Need Help making FAMC Editor work in Mac OSX Big Sur

rodzimguitar68

Fractal Fanatic
Greetings. Ever since I've upgraded to Big Sur, my LF Editor will not detect my LF+12+ plugged into my computer and connect to it.

Upon opening the Apple/About This Mac/System Report/USB, I saw a description in the LF device of "Future Technology Devices International Limited". This is a Chinese manufacturer, that probably makes the circuit board of the LF pedal line (although I'm not sure). But this is the description of the device connected via USB.

The reason I am posting this in the forum is in case one of our esteemed Chuckleheads, is computer saavy enough to review the driver's page

https://ftdichip.com/drivers/

And see if there's anything found there that I could install in my iMac running Big Sur, so that the device is recognized and will connect to the editor. And if so, the instructions for a 5 year old kindergartener to follow, so I can load the driver and get my pedal working with the editor again.

Thank you!!!!!
 
Greetings. Ever since I've upgraded to Big Sur, my LF Editor will not detect my LF+12+ plugged into my computer and connect to it.

Upon opening the Apple/About This Mac/System Report/USB, I saw a description in the LF device of "Future Technology Devices International Limited". This is a Chinese manufacturer, that probably makes the circuit board of the LF pedal line (although I'm not sure). But this is the description of the device connected via USB.
FTDI makes USB driver chips. They are rather common in low- and mid-volume specialty devices.

https://ftdichip.com/drivers/

I would guess that if (and that's a big IF) FAMC used FTDI USB chips, you MIGHT be able to use a generic FTDI USB driver and VCP driver layered over it.

That would likely get the lower-layers of the connection made to the OS, but there's no telling whether the FAMC software would recognize it as a LF product.

I am fairly certain from other things I've seen that FAMC requires both the physical layer USB driver and the logical VCP connection (Virtual COM Port). I believe, though, that FAMC has their own named version that the software looks for.
 
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Greetings. Ever since I've upgraded to Big Sur, my LF Editor will not detect my LF+12+ plugged into my computer and connect to it.

Upon opening the Apple/About This Mac/System Report/USB, I saw a description in the LF device of "Future Technology Devices International Limited". This is a Chinese manufacturer, that probably makes the circuit board of the LF pedal line (although I'm not sure). But this is the description of the device connected via USB.

The reason I am posting this in the forum is in case one of our esteemed Chuckleheads, is computer saavy enough to review the driver's page

https://ftdichip.com/drivers/

And see if there's anything found there that I could install in my iMac running Big Sur, so that the device is recognized and will connect to the editor. And if so, the instructions for a 5 year old kindergartener to follow, so I can load the driver and get my pedal working with the editor again.

Thank you!!!!!
OK, I was just able to confirm that the FAMC VCP driver is in fact from the FTDI package. Not sure how to help you get the naming correct, though, for the Software to recognize it - or if the SW can see the physical device through the port and connect.

Hope this is helpful in some way....
 
Looks like the 2xx driver can't coexist with the VCP driver in Apple world, so you have to find the VCP installer and only use that one.
 
Thank you for looking at this. I need help from a high tech member who actually understands this stuff and see if there is a way to accomplish this since FAMC is completely unresponsive.
 
Thank you for looking at this. I need help from a high tech member who actually understands this stuff and see if there is a way to accomplish this since FAMC is completely unresponsive.
FYI - I used to own a data acquisition company that used FTDI USB chips. I've been DEEP into their driver issues, particularly when MS implemented their "driver signing" nonsense.

Sorry if that's not "high tech" enough for you.
 
I apologize. I wasn’t trying to be snarky. I was making a new appeal for direction or instructions I could follow to make it work.

Thank you for your help.
Understood.

What is clear is that you need a FTDI VCP driver that will work within Big Sur. This may be more of a problem than you realize, as it appears to be widespread:

https://hackaday.com/2020/12/03/ftdi-vcp-chips-with-custom-pids-not-working-on-macos-11-big-sur/

https://www.ftdicommunity.com/index.php?topic=547.30

Statements on the FTDI developers forum from last Friday indicate that they do not yet have a solution.

This is not a FAMC problem - there's nothing they could do to solve it, even if they were still responding. This is a problem between Apple and FTDI, caused (apparently) by Apple changing the way drivers IDs are handled in OS 11.

Once FTDI gets this resolved and they have a new VCP driver released, you should be able to load it. For now, though, it appears that you're stuck.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad tidings, but that's the situation. Be aware that you're not alone - anyone using the FTDI USB chips has the exact same problem with MacOS 11.
 
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Big Sur also broke the compatibility of my RAID driver. Fortunately, I bought my M1 equipped Mini as the "replacement" for my existing system, so I can still access my files via a laptop. The 11.3 rev of MacOS is supposed to fix (some of) the driver problems.
 
Thank you for your help. I will check back occasionally for the fix and also hope 11.3 fixes my issue.

I still have my old macbook pro which turns off unexpectedly without warning, and it connects to the pedal. So, I can edit on my iMac and share the editor file in the cloud, then retrieve it from my macbook pro and upload it to the pedal. But this laptop isn't reliable enough anymore to count on if I need to take it to a gig and edit or restore programming or anything.

I had an M1 Macbook Pro on order, but cancelled it a few months ago, partially because one of its main uses for me, would be the LF editor, when gigging, and I knew it was not going to connect.
 
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Hi, I have the same problem. Looks like FTDI have updated their driver on their website. Has anyone tried using it and getting it to work with macOS Big Sur and Liquid foot controller?
 
My LF+JR+ worked over USB with the LF editor on Big Sur 11.5.2 but I had to allow the "Jeff Minushkin" driver in macOS security settings the first time I installed it...keep in mind this was on an Intel device.

***Related: The driver doesn't work on newer Apple M1 devices. You can install the driver and choose to trust it but it still never ever connects. I can see the FAMC driver's .kext file in the Extensions folder but still no boogie to be had with it.

I couldn't even get it to work on a virtual machine running windows 10 or 11 (beta). The LF+JR+ appears in Windows' Device Manager with a yellow triangle. You cannot install the old driver manually.
 
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I am on Big Sur 11.5.2 as @vaultnaemsae with a Mac book pro Intel with my LF+ mini on V6.32 FW version and Driver OS X V4.42 installed and always approved in security settings as you did, but no luck the LF Editor V6.31 do not connect to the LF+ mini. Same driver and editor where working before Big Sur as I updated the FW of the LF+ mini to 6.32.
Well it seems we have lost our money in trusting FMAC that never supported their customers in the right manner despite promising products.
At least we have the best service in the industry from FAS and that's way more important .
 
Almost a year on, is there any progress with this?

Having absolutely no idea what I'm doing, I messed around with replacing the various matching files in the FAMC drivers folder with the Windows 11 ARM compatible "CDM-v2.12.36.4-for-ARM64-Signed-Distributable" content from the FTDI site. This was in a Parallels install of Win 11. Of course, it didn't work. Any ideas on how we, the forgotten by FAMC people, could get this to work?

I also tried to install "FTDIUSBSerialDextInstaller_1_5_0.dmg" in macOS Monterey (M1) and it passed the extension security part but also did nothing. Again, I have no idea what I'm doing and have possibly done more harm than good to my system.

The LF+ is visible in both Windows and macOS in the USB device lists.

I'd really like to resurrect this device to make edits on it without having too borrow an old laptop.

Screen Shot 2022-08-20 at 05.38.17.png


Screen Shot 2022-08-20 at 06.11.33.png
 
So, after reading a load of FTDI manuals regarding the ARM drivers for the FTDI chips under Windows 11 (ARM), I think that the various driver files in the Program Files/FAMC/Drivers location need to be switched out -- and possibly modified -- and the FAMC bus/port .inf files also need to be modified. It's quite confusing to the unintiated but I'm sure a cluey user could do it.

The drivers are universal for all FAMC devices, AFAICT.

Regarding a driver for M1 macs running macOS 11 or 12, I'm pretty sure it is impossible for an end user to fix/create the kernel extension. But I'd love hear otherwise.
 
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I spent some time and seem to have made some very minor progress but have hit a wall.
Below are three images showing the extent to which the FAMC driver installation will execute after incremental modifications.
1. Using standard non-ARM driver - forget it;
2. Using ARM drivers from FTDI's site with self-modified .INF files to reflect the FAMC device IDs from the original .INF files;
3. Adjusted an error in one of the .INF files and added self-modified .CAT files to include the FAMC device IDs. (At this point I also got a message -- call it 2B -- that there was some info missing from the .CAT file so fixed this but forgot to screen shot it). This is when the note on the absence of digital signature information presents.
Any ideas? I'm flying blind here...but those few little steps of progress make me think I might not be far off.
 

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OK, It's doable. My LF+JR+ is recognized, drivers have installed and the device is seamlessly connecting to the 64-bit version of the LF+Editor software on Windows 11 (running in Parallels 17 on an M1 MacBook Air). After modifying the driver files and before attempting installation you must disable driver signature enforcement. This pleases me greatly.
 

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OK, It's doable. My LF+JR+ is recognized, drivers have installed and the device is seamlessly connecting to the 64-bit version of the LF+Editor software on Windows 11 (running in Parallels 17 on an M1 MacBook Air). After modifying the driver files and before attempting installation you must disable driver signature enforcement. This pleases me greatly.
Merry Christmas. Is there any conceivable way to make the editor work on an M1 MacBook Pro without running windows in parallels?
 
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