Built-in ethernet vanished

Hi Matt,

please check this post, http://forums.macrumors.com/threads/software-update-031-51913-will-break-your-et hernet-driver.1958521/#post-22615494

do you have any idea what should I do with this?

Thanks

Hi Matt,

'boot volume' as in 'Macintosh HD' ?

have you tried it yet?

Sorry for all the newbies questions, I am only good at photoshopping 😀

Thanks Matt. Please update us after you try it.

Edit:

oops, someone tried it and still no success

http://forums.macrumors.com/threads/software-update-031-51913-will-break-your-et hernet-driver.1958521/#post-22615556

error message : "This computer does not appear to have any PCI Ethernet cards installed"

First of all, I am terribly disappointed about Apple that things like this happen. It's simply not acceptable! Today suddenly *PLOFF* my ethernet connection on my almost new iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, Late 2015) was gone. Checked system preferences > network, nope. No more entry re ethernet. Checked ABOUT THIS MAC and guess what: my Mac has no ethernet card… Ooops! 😮 – Did delete the relevant files in /Library/preferences/SystemConfiguration rebooted, negative. No more ethernet. Reset NVRAM but again to no avail.

While calling Apple Support I booted my iMac in recovery mode and kicked off the OSX El Capitan reinstall. That took 45 mins on my iMac. Exactly the time it took for the Apple Support guy to come to the conclusion that he couldn't help and would have to put me through to his boss to go deeper under the hood. The guy I talked to sent me the link to this thread.

I read it through in parallel on my MacBook and told the Apple guy that I didn't understand how to do this. Maybe this is solution for the super-pros. I would consider myself advanced to pro. I didn't get it and neither could the Apple guy explain how to do what Chris suggests.

But you know what? In the end reinstalling the OS did the job. Ethernet is back and back connected. 🙂 Basically, I successfully helped myself while waiting for Apple support to come up with a solution, 47 minutes in total.

Which brings me back to the beginning of this post: Utterly disappointing! What would my wife do in such a situation with her iMac? What would my 80 year old mother do with her MacBook Air? – Yes, dispair and ultimately turn to me… 😮

Really hope you guys at the Apple engineering department come up with a proper fix for this untenable situation asap.

Edit:

oops, someone tried it and still no success

http://forums.macrumors.com/threads/software-update-031-51913-will-break-your-et hernet-driver.1958521/#post-22615556

error message : "This computer does not appear to have any PCI Ethernet cards installed"

The kext cache may still need purged afterwards?

In recovery mode Terminal: kextcache -invalidate "/Volumes/<your boot volume>"

In normal mode Terminal: sudo kextcache invalidate /

It's definitely the same problem. The AppleKextExcludeList.kext version 3.27, dated Nov. 2015, is on my Super Duper backup from just a few weeks ago--AFTER I upgraded to El Capitan. And the problem showed up this morning, and the version in my active system folder is 3.28.1 and dated February 24th, 2016.

I had no idea that Apple was pushing out updates without my knowledge (or permission).

At the moment, it is just a nuisance--I just use it to connect to the Internet, and I enabled WiFi and can live with that.

Can those familiar with Apple's update mechanism tell me: is there a reasonable chance that if I just wait a few days, Apple will fix the error without my needing to do anything? I can follow Matt's directions, but, honestly, typing keyboard commands to copy .kext files into places where Apple doesn't want end-users to copy them is daunting.

Hi folks this solves the problem for me!

http://forums.macrumors.com/threads/software-update-031-51913-will-break-your-et hernet-driver.1958521/page-2#post-22615953

It's the same link share it before in some post here, but in the Thread the user Fropmeister post this solution

It works for me! Hope this help!

I talked to Apple support today and in short here is what is happening:

I apologize that your iMac was affected by this issue. Our engineers are currently working on a software update now that will resolve this

I have wifi, so I will wait for the fix..... I hope soon....

I suddenly noticed after a period of not using iMac since 10.11.3 that ethernet was not working and networking claimed cable was unplugged. Tried many of the fixes to no avail. One was to remove cable and remove ethernet from networking and hope it would auto detect after a reboot. No and ethernet was then not an option to add.

Contacted support and all the suggestions didn't work so it was suggested that I did a re-install of OS X. Not an experienced iMac user as mainly worked on Windows platform. Incidentally I have Parallels installed and that worked happily with the ethernet card OS X claimed wasn't there so not a hardware problem.

Further problem was my router I think is dying and needs replacement and in particular suffers from wireless drop out or possibly its TalkTalk - very likely actually.

After one aborted attempt at re-installation via CMD - R where the wireless dropped out it managed to hold together long enough having left it for probably 5/6 hours only to come back and find all had gone well and 10.11.3 had been installed and apparently everything seemed pretty much as before. It looked like disappointment as ethernet was nowhere to be seen in the networking setup. However this time it was actually present as an option to add which I did. Still no sign of a working ethernet until I used the Advanced option and forced a DHCP renewal.

All now seems well so if all else fails a re-install seems to put things back they way they are supposed to be.

Hope this gives some encouragement to those not adept at hacking!

John B

I have a 2010 27" iMac and a 2016 MacPro, both running 10.11.3. The iMac hasn't been a problem but I lost both the ethernet connections on the MacPro, with 2 reds on the prefs panel. I fixed it by connecting the MacPro as a Firewire disk to the iMac, and copying the AppleKextExcludeList from the iMac. When I rebooted the MacPro both ethernet connections were fine. The WiFi did not give any problems at all.

Hi,

apparently Apple pushed

Incompatible Kernel Extension Configuration Data:

Version: 3.28.2

Source: Apple

Install Date: 2/27/16, 21:28

This solves the problem with the Ethernet port.

Thank you all for the info posted. Very useful indeed.

dp

Any idea how we would go about "pulling" this? I'm afraid I couldn't stand it any longer, because...

...a side effect of no Ethernet is that (!!!!!) I couldn't launch any applications I'd bought from the App Store. Apparently it phones home to check the license and apparently the license is keyed to some piece of information it can't get if the Ethernet driver isn't running.

Basically I took a deep breath and downloaded and ran the installer package Matt mentioned above, and that fixed the problem, but now I have the November 2015 AppleKextExcludeList.kext file and don't know how I can get the updated file.

In Terminal on my MacPro it doesn't show text when I key my password iin and hit Enter either. But Terminal accepted the unseen password and went on with the job. However, it still did not update the list as per the Apple letter.

As of this morning I found that Apple has pushed a new update that fixed the problem. You might have to shut your computer off (not restart) then back on again with the button. Everything is back to normal.

WIlliam, not sure if you saw my earlier post. I have 2 Macs, so I hooked the faulty one up to the other as a Firewire disk, and just dragged the earlier exclude list in manually. It worked fine. Be sure to disable auto updates so you're in control.

Thanks VoxKenny -- haven't tried connecting another computer. The message just above you from plth says Apple has pushed a new update, supposedly 3.28.2 (he doesn't say). I have tried all the Terminal and restarting ideas and still no ethernet. My Incompatible Kernel Extension Configuration Data extension is still at 3.28.1.

Questions for you or others:

1. Sounds like you reverted to an earlier version of the extension? What version number are you running?

2. How long does it take for a computer to receive these "push" updates from Apple?

3. You say to disable "auto updates" -- but doesn't that mean the computer won't receive the pushed update (3.28.2) from Apple?

Thanks for you help.