PT 2020.12.0/MacOS Catalina and the HD Native/HDX Driver

[jeff markham]

Hi,
Hopefully can save you a bit of time if you've been having trouble getting the HD_Driver_2020 to take. While the driver appears to install correctly, it will not load when booting.

Firstly, in the MacOS platform release notes, there is this:

HD Driver may not load on macOS Catalina after installing Pro Tools (PT-257898)
When installing Pro Tools version 2019.12 and HD Driver version 2019.12 or later on macOS Catalina, HDX cards may not be detected
when rebooting the computer. To correct this issue, do one of the following:
• Manually load DigiDal.kext after every boot; Launch the Terminal and enter:
sudo kextload /Library/Extensions/DigiDal.kext
• For a more permanent solution, force an update of the pre-linked kernel via Recovery Mode in the Terminal:
touch -c "/Volumes/Macintosh HD/System/Library/Extensions"

What it fails to mention is that you'll need to reboot in recovery mode (Cmd-R), go into "Utilities" and choose Terminal.

In the terminal enter:

csrutil disable

This will disable the System Integrity Protection (SIP). You'll then need to reboot in normal mode and do the:

sudo kextload /Library/Extensions/DigiDal.kext

This will load the HD kernel extension.

If you start Protools and go to "Setup->Playback Engine", you should now see HD Native or HDX depending on your system. You can use Digitest as well.

You can also do the "touch" step from above rebooting in recovery mode (Cmd-R) and bringing up the terminal. Rebooting in normal mode may take a little longer as it builds the "pre-built" kernel.

It is not recommended that you run with System Integrity Protect disabled, so you'll need to do:

csrutil enable


Oddly, the latest security update that Apple released (which took an incredibly long time to install) undid the kernel extension load and I had to re-do the (above) steps again.

This is certainly not optimal and I hope Avid addresses these Catalina issues soon.

jeff