MP 7,1 HighPoint Drivers and Big Sur

[G10]

HighPoint driver v1.1.26 seems to be working fine with MacOS 12.1.

Hi @Bggale - I am having some difficulties I am wondering if verified the driver status.
When I first installed the driver in admin mode I was able to update the driver from 1.1.20 to 1.1.26.
However, when I checked the extension the driver showed updated but not loaded.

In the installation guide

Can you verify if your drivers show as loaded = YES
I went to system preference> Security and Privacy and here I was promoted to install
After being allowed the install, i was promoted to reboot and now my OS is stalled halfway.

Did you have any issues a such.

 

[Bggale]

Yes - my HighPoint NVMe extension shows loaded.
Did you re-start yet? Often, when I update my OS or the HP driver, the first boot does not load the HP driver. I click 'Ignore' three times for the unrecognized MVMe drives in my RAID, and after all has loaded, restart. That usually fixes it.
If not - do you have any obsolete/old third party extensions that might be interfering with your HighPoint one? I found and deleted like 40 of them from my /Library/Extensions/ folder (in Finder, click 'Go => Go to Folder', and type /Library/Extensions/), and not only did it eliminate a conflict with the HP driver, but it also made my Mac boot MUCH faster. To be safe, I moved the extensions to a 'Disabled' folder I created there. Note that when you move them, they will actually copy, and you will have to then delete them from the Extensions folder. Also note that this folder contains mostly third party extensions - I found one Apple one there that it would not allow me to delete, so I assume it needs to be there.

 

[G10]

View attachment 1928559 Yes - my HighPoint NVMe extension shows loaded.
Did you re-start yet? Often, when I update my OS or the HP driver, the first boot does not load the HP driver. I click 'Ignore' three times for the unrecognized MVMe drives in my RAID, and after all has loaded, restart. That usually fixes it.
If not - do you have any obsolete/old third party extensions that might be interfering with your HighPoint one? I found and deleted like 40 of them from my /Library/Extensions/ folder (in Finder, click 'Go => Go to Folder', and type /Library/Extensions/), and not only did it eliminate a conflict with the HP driver, but it also made my Mac boot MUCH faster. To be safe, I moved the extensions to a 'Disabled' folder I created there. Note that when you move them, they will actually copy, and you will have to then delete them from the Extensions folder. Also note that this folder contains mostly third party extensions - I found one Apple one there that it would not allow me to delete, so I assume it needs to be there.

I have tried restarting a couple of times but no luck. I keep getting stuck on this screenshot below
The next and only option I have is I have a backup disk with Mojave on it. I"ll have to boot from that and see if I can get to the extension folder from there...

Thanks for your suggestions.

 

[Bggale]

How long did you wait for that boot to complete? I had the same issue, but I let it go overnight, and by morning, it told me there were obsolete Extensions that it had to disable, and apparently that was why it took so long. If you let it finish, look for the little window that tells you why. There should also be a little window describing each Extension that needs to be updated (a window for each). Another window will tell you to open Security & Privacy to allow some extensions to load. That is how you 'allow' the HighPoint one, once the offending ones are removed.
Trust me - I did manual shutdowns several times before I decided to let that SLOW startup finish, and once I did, I started to get a clue what was going on. Note that this slow disabling process only happens once, until you manually 'allow' those extensions to load. Otherwise, subsequent boots will be quick. Also note that, as I said before, my manually moving almost all the third party extensions to a 'Disabled' folder made my Mac boot much faster. I guess even if they have been recognized by MacOS as needing updating, it still takes time to sort through all of them (I removed a LOT of them).
Also note that I am only guessing as to what, exactly, MacOS is doing here, based on what I've seen, but I did manage to go from a boot that took overnight to one that takes seconds, and I have 12TB of SSDs, 12TB of SATA and 96GB of ram, all of which slow the boot process.

 

[G10]

@Bggale, I just wanted to add that I have the SSD7101A version of the highpoint card if that makes any difference.
So I wanted to report back - when I deleted only the highpoint extensions, I was able to boot back in. It was noticeably faster, However when I tried to reinstall 1.1.26 ... I am back to square one. - stuck on the same screen as above.

I tried installing the 1.1.20 version and got lucky there so with that, I was able to fresh install Monterey.
I am going to take your advice and install 1.1.26 tonight and let it run as long as it takes. . Hope to report on that afterward.

Now to answer your questions, the first time it happened I waited about 45 minutes for the progress bar to move from the halfway point. and not having any experience I decided not to wait anymore and reboot thinking the reboot might kick off faster but nope.... took just as same as it did before and this time I waited 30 minutes before giving up.
again not having any experience and not knowing what the issue is I tried to reach out on the OC thread and had no luck there.

I had a question - You mentioned that you had to remove a lot of the extensions, except those from Apple.
Here is a screenshot of the ones I have, I sorted them by "obtained from" header and I am left with what you see below. These is all the extensions I have outside of the apple extension. Should I delete them or like what you did move to a disabled folder?

 

[Bggale]

You are looking at the extensions from Apple and Identified Developers. None of those should be causing a boot problem. It's the ones from Unidentified Developers that are the problem. Some may be at he bottom of that list (I can't say for sure, because I have disabled all of mine). Look in the /Library/Extensions/ folder. Note that ALL of the extensions in your list have a 2021 date. Look for old extensions in the Extensions folder. They are the ones causing the boot problem, and at least one of them is probably interfering with the HighPoint driver. As long as you move them to a 'Disabled' folder, you can put them back if you have a problem later.

 

[G10]

It's good that I don't have any "Unidentified Developers", so at the moment i have installed 1.1.26 and let the process run..... fingers crossed.

 

[G10]

Update: well, I let the process run overnight, and to my luck, the progress bar is still on the halfway point and nothing.

 

[Bggale]

I would force shutdown, and boot with all extensions disabled (hold the shift key). Then, go look for the one that is hanging your Mac. Again, look in /Library/Extensions/ for ones that are old or obsolete/not needed anymore. Move them to a 'Disabled' folder one by one, or move them all and then move them back one by one. Either that, or if you have a backup, erase and re-install MacOS on that drive, and transfer files from the backup.

 

[G10]

I am just hitting roadblocks after roadblocks. I tried booting withholding the shift key down and nothing. Just blank screen.
I was getting nowhere so I wiped out the drive and did a fresh install of Big Sur 11.0.1 - Installed

On a fresh installed I did the following test -

Installed 1.1.25 and didn't allow System extension in security. ( Ignored the prompt by clicking "OK")
- Rebooted
- After the reboot I when to Security and Made sure App Store and Identified Developers is check and then clicked allow
- Rebooted.
- Everthing worked fine - rebooted couple of times and all worked fine.


Installed 1.1.26 and didn't allow System extension in security. ( Ignored the prompt by clicking "OK")
- Rebooted
- System booted fine and noticeably faster.
- After the reboot I when to Security and Made sure App Store and Identified Developers is check and then clicked allow
- Rebooted.
- System booted up and stalled again on half way progress bar. waited about 30 minutes and nothing.
- Rebooted - via a backup OS and deleted the extension -
- Rebooted and was back in


Now what

 

[Bggale]

When you did your Fresh Install, did you let the installer transfer the files and settings from a backup or other drive? If so - you have an extension conflict like before. If not, and all you have on that boot drive is a fresh Big Sur install plus the HighPoint driver, I don't know why it won't boot with v1.1.26, but if v1.1.25 works, use that. Since I know v1.1.26 came out last March, I KNOW I used it successfully with Big Sur, but I did have an issue with it after I updated to v17 of Parallels (I guess now 2 versions ago). Once the next version of Parallels came out (v17.1) I was good again.

 

[G10]

My installation was fresh off the USB Image with nothing from backup. This might be a stupid question but did you install the raid management tool. I wonder if that would make a difference

 

[Bggale]

I already had the RAID management tool installed, but all it is is a link connecting your browser to the HighPoint card.
I just noticed your signature says you are talking about a 5.1 Mac Pro. You do realize this particular forum is for 7.1s. That is what mine is, so I may have been giving you bum advice. I never had my SSD7103 in my 5.1 Mac Pro.

 

[G10]

Oh man, I didn't realize that this was for 7,1 I just did a forum search and posted my issues without looking
but at least I got to know about those extensions and how to work around it.


Thanks very much, @Bggale for your assistance thus far.

 

[Bggale]

I did not mean to suggest that you leave this forum - I am just another member no different than you. I was just pointing out that some of the suggestions I made may or may not apply in your situation, since I am looking at a different hardware (and possibly software) configuration. If you do choose to move our 'discussion' to a different forum, leave a post here so I can follow you. One argument for doing so is that you may get advice there from others in your exact predicament, and they might be able to give you better advice than I have.

 

[G10]

oh, no I understood what you meant. I should have been a little more diligent on my part...once I find a solution I'll post back. but so far it doesn't seem like I am making any progress.

 

[Bggale]

I finally tried HP driver v1.1.29 on my 7,1 Mac Pro. Works fine with Mac OS 12.1. Still can't get it to work on my clone drive - it still has an extension conflict disabling the driver. Odd since this drive is cloned from the boot drive with no such conflict. Still trying to figure this out...

 

[lbeale]

I'm also fine with 1.1.29 on 12.1. No issues at all after the update...

 

[Bggale]

HP driver v1.1.29 appears to be working fine with Mac OS 12.2.

 

[MarkSt]

I already had the RAID management tool installed, but all it is is a link connecting your browser to the HighPoint card.
I just noticed your signature says you are talking about a 5.1 Mac Pro. You do realize this particular forum is for 7.1s. That is what mine is, so I may have been giving you bum advice. I never had my SSD7103 in my 5.1 Mac Pro.

I have a request if you had the time

I have a very similar setup to G10 above who you were trying to help - I was hoping that you could share a screenshot of the V1.1.29 in System Report Extension screen from a working 7.1 with the HighPointNVMe.kext.

I wanted to see what path the extension was loaded into since I have several Extension folders when I browse with finder. I have a fully functional Big Sur installation running whenever I remove the HighPointNVMe.kext so I wanted to see if the installer is locating it to the same Extensions folder running on our 5,1 OC installations that are spoofing a 7,1

 

[Bggale]

No problem.

 

[Bggale]

HP driver v1.1.29 appears to be working fine with Mac OS 12.2.1.

 

[Grumply]

Where can we download the latest drivers and WebGUI build? I can't find them anywhere on the Highpoint website (and I've already wasted half an hour searching).

 

[Bggale]

Right here:

SSD7105 | HighPoint Technologies, Inc.

SSD7105 is a Bootable 4-port M.2 NVMe RAID Controller, no bifurcation, standalone solution, with dedicated PCIe 3.0 x16 to deliver up to 14GB/s of transfer speed.

www.highpoint-tech.com

 

[Bggale]

HP driver v1.1.29 appears to be working fine with Mac OS 12.3.