Third party ethernet adapters not working under Catalina

I am experiencing exactly the same situation with my Cable Matters and Omars adapters and I found your post looking for solutions through the internet.

I am going to try tonight with my original Apple network adapter and I will let you know the outcome.

A solution from Apple would be welcome!

I am having the same issue. I have an LC-Dolida adapter that worked fine before the upgrade to Catalina, but now it won't charge my MacBook Pro or connect to my monitor.

If I connect the original apple charger, it does charge, so I think it is an issue with it recognizing a third party adapter but I haven't been able to find a fix yet online.

I've tried following the directions to reset SMC and have tried all the various ways of powering down and restarting suggested on the reset SMC page, but nothing has worked so far.

I have seen suggestions from people saying that apple support suggested buying a different adapter, but I am hesitant to spend additional money on top of what I've already had to spend just to have the extra ports, especially if there is no guarantee that they will even work at this point.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

UPDATE: I was on chat with customer service and they could only recommend that I bring it in to a service center to have them look at it, but I ended up buying an apple brand adapter and now everything works again. Not sure if there is another work around for third party adapters now since the Catalina update, but I didn't have time to mess with it right now so I ended up just drinking more of the "apple juice". Not sure if that was their intent or not, but chalk another point up for apple. At least it work again now.

Apple cannot solve third-party hardware solutions. It is the responsibility of that vendor to make their product compatible with evolving Apple hardware, and newer operating systems. If they cannot continue support, then they should inform users that their products are no longer compatible.

I was checking with the old Mac original Thunderbolt to Ethernet adapter connected to a Mac original USB-C to Thunderbolt adapter and everything was perfectly working.

I was in the central Apple Store at Milano Duomo people said me that Apple is using hardware checks for their original adapters. Since Apple is not selling a full integrated adapter as the Omars with VGA and Ethernet, I was not able to find an alternative.

I seem to have found a solution for this issue with my 2018 15" MacBook Pro and the Cable Matters model 107024 thunderbolt 3 dock.

I shutdown the MacBook and booted it into safe mode by holding shift when the apple logo appears. In safe mode, the connection still wasn't recognized. While I was there, I attempted to add another network connection, a Thunderbolt Ethernet Slot. That didn’t appear to do anything at all. I then rebooted back into normal mode, and when I checked my network settings, the Thunderbolt Ethernet Slot 1 was there and active. I tried a lot of things before resorting to Safe Mode, so I feel that somehow nudged Catalina into recognizing the connection.

I was also in contact with Cable Matters support. They confirmed and that the dock is Catalina compatible. Anyone who says Apple purposely disabled support for it is misinformed. Hopefully, this info helps anyone else experiencing this issue.

Following this post, I was doing the same test for my Omars USB Type C multiple adapter. After rebooting in safe mode I was not finding the option to add a new Thunderbolt Ethernet Slot so I replicated the existent one but I tried adding also a USB 10/100/1000 LAN slot. After rebooting in normal mode the Omars adapter was perfectly working under the USB 10/100/1000 LAN connection. Unfortunately, my other Cable Matters adapter is still not working, nor for USB 10/100/1000 LAN nor as Thunderbolt Ethernet and I should possibly repeat the same steps for its setting.

However, in the last days I got a reply from sales@cablematters.com: "There is no updated driver for the network adapter.  Would you please delete the network configuration, and reconnect the Adapter to your MacBook to see if it works?"

It seems that following Catalina no standard procedures were available from producers to recover the use of their adapters. Specific support from Apple to identify the optimal procedure would be welcome.

You solved my problem: thanks!

Do you work for Apple or do they pay you to be that rude?

Never talk to Tier 1 support. Always ask for a senior advisor.