Firewire issue after installing Lion

While my WD Studio II was just fine after update to Lion, updating the actual WD firmware and drivers caused the familiar problem where the drive wouldn't be recognized through FW 800 but work just fine through USB. Following these directions to reset the iMac peripherals did the trick.

Thank you

I have a similar issue using FireWire audio devices with a MBP (2010) and logic/iTunes Motu/MACKIE/behringer:

It randomly stops working - to make it worse, sometimes makes an awful noise until I switch it all off!

When recording live performances and mixing down using amazing yet v expensive speakers that have to be sent around the globe if I blow the tweeters, this is very frustrating, not to mention UN-"fit for purpose"!

This seems to be a wider 'FireWire' based issue than HD, Audio device, driver, etc issue.

Any polite pointers would be greatly appreciated.

Many thanks.

That's very frustrating indeed... The majority of issues lie with FireWire HDD's, but unfortunately, yours is a clear example of one that hasn't got anything to do with HDD's at all. Have you tried carrying out an SMC/PRAM reset after this started happening? That seems to do the trick for me.

The only difference between my case and those of the other users on within this topic, is that I haven't even upgraded to Lion (i.e. I still run Snow Leopard). For the remainder, my issues seem to be exactly identical to those described in the topic.

The WD Passport drive seems to have an issue of its own, so FireWire support on OS X wasn't to blame for that, but if issues arise with any other drive, they generally desist when I reset the SMC.

I would love to upgrade to Mountain Lion in order to finally start using iCloud to the full, but fears for similar issues really can stop me acting on this desire. That would, however, leave me with a great dilemma: support for Snow Leopard is crumbling rapidly with Apple and among developers, so it would mean I'd have to keep on using older versions of various programs. I wonder if Apple might have changed the FireWire libraries and kexts (again) in Mountain Lion. If they did, I'd certainly hope these changes will put right what has been going wrong for so many of you in Lion, and for me in Snow Leopard.

For purposes of full clarity on the matter, I can assure you that none of the problems occurred for me when using Leopard (10.5). Only to have been continuing to use that would have been the same as committing suicide, because if Snow Leopard is supported dreadfully, surely that's true for Leopard...

csteelooper wrote:

I wonder if Apple might have changed the FireWire libraries and kexts (again) in Mountain Lion. If they did, I'd certainly hope these changes will put right what has been going wrong for so many of you in Lion, and for me in Snow Leopard.

Given the issues are being fixed by firmware patches by drive and enclosure manufacturers, it's nothing Apple should be concerned about.

Clearly the manufacturers screwed up implementation of a particular area of the protocol that Apple decided to use. Inconvenient yes, but not Apple's problem, as the same issues would occur if anyone else's drivers used the same features.

This is why I put 'again' in brackets. I did not want to come across accusatory... I meant to say: 'if they changed anything in the first place, I hope it is corrected in Mountain Lion. However, if they didn't change anything at all, then nothing needs to be corrected'.

What I think actually happened is: Apple didn't necessarily change anything to the libs/dylibs/kexts, except: formerly, Apple allowed, but didn't approve, the usage (or omission) of certain code to address functions within the FireWire protocol. As of Lion, they might then have become more hard-lined over this, and not allowed such practices to continue any longer. As such, they'll then have disabled this 'misuse' of the protocol. This, then, led to all sorts of devices needing to be updated to comply with the new regulations, or conditions, set by Apple.

It is thus, in a way, comparable to what happened to Time Machine-enabled Network Hard Drives: when you used those with Snow Leopard, things would work fine for the user, except for the fact that an error would be written to the system log. As of Lion, these devices would no longer work, since Apple had made the use of a certain function within AFP MANDATORY for these devices. However, many of these didn't even support said function. Therefore, a firmware update had to be rolled out to customers.

Going on what I've heard and read, I think a similar thing may well be going on with all sorts of FireWire devices.

I am having problems with hooking up my firewire drives and hub. When I connect a single drive it mounts it, when I try to hook up a 2nd, it'll work for a while then it will dismount the drives without me doing anything.

I thought it was a hardware issue, Apple came and replaced the motherboard, but I still could not really use all my firewire drives.

Now i only have 2 firewire devices hooked up, even then they don't work properly. I try copying from 1 device to another, it won't do it, it comes up with errors. ***!!!!!

I am really ****** of and i am actually gonna call Apple again and get them to sort it out. Cos this is getting real stupid real quick.

Come to think of it all these problems started up after I updated to 10.7.3. I even reinstalled the OS hoping it would go back to 10.7 but it reinstalled 10.7.3

Any suggestions or fixes anyone has tried?? Already did the SMC, PRAM reset...... and pretty much everything else.

What versions of OSX are the rest of you guys using???

After hours of work. Lion

10.7.2 firewire 400 works fine and computer (mac pro sleeps normally)

10.7.3 firewire 400 causes the sleep and wake times to be unacceptable.

Something in the update is causing this problem.

Snow leopared works like a charm.

lk

I started having issues right after the update to 10.7 I thought the drive was going bad. I use a 4 TB G-Raid with FW 800 for TimeMachine backups. I use a Mac Pro with plenty of ram. I reformatted the drive in January and thought that took care of the issue. In the last week the drive would mount but not write reliably. I reformatted again and stated a new backup. After 14 hours I still had 296 days until completion. I only have 350 Gb of data.

I think I found a solution. I reset the SMC and (fingers crossed) have not had any issues so far. I am now getting speeds like I should. I did not think it was a FireWire issue until I connected another known good drive and started out with the same issues.

I would recomend that everyone reset their SMC when they upgrade to 10.7 and possibly into the future.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3964

Hello..Having the same problems..LION OSX and have 2 WD externals hooked up..Have been working ok for about 2 weeks and now just disconnect without warning..NOT HAPPY!!! Will keep watching the thread and any solutions would be appreciated!

Thanks!

I use MBP 17" Lion 10.7. and also have some sort of problem with wd passport that I use for TM backup + second partition for client files.... 1. takes for ever to backup

2.using files directly from client back up makes all browsers non responsive, or

3.if I use the same files after I copy them to desktop and disconect the external drive/restart all is good

4. someone mentioned turning of wifi as a possible solution, since my browsers become non responsive I find there may be a connection there (this happens every time I plug in the WD into FW800)...

I am going to test another hard drive that is not used as a TM back up to see if that could cause the problem, time machine is capable of controling wifi communications as well so ther could be the problem.

will let you know results.

OK, tried few things with FW, here are results

1, tried opening file in Dreamweaver from old 400FW external and prewieving the file in 3 browsers FF, Safari and Chrome, all worked great....

2. hooked up additional drive into FW800 (WD pass) and tried the same with different results, while the FF and Safari prewiev worked fine, when i did prewiev in Chrome the comp hangs (i get page not responsive, kill page massage) and after about a min I get

Mind you the file is located on my WD passport and open in Dreamweaver, and dreamweaver is directing the chrome browser to the WD. Now this is the drive that has 2 partitions on it, TM and Client Files, my TN is turned off at the moment.

Definite conflict with Chrome and communicating with external FW drive.... was able to recreate this many times, same result. I believe the time machine partition on the WD passport has something to do with it.

I think trying it with the same drive formated with one partition and no TM backup on there, just client files would establish if the TM is responsible for some of the communication problems between MBP and FW external drives

the picture is missing in above post:

the message was: This webpage is not found, bla bla bla bla

californiak wrote:

OK, tried few things with FW, here are results

1, tried opening file in Dreamweaver from old 400FW external and prewieving the file in 3 browsers FF, Safari and Chrome, all worked great....

2. hooked up additional drive into FW800 (WD pass) and tried the same with different results, while the FF and Safari prewiev worked fine, when i did prewiev in Chrome the comp hangs (i get page not responsive, kill page massage) and after about a min I get

Mind you the file is located on my WD passport and open in Dreamweaver, and dreamweaver is directing the chrome browser to the WD. Now this is the drive that has 2 partitions on it, TM and Client Files, my TN is turned off at the moment.

Definite conflict with Chrome and communicating with external FW drive.... was able to recreate this many times, same result. I believe the time machine partition on the WD passport has something to do with it.

I think trying it with the same drive formated with one partition and no TM backup on there, just client files would establish if the TM is responsible for some of the communication problems between MBP and FW external drives

Dump Chrome and avoid WD drives, life will be more predictable that way.

Sorry, but I just cannot believe Chrome can have any influence in this at all. Chrome isn't part of the OS, and, therefore, needs the OS to get to the hard drive. So, it will call upon the OS in exactly the same way as any other piece of software (neglect to do this would, of course, result in an error). I think this issue lies with WD drives for 100% (that is to say, in Californiak's case). Ok, it might be peculiar for Chrome's behaviour to be different to that of other software, but still, I don't think the essence of the matter is with Chrome. As for WD drives (and especially drives within the Passport series) I have had enough personal experience to last me a lifetime.

As long-time followers of this thread may know, I do NOT run Lion, yet have the very same issues as those listed here. I have had three totally different FireWire drives. All drives were capable of using FireWire 800. Or, at least, that's what looks told me. In case of my iOmega drives, I have had no problem whatsoever. One of them is still working, the other is now disused because of a faulty power supply. That is, in its own, a very sad matter, but apart from that, it has never caused any real issue. Therefore, I've always used these on FW800.

My G-Drive is also working perfectly, apart from some communication halts now and then. It will dismount, but, strangely enough, my iOmega eGo drive, which is bridged to the G-drive, is still available. To get the G-drive back on the desktop, I'll have to unmount the iOmega (logically, not physically) then turn off the G-drive, and then turn that back on. After that, both drives will be back on the desktop.

My WD drive is now in disuse, as it caused nothing but trouble from day one. I have regretted buying it ever since, but as I've bought it in Portugal whereas I live in the Netherlands, going for a refund wasn't a feasible option. The WD drive would mount fine, and data on it could be read, but no more than 500MB could be written to it at any time, no matter whether the individual files themselves were large or small. It seems there was some kind of limit or cap in place for anything over exactly 500MB. On bad days, the cap would be even lower.

Upon seizure, the drive would halt ALL communication, but stay mounted on the desktop. Judging from the LEDs on the front of the drive, one could see it was asleep (like it suffered amnesia -- it just dropped to sleep whilst on shift). However, the drive didn't spin down any of those times. The only remedy was to forcibly detach the drive (i.e. yanking the cable from it). Of course, this would inevitably cause Mac OS X's familiar message to appear, stating the drive had been improperly removed. I quickly came to disregard this message for this drive, however, as at least by doing this, I gained back control over my system.

Once or twice, this drive caused the entire FireWire subsystem to cease functioning until after I'd committed an SMC reset.

For the WD drive, similar issues occurred on FW800 as well as on FW400. On USB, the drive is, at least, somewhat more reliable. Just as long as I prevent it from going to sleep. Because as soon as that happens, the front LEDs freak out and start blinking like crazy (seriously, I didn't think any LED could blink so fast until I saw this for the first time) and the drive says farewell for the day (i.e. it dismounts). So you can imagine I only choose to use that drive if it really is as urgent as can be.

For those of you who might now think that it should be just this particular drive, please stand corrected by me saying that I have had similar issues with no less than 4 identical drives. Fortunately, only the first one is actually mine. I seriously would NEVER buy such a drive again. And PLEASE let this be my urgent advice to any of you out there considering the purchase of a new drive. Avoid WD (Passport) like the plague!

@csteelooper, I agree with you in that it has nothing to do with Chrome.... I use chrome almost exclusively for everything, including phone cals and it works flawlessly. I also believe the issue is with WD in combination with the Time Machine, what I was trying to point out is that if I used external HD without TM partition it worked great with all three browsers, when I used Passport with TM partition it hans my MBP while working with my clients files... I was trying to see if the TM could be the problem why so many people have issues with FW ports in lion.

Certainly the fact that browser (chrome) is affected while using this Passport HD with TM partition on it while it is not affected while using any other HD in the FW port would be suspect. TM is capable of backing up over the wifi/internet so it has the ability to control internet communications, same as any browser does. now if chrome cannot access the Pasport to get the html file on there to render it, maybe the TM is controling that part of IO communication and preventing accidental override or even access to backup files on that passport, hence even tho passport is mountad and visible it is not accessible, locked out by TM so to speak.... and this is the possibility I am trying to investigate.... I will do more test and post results.... next I want to try the same Passport without TM partition on it but first I need to do new TM backup and that takes time I dont have right now. In a few days I will run the test and post, if using the Passport without TM partition will work fine and I can replicate this process few times, chances are it is the TM subrutine in Lion that causes all this trouble with FW communicatios...

I been with mac for over 24 years, working in design field and using every possible mac and hard drive combinations, never ever did I have to figure anything out as far as FW goes, plug it in, format, use.... so this bug is troubling me. And its not only WD, from what I read here its many different makers.... It is not the drives, the communication protocol for FW normalized accross the board, manufacturers, developers, everyone uses the same.... I believe the conflict is in Lion (maybe Snow also to certain degree) with which programs controls the FW communications... and Time Machine is strong suspect in my book...

time will tell...