Need to delete/uninstall all traces of Avid/Digidesign drivers and start over

[chucky3000]

My question in short: Where should I look for Avid and Digidesign files so I can trash them and reinstall?
Are there invisible files that I need to reveal with Terminal?
Can I just trash the Avid00Family.kext file? (Or is there an index somewhere that the OS looks at? Will it flip out if a kernel extension is missing?)
I have tried Avid's uninstall tool. It returns an error.

I've found the Avid folder and the Digidesign folder under HD/Library/Application Support
There are also a ton of Avid frameworks in the Library folder.
I don't want to miss anything. I've seen a few lists of files to delete for this sort of thing, but they don't match with what I'm seeing on my system.

Well, I was successfully using my Digi002 Rack as an audio interface for Logic. Well I was until something went screwy with the driver. (Way too long a story to recount here.)
The not too long, not too short version of the story is, the SSD I was booting off went corrupt. I was able to make a clone of it -- sort of. When I replaced the drive, I was able to transfer over the user account from the clone. Most everything worked like a charm, except my interface.
Thinking that all I needed to do was reinstall the driver again, that's what I did. Now, nothing shows up in Logic. Garageband won't even load. When I look under Preferences for audio, it shows two options for the audio interface "Digidesign HW" and "Avid 002 rack." Selecting either choice hangs system preferences and I have to force quit it. AudioMidi Setup shows the two options, too. (Both are greyed out in the MIDI window.)

I am running Yosemite 10.10.4.
This was a clean install, so there shouldn't be any funky legacy cruft. I haven't installed ProTools on this drive yet, so there shouldn't be any application files causing trouble, just the driver.
I installed the drivers from Avid's page here:
http://avid.force.com/pkb/articles/e...411&popup=true

I believe what happened is the first go around, I tried it with the most recent 11.1.3 before the SSD went corrupt then (suspicious of that driver) I decided to try the 10.3.3 version the second time.
Everything must go!

Thanks for reading all this,
Chuck

[chucky3000]

Here is Avid's page on what to uninstall, but I know it's incomplete because I've found a bunch of other stuff not on this list, including a .kext file.

http://avid.force.com/pkb/articles/e...nents-Mac-OS-X

I'm leary of trashing .kext files. The last time I dragged the Avid kernel extension to the trash, the system failed to boot! (I can't be sure if this was because of dragging that .kext out, or if it was that the SSD was failing for other reasons. Coincidences do happen, but I'm suspicious of them.)

[chucky3000]

Here’s what I ended up doing. Maybe it will help someone.
My problem is specifically with the Avid/DigiDesign drivers for the Digi002 Rack audio interface. I think some of my trouble shooting steps can be generalized to anyone who needs to uninstall a piece of software for which the developer does not have a proper uninstaller.

Based on the advice in other posts recommending vendor uninstallers over manual removal, I did try the developer’s uninstaller again. No luck.
That operation failed due to error 5364
http://avid.force.com/pkb/articles/e...364&popup=true

Here’s a forum post from a user listing things they deleted. It’s old (2010) and incomplete. But still gives an idea what to look for where.
http://duc.avid.com/showthread.php?t=261316

Here are two Avid pages that list files to delete and where to find them
http://avid.force.com/pkb/articles/e...nents-Mac-OS-X
http://avid.force.com/pkb/articles/e...ools-Mavericks

The second link is aimed at uninstalling ProTools. But there are files not listed in the first link which are installed by the Digi002 driver installer.
For example:
/Library/Frameworks/AFnd.framework
/Library/Frameworks/CFnd.framework

Neither of these frameworks have Avid or Digi in the file name which makes them hard to find using search tools. I found them by doing Command-Option-I (to have a permanent Get Info box open) then scrolling through everything in the frameworks folder. The Avid stuff has "copyright Avid etc..."

The app EasyFind from DevonTech shows things Spotlight doesn’t. Plus it will let you delete items right from the app. http://www.devontechnologies.com/products/freeware/

Before you start trashing files, make a bootable clone of the drive.

When you’re trying to delete something like this, most of your files will be in the HD/Library. Occasionally there might be something in HD/user/Library. Use extreme care with HD/System/Library.

You’ll need to enter your admin password to delete a lot of this stuff.

/Library/Frameworks/AFnd.framework
/Library/Frameworks/CFnd.framework
/Library/Frameworks/DAE.framework
/Library/Frameworks/DFW.framework
/Library/Frameworks/DHS.framework
/Library/Frameworks/DigidesignFWDriver.framework
/Library/Frameworks/DigiPlatformSupport.framework
/Library/Frameworks/DirectIO.framework
/Library/Frameworks/DSPManager.framework
/Library/Frameworks/DUI.framework
/Library/Frameworks/SystemLink.framework


Now for the kernel extensions
/System/Library/Extensions/DigiDal.kext
/System/Library/Extensions/DigidesignFireWireAudio.kext

/Library/Extensions/Avid00Family.kext


/Library/LaunchAgents/com.avid.00family.helper.plist
/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.digidesign.fwfamily.heler.plist

/Library/StartupItems/DigidesignLoader folder

/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/HAL/Digidesign CoreAudio.plugin

/Library/PreferencePanes/Avid 002 003 Family.prefPane
/Library/PreferencePanes/Avid 003 Family.prefPane

/Library/Application Support/Avid The whole folder*
/Library/Application Support/Digidesign The whole folder

/Users/CharlesSFloading/Library/Application Support/Avid The whole folder

/Library/Audio/MIDI Drivers/DigiDioMidiDriver.plugin
/Library/Audio/MIDI Drivers/DigidesignFireWireMIDI.plugin

/Users/CharlesSFloading/Library/Preferences/com.avid.panel.{F4CDDB0D-C92E-4914-82D7-178F384992DF}.plist

/Applications/Avid 003 Family
/Applications/Avid 002 and 003 Family
/Applications/Digidesign The whole folder

/Users/CharlesSFloading/Library/Saved Application State/ com.avid.app.00family.uninstaller.savedState

/Users/CharlesSFloading/Library/Saved Application State/ com.avid.panel.{F4CDDB0D-C92E-4914-82D7-178F384992DF}.savedState

/Users/Shared/Library/Preferences/ com.avid.device.{F4CDDB0D-C92E-4914-82D7-178F384992DF}.plist
and
com.avid.device.{F4CDDB0D-C92E-4914-82D7-178F384992DF}.1.plist

I suspect there are two of these plist files here because one driver tried to install over another…

I know this isn’t all of it since EasyFind revealed a bunch of invisible items with Avid in the file name. I hate to zap any of this stuff since the OS get’s very touchy about changes to these folders.

Empty the trash.

After you get all this stuff deleted, restart your system and make sure things are working. The restart took a VERY long time.
In fact, what happened with me is, when I clicked restart, the shutdown process took for ever. (In computer user terms, that’s 10 minutes.) So I did a force shut down by holding the power button. When I started up again, it took close to 15 minutes to boot. Fortunately, the progress bar did move a little every minute, so I didn’t do something stupid like shut it down again while it was booting.
All I can guess is that deleting all those files left OS X with a lot of housekeeping to attend to.
Subsequent boots were much faster.

When you are booted up, confirm that things run right. (In my case, then meant checking sound settings panels, system prefs, etc to be sure there was no trace of Avid stuff.)
Once you confirm that, save THIS as a bootable clone before re-installing stuff. You want to have this as a point you can roll back to if you need to.
My back-up/cloner of choice is SuperDuper. The developer has insanely great customer support. Some people prefer Carbon Copy Cloner. But the guy behind SuperDuper saved my butt, big time, so I’m loyal to SuperDuper.

I used the digi driver 11.1.3 installer. Tested GarageBand and Logic Pro. Everything works! Even MIDI, which some folks say they can’t get to work in Yosemite. So Lucky me!

*note: When I emptied the trash, it wouldn’t delete stuff in this folder because it was “in use.” LaunchdDaemon to be precise… After the first reboot, I was able to empty the trash.