Thunderbolt Ethernet Adapter stopped working after update to 10.11.2.

Same problem here on my late 2013. In Recovery Mode adapter works (good trick to tell if the hardware is broken). Rolling back via Time Machine to 10.11.1 and adapter works. Reinstalling 10.11.2 and adapter won't work - all my coworkers' MBP-R from different years work fine after the update.

Btw.: not only Thunderbolt Ethernet doesn't work, but the Parallels virtual adapters (for shared and host-only) as well (only bridged mode will work).

Every trick failed until now. And now I will again revert to before the update.

Hello Archer36 and everyone having issues with ethernet adapters functioning on OSX 10.11.2,

I've got the same problem on my MBAir 2012, after having 3 chat session with Apple support, I solved my problem by myself.

During the chat with the support engineer I was told that I should have update the driver of my ethernet adapter obtaining it from the third party manufacturer... At that point I said "oh, no no... this is the original thunderbolt ethernet adapter from Apple" clarifying the misunderstand and then we were continuing with the chat session which was ending one hour after without any solution, but with a notification of escalating the issue to the development.

But I was thinking to the 3rd party adapter... when suddenly, eureka! I have a 3rd party adapter! It is a "Hebron" USB3 hub with an included Gb ethernet port. I don't use it very often because is quite big, but do you know what is the point with it? It doesn't work as well! (hahaha) ...but on the Leicke/Hebron web site for my product (http://www.leicke.eu/en/products/DS38601) found a patch for El Capitan named "DS38601_OS X 10.11 El Capitan Treiber / Driver , Standby Patch" (http://www.leicke.eu/en/documents/download/293/64957c69a57d9fd0406700125730d704). I installed the patch rebooted my MBAir and now thunderbolt ethernet, USB ethernet and the Leicke/Hebron USB3 hub with gigabit ethernet port are all working, all together 🙂
I don't know if you have any third party ethernet adapter device driver installed on your MACBOOK PRO... Think to the possibility that an old ethernet device driver could be currently conflicting with something inside OSX 10.11.2 and updating that driver with a new release could solve your problem as it occurred to me.

Cheers

Hello Archer36,

I want to give you an update about the thunderbolt ethernet adapter issue.

After thinking to have solved the issue installing the update for my 3rd party ethernet adapter that I menth it was responsible of the issue I started to experience another issue with all the ethernet connections.

Practically all my ethernet adapters: apple thunderbolt, apple USB and 3rd party USB, were working for a while after rebooting my MBA, but after a few time they stopped working (they were not showing anymore as connected to the system) and and the only way to use an ethernet cable was to reboot again and again every time it was needed. I assumed that my problem was the same observed by many other people having troubles with ethernet after waking up after sleeping and I tried to apply every kind of possible solution found on the WEB, but without success. During this wide research I noticed that there is a lot of people claiming about many and many problems they have experienced updating to el capitan and even to the latest 10.11.2...

Now I finally solved all the problems with my ethernet adapters disabling the SIP protection that has been added to el capitan in 10.11.2.

Basically I had to boot in "recovery mode" (holding CMD+R at boot), open the utility>terminal and run the command "csrutil disable" from there.

I know that SIP protects you by modifications to the system that has been found has vulnerability of OSX, but on the other side in this way I solved all my problems running that command... I will try to see if 10.11.3 will be able to run with SIP enabled (csrutil enable) and living all my ethernet adapter working without rebooting my MBA every time I need to connect using a cable instead of Wi-Fi.

So, I don't know if you have solved it's or not, it's just to let you know if you need it.

Regards

I have a similar problem after update from Yosemite to El Capitan 10.11.6 (15G31) in my Macbook PRO mid-2014 the Thunderbolt Ethernet Adapter stopped working.

How can I fix it?

I tried to boot in "recovery mode" (holding CMD+R at boot), open the utility>terminal and run the command "csrutil disable" but it didn't work for me.

Any idea?

Is anybody there?

I have written a detailed answer to this question here: https://www.quora.com/How-do-I-get-my-ethernet-adapter-to-work-after-upgrading-t o-Sierra-OS

Good luck!