If you want to check (you don't need to), use the command

ls -l /Library/StagedExtensions/Library/Extensions/IFFWDMmkII.kext

This is how it should look if it's correct, but yours probably won't have "root wheel" and maybe not the correct permission bits:

drwxr-xr-x@ 3 root wheel 96 May 17 21:52 IFFWDMmkII.kext

I'm busy right now and can't test this, so this explanation might be a little longer than it need be, but I want to make sure the job gets done...

Basically, when you put something in /Library/Extensions, it gets copied to /Library/StagedExtensions/Library/Extensions. So, if you have one with permissions that won't work in the latter, it won't get replaced by one with the correct permissions unless you flush the old one out first. But you can't just delete this file directly.

I think you just need to make sure IFFWDMkII.kext is deleted from /Library/Extensions, then rebuild the cache. (I don't think you need to logout or reboot between any of these moves, but that's the only thing I'm not 100.00% sure of, as far as getting rid of the old kext.)

sudo kextcache -I /

Do the ls command (or just look in StagedExtensions...), the kext should be gone. Then follow the instructions I gave previously. Mainly, you just need to modify the group and permissions of the kext (the chmod/chown/touch hits the entire /Library/Extensions directory, but you could do it to the kext alone). Then run the kextcache command again. You should now see the kext in StageExtensions. I think you need to reboot to load the driver, but it should be working at that point.

Let me know if any of this doesn't work for you.
 
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First of all:
Many, many thanks again for your feedback!
Great that we hold DM users together! :)

Unfortunately, that didn't work.
But: Maybe I'm doing something wrong !?

So:
For the first time I checked what happened to the staged extension.
KEXT was featured in Library Extension and also in StagedExtensions.

I then deleted it from the Library-> Extension folder and had it reloaded with kextcache -i /.
After that it was also deleted from the StagedExtensions / ... folder.

Then I followed your instructions exactly (as I did before!)
Of course, I also restarted the Mac. Unfortunately nothing … :-(

What could I have done wrong?
Do you have another idea?

honestly - you are my hero if we can do it. ;-)
I will be happy to give you a tip if you want! :)

Best,
Alex
 
OK, I think you might need to reboot after you get to the point of having removed the kext from StagedExtensions. But if that doesn't do it, please show me the output of the two commands after installing:

ls -l /Library/Extensions/IFFWDMmkII.kext
ls -l /Library/StagedExtensions/Library/Extensions/IFFWDMmkII.kext

And maybe do a Get Info on the kext and tell me the version it shows.
 
Yes, I had already reboot after resetting the kext cache. So I don't think it's because of a restart. I followed everything of your instructions and reset the KEXTCACHE. Then I rebooted and entered the last two commands. Look here:

AlexandrsMBP: ~ Alex $ ls -l /Library/Extensions/IFFWDMmkII.kext
totally 0
drwxr-xr-x @ 5 root wheel 160 17 Jun 01:29 Contents
AlexandrsMBP: ~ Alex $ ls -l /Library/StagedExtensions/Library/Extensions/IFFWDMmkII.kext
totally 0
drwxr-xr-x @ 5 root wheel 160 17 Jun 01:29 Contents
AlexandrsMBP ~ Alex $


What do you think?
 
Remote assistance perhaps? Just a thought!
 
Oops, meant “ls -lR”, but that’s close enough, looks like you have the right permissions and user:group. But you missed my request for a Get Info” of the file.

The fact your StagedExtentions kext has the right permissions/group means you did that right. At this point it might be something other than the kext installation.

You are using the Apple adapters for Firewire? You should be able to look at your hardware/FireWire (about this Mac), and see the interface card reported (whether or not the kext is installed). Verify that too. Oh, you can also disconnect and reconnect the cable.
 
earlevel said:
OK, I think you might need to reboot after you get to the point of having removed the kext from StagedExtensions. But if that doesn't do it, please show me the output of the two commands after installing:

ls -l /Library/Extensions/IFFWDMmkII.kext
ls -l /Library/StagedExtensions/Library/Extensions/IFFWDMmkII.kext

And maybe do a Get Info on the kext and tell me the version it shows.
Click to expand...

… you can see the whole headache scenario in this screenshot …
https://ibb.co/bH0LkXB
 
earlevel said:
Oops, meant “ls -lR”, but that’s close enough, looks like you have the right permissions and user:group. But you missed my request for a Get Info” of the file.

The fact your StagedExtentions kext has the right permissions/group means you did that right. At this point it might be something other than the kext installation.

You are using the Apple adapters for Firewire? You should be able to look at your hardware/FireWire (about this Mac), and see the interface card reported (whether or not the kext is installed). Verify that too. Oh, you can also disconnect and reconnect the cable.
Click to expand...

@earlevel: Would it be possible for you to take a look at it with Teamviewer or something? No joke: I would pay you that for sure! This would safe my studio business for the next few years. :)
 
earlevel said:
Oops, meant “ls -lR”, but that’s close enough, looks like you have the right permissions and user:group. But you missed my request for a Get Info” of the file.

The fact your StagedExtentions kext has the right permissions/group means you did that right. At this point it might be something other than the kext installation.

You are using the Apple adapters for Firewire? You should be able to look at your hardware/FireWire (about this Mac), and see the interface card reported (whether or not the kext is installed). Verify that too. Oh, you can also disconnect and reconnect the cable.
Click to expand...


Yes, of course, I ordered the adapters TB3-> TB2-> and TB2-> FW directly from Apple with the Macbook. But as you can see in the screenshot: The FW card is recognized. Actually, i think it should be a driver thing ...
 
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