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MacBook Pro with Dell TB16 Thunderbolt dock

So, this does not work. If I understand correctly there is a mismatch between what Apple has approved of hardware/thunderbolt peripherals and this certain hardware device.


I also understand there is a "hack" floating around to bypass this apparent software/driver mismatch.


Dear Apple, I have paid a lot of money to have both a MacBook Pro with USB type C Thunderbolt ports, and also this Dell TB16 Thunderbolt dock. When will you update your software so that I can actually use them as intended?

MacBook Pro, iOS 10.3.1

Posted on May 4, 2017 11:01 PM

Reply
22 replies

May 14, 2017 5:26 PM in response to stressball

For what it's worth, The Dell WD-15 Dock works quite nicely as does the DA200 (great for travel). Perhaps you could work out an exchange with Dell? the WD-15 is USB-C / displayport, not thunderbolt though and only supports one display out on the Mac which might be a deal breaker.


I have just received a new TB-16 dock for testing and the MacBook reports it as "unsupported". Hopefully it's only a driver issue as I'd like to test it out.

Aug 10, 2017 12:35 AM in response to Philip Saunders

GitHub - KhaosT/tb3-enabler: Enable Thunderbolt 3 for unsupported peripherals on macOS


Run at your own risk. And be aware:


I would recommend you keep an extra backup of IOThunderboltFamily.kext even though the script is supposed to back it up. You also need to disable SIP in order to run the patch, which leaves your OS more vulnerable and you should remove the patch each time you update your OS (from 10.12.x to 10.12.x+1) and reenable it after the OS is updated. Also wait for the tb3-enabler to get new commits for the latest OSes.


Good luck 🙂

Aug 18, 2017 10:52 AM in response to stressball

Did anyone tried the patch in a MBP 17 with 10.12.16? It didn't worked with me.


I plugged the device and confirmed it show in system report as unsupported, but after the sis/patchreboot the TB16 did not appeared in the Thunderbolt list.


Another interesting thing is that even after I restored the original file, it don't appear anymore at the list.


Anyone had better luck with this configuration?

Aug 23, 2017 10:09 AM in response to Kenneth Andre

I just tried a fresh OS installation but the TB16 didn't appear anymore. I managed to change to a new one from DELL but the same thing happened.


Status was:


target:patched, 10.12.6 (16G29) backup:original, 10.12.6 (16G29)



It appeared in the list but didn't appeared anymore after the patch, even if I use the restore option. Maybe a permissions issue?


Can someone with 10.12.6 check if the permissions for /System/Library/Extensions/IOThunderboltFamily.kext/Contents/MacOS/

are correct?


-rwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 1177472 Aug 23 13:40 IOThunderboltFamily

MacBook Pro with Dell TB16 Thunderbolt dock

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