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Level 2

268 points

Firewire issues after Snow Leopard...

Greetings.. I have a first-gen Dual Dual Mac Pro, that is experiencing firewire issues after the 10.6 upgrade.

I first noticed the issue when trying to copy files to a Western Digital Passport 500GB 2.5" external HD. After the Snow Leopard upgrade, the drive is virtually un-usable with frequent hangs when attempting to copy even small files. In addition, I am having an issue where my Sony Firewire external DVD-burner is not recognized after the patch. Hmmm... All is well under USB ironically (Since the Passport has both FW 800 and USB 2 connections)

Overall. I am having real firewire issues after the patch, and it was running flawlessly before the patch.

Anyone else having similar issues? The only thing I changed was my software.

Thanks in advance...

MacPro, MacBook Pro unibody, and many iPods..., Mac OS X (10.6)

Posted on Aug 31, 2009 9:14 AM

244 replies

monsttr

Level 1

0 points

Sep 8, 2009 12:27 PM in response to The hatter

I have a OWC Mercury Elite AL-Pro housing with twin 750GB Drives and it constantly and randomly unmounts in Snow leopard. Also seems to shut down more so saving takes extra time to spin up. Waiting on OWC Support

The hatter

Level 9

60,990 points

Sep 8, 2009 1:29 PM in response to monsttr

Okay, I stand corrected, and this is more than 'surprising.' Total flop would be closer.

In 8 months with Win7 I haven't had anything serious let alone close to this.

carstino

Level 1

0 points

Sep 9, 2009 7:44 AM in response to The hatter

Some problem here with MBpro 3.1 and Lacie Big disk extreme (FW 800). Any solutions so far?
Regards!

Carstino

Chris Heric Author

Level 2

268 points

Sep 9, 2009 9:09 AM in response to carstino

Ok.. I am pretty convinced that this is neither unique to me and it is a legitimate problem. I am ready from Someone from Apple to either actually read this thread, reply to it, acknowledge it, and tell us that they intend to fix it. I have 75% of my storage and peripherals rendered totally useless by this obvious issue.

The hatter

Level 9

60,990 points

Sep 9, 2009 9:29 AM in response to Chris Heric

http://www.apple.com/feedback/macpro.html
http://www.apple.com/macosx/feedback/
http://www.apple.com/feedback/

Do you have a native SATA card like Sonnet E4P and FirmTek 5PM? very solid, reliable, hot swap, single case for 3-5 drives (3-10TB too).

Sep 10, 2009 4:21 AM in response to Chris Heric

I have the same problem. After the Upgrade to "SNOW LEOPARD" my Western Digital "1 TB" My BOOK Studio Edition doesn't work via Fire Wire 800 or 400. I can only use the Ext. HDD via USB.

What's wrong with the Fire wire? As if the FW is not Functioning or Snow Leopard doesn't Recognize both FW 400 & 800.

Anybody, has a Solution?

Frank Strallents
<Edited by Host>

Sep 10, 2009 8:51 AM in response to SHOCKPROOF

Hi everyone,

I have the same issue since I upgraded to Snow Leopard. Everything worked fine on my Mac Mini (early 2009 model) with Leopard installed. I'm using external Freecom firewire drives with Jmicron chipset.

Amaury

davefish

Level 1

4 points

Sep 10, 2009 10:08 AM in response to Chris Heric

I also have two Firewire drives that no longer mount reliably after upgrading to Snow Leopard. For now, I've switched them to USB, but I would prefer Firewire to work. Also my Motorola QIP6200-2 TV tuner from Verizon (connected via Firewire) now does several reboots when I reboot the iMac.

Chris Heric Author

Level 2

268 points

Sep 10, 2009 10:28 AM in response to davefish

I am now beginning to wonder how deeply pervasive this problem is... and how long it will take for some form of acknowledgment from Apple that a problem does indeed exist rather than having the few of us on the forums who are able to diagnose it enough to bug-test this issue. It is a non-trivial bug, and it is happening to a LOT of us... It need to be addressed. Using USB interfaces and avoiding Firewire is NOT an acceptable option.

The hatter

Level 9

60,990 points

Sep 10, 2009 2:25 PM in response to Chris Heric

*"IOFireWireWDHID.kext" not loading after 10.6 or iTunes 9 update*

If you have used a Western Digital Firewire hard drive with your Mac, and have upgraded to Snow Leopard, you may run across an error where the "IOFireWireWDHID.kext" extension will not load.

http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13727_7-10349990-263.html

Sep 10, 2009 5:05 PM in response to Chris Heric

I'll add my $0.02 that my FW hard drive enclosure isn't mounting at all. And my Panasonic PV-GS19 camcorder doesn't connect either.

I haven't used the FW drive in a month, but I NEED TO USE MY CAMCORDER TONIGHT! System Profiler can't identify anything on Firewire, gives an error that firewire devices cannot be displayed.

I'm actually about to install Vista Ultimate with Boot Camp to see if I can get my video imported tonight.

Sep 11, 2009 1:43 AM in response to Funkey Monkey

Hello,

Just to keep you posted: I've upgraded to 10.6.1 and everything is snappy and fast, besides the speed of my firewire 400 drives, argh ! 😟

Amaury

Sep 11, 2009 2:15 AM in response to Mac Mini 2008

Hello,

The problem is finally solved after applying the 10.6.1 update, followed by a NVRAM/PRAM reset !

Amaury

Chris Heric Author

Level 2

268 points

Sep 11, 2009 5:43 AM in response to Mac Mini 2008

I unfortunately encountered no improvement after apply the 10.6.1 patch. I still have erratic at best FireWire access/usage. :-\

Sauri

Level 1

0 points

Sep 11, 2009 5:31 PM in response to Chris Heric

I did update to 10.6.1 and reset PRAM but the problem is still here.

Firewire issues after Snow Leopard...