Wacom drivers hang mojave on startup

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Level 1

7 points

Wacom drivers hang mojave on startup

I installed the latest wacom drivers as of today (6.3.36-2). This forced me to restart the Mac. The startup sequence includes a white bar, which fills up and then nothing else happens. Booting in safe mode doesn't help. Here is the last output from a verbose boot

What do. I can't make the thing work, I can't use my computer.

It's a 2012 retina macbook pro, or was a couple of hours ago.

Been using wacom products for nearly 20 years and never once have they written a decent driver.

Edit, after 30 minutes it did this

MacBook Pro Retina

Posted on Aug 16, 2019 2:41 PM

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Answer 1

Sep 3, 2019 4:22 AM in response to Kurt Lang

Hi – I am having exactly the same problem on a 2013 MacBook Pro 13" (running the latest Mojave version), although the hang while trying to boot in safe mode gives a slightly different set of feedback (see below). Since safe mode hangs, I can't log into anything to try to disable the driver. Did you find a solution beyond a full wipe/reinstall of the system OS?

Thanks much.

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Answer 2

Kurt Lang

Level 9

57,972 points

Aug 16, 2019 2:46 PM in response to haowan

Is that beta? I opened the Wacom Desktop Center just now and it says there are no updates. The version it shows for me as current is 6.3.35-2. But then, the "current" version may depend on which tablet a person has.

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Answer 3

haowan Author

Level 1

7 points

Sep 3, 2019 4:29 AM in response to James Berger

I contacted Apple support who recommended i try a couple of things which didn't work (something about wiping a cache or something).

I booted into recovery mode and reinstalled mojave, thinking it would wipe down the entire machine, but instead it just fixed the os. Everything went back to normal and i daren't try to use the Bamboo with the laptop for now.

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Answer 4

Kurt Lang

Level 9

57,972 points

Sep 3, 2019 6:06 AM in response to James Berger

While it seems pretty clear some folks, such as haowan and yourself are having major issues with the installer, I didn't need to do anything special. I downloaded the update, installed it, and that was it.

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Answer 5

Sep 3, 2019 11:05 AM in response to Kurt Lang

Hi Kurt, Haowan – thank you for your replies. I agree that it sounds like I'll need to do a full reinstall of MacOS and try again.

What makes this interesting though, is that the OSX safe mode is being affected. Safe mode should boot without invoking 3rd party startup extensions/drivers, yet it is getting hung up. While Wacom is likely responsible for crafting a buggy driver, it would seem that safe mode isn't so safe. Perhaps this is a hole that might be of interest for Apple?

One detail to my saga here is that I'm running with multiple user accounts. Booting with the shift key down takes me very quickly to the user login screen, but then I have to sign in as a user and that's when the hang occurs, regardless of whether I hold the shift key down or not after selecting a user and entering the appropriate password. I've tried logging in with different user accounts, and even by booting into Recovery mode, then invoking a safe-mode boot from the Terminal using a [nvram boot-args='-x -v'] command – the hang still occurs.

JMB

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Answer 6

haowan Author

Level 1

7 points

Aug 17, 2019 12:53 AM in response to haowan

Left it going overnight. Looks like airport is trying to do something every now and then but otherwise nothing.

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Answer 7

haowan Author

Level 1

7 points

Aug 17, 2019 12:42 AM in response to Kurt Lang

It's the version that is on the wacom website.

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Answer 8

Kurt Lang

Level 9

57,972 points

Aug 17, 2019 7:13 AM in response to haowan

There it goes. Didn't see a choice for the Intuos PT M in Wacom's site, but as soon as I plugged the tablet in, then the Wacom Desktop Center showed the 6.3.36-2 update.

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