Box Drive's system extension failed to load

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Regina Marie Henson - depro on 05-13-2021

Message:

Box Drive's system extension failed to load. Please make sure it has been enabled in System Preferences > Security & Privacy and then restart your computer. 

 

Followed instructions, still unable to run Box Drive

 

Platform: MacBook Pro, macOS Big Sur, M1 Chip

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292 comments

Date Votes
  • Curtis Frazier

    I have. They asked for some logs, that I provided, but nothing substantial has come from it. I ask for updates daily.

    "Currently we don't have any updates to share, as our engineering team is still underway investigating this."

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  • Tan Sharma

    I haven't, then again I haven't had a change to test it on M1. I'm pretty sure that Box will need to release a new KE/SE like Curtis said. This would also explain why whitelisting the bundle and team ID via MDM is having no impact. Even for Intel machines, box.fs is in the wrong location so would never load. 

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  • Tan Sharma

    Looks like you'll need to provide the solution to Box, Curtis. 

    Just tested my "temporary fix" on another intel machine and I can get it to work consistently, survives reboot too.

    Box need to release a new installer that has a universal binary which gets put in one of the following locations before being loaded (I've removed the Apple Internal folders from the list): 

    /System/Library/Extensions

    /Library/Extensions

    /System/Library/AuxiliaryExtensions

    /Library/StagedExtensions

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  • Curtis Frazier

    Here's a new response I received:

    Hi Curtis,

    Thanks for checking in here.

    We currently cannot provide an ETA for a solution on this, as the nature of solving these types of software issues bodes to be a time and resource consuming effort to remediate. 

    I do want to make clear here that this issue affecting some users with Big Sur installed on Intel machines is only affecting a small subset of users with Box Drive installed in this OS. Box Drive is working as expected in most Big Sur environments. Given that there are an infinite number of variables that can change from one machine to another based on the configuration of the their environment and OS, our engineering team cannot guarantee to have tested every possible combination of these variables.

    I can also share that unfortunately the current version of Box Drive is not compatible with the M1 chip in Apple's new Macbook Pro, Macbook Air, and Mac Mini. Our engineers are working on developing and testing a version of Box Drive that will be compatible with Apple Silicon. In the meantime and for the foreseeable, users on M1 machines will need to access their Box content via the webapp by logging into app.box.com/login. 

    Although these releases were no surprise, the large level of technical intervention and troubleshooting needed to ensure a seamless transition of our applications for not only one of the largest OS updates Apple has done in years, but also their complete redesign of their chips at the core of their machines, is a large task for our engineering team to undertake. They are currently making progress in both of these areas, and I will share with you an update on the issue affecting Big Sur users once I have received one from my engineering team.

    Thank you for your patience with this issue.

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  • Tan Sharma

    Thanks Curtis, thats good to know. 

    Odd that they believe box drive is working as expected on Big Sur. I have a 100% success rate in the Application Failing on Big Sur. Clean install on a BS machine has not worked for me since 11.0.1 was released.

     

     

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  • Curtis Frazier

    Tan,

     

    I had been running the BS public beta on my MBP (Intel) and Box Drive ran just fine. It seems to be an issue for BS clean installs, migrations/upgrades seem to be working okay.

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  • Tan Sharma

    Thanks Curtis

    I've noticed that too, but that isn't ideal. We offer Box Drive as an optional install and with users upgrading to Big Sur we're going to end up with inconsistent behaviour across our fleet. 

    For now we're recommending users just use the web client if they didn't have box drive installed prior to a BS upgrade. 

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  • Nate Borland

    There was a Big Sur issue that required the Python fix that has been well-documented elsewhere.

    This is a separate, M1-specific issue. Box Drive relied on osxfuse.kext, which is incompatible with M1. The developer of osxfuse (https://osxfuse.github.io) also provides macfuse, which is a Universal binary and compatible with M1. 

    Who knows if Box plans to completely redo Box Drive in Universal or if they are simply going to drop macfuse in place of osxfuse. Either way, the wait is getting old.

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  • Tan Sharma

    Interestingly the Python fix didnt work on my Intel Mac running Big Sur. The issue came down to the kext being loaded from the wrong location. Hopefully, we'll get a universal app at some point. 

    I was directed to this comment about macfuse yesterday in the MacAdmin slack channel: "The license has changed. Starting with the 4.0.0 release, redistributions bundled with commercial software are not allowed without specific prior written permission. This includes the automated download or installation in the context of commercial software." 

    So entirely possible that Box need to look at issues around commercial licensing as well. 

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  • Charles Nailen

    Add me to the queue as well. Big Sur, M1 chip, clean install and no luck.

     

    Put in a support ticket 4 days ago, no response.

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  • David Hood

    I use Box Drive heavily for work, I have just upgraded my at-home setup to Platform: Mac Mini, macOS Big Sur, M1 Chip.

    Not having the support for Drive is a killer for me.

    I am tempted to go back and put my old 2014 iMac back in due to the productivity loss not having Drive support.

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  • Curtis Frazier

    Same for me David. I installed Box Sync until Box Drive has been updated. It’s just not the same. So many different files to sync, it’s a real hit to productivity.

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  • Daniel Feodoroff

    I had issues with Box Sync so I decided to look for something else. Try using Cloud Mounter off the App Store, works super well and a lot better than sync.

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  • Brian Cheng

    Daniel, just tried Cloud Mounter, it works like a champ and able to sync with multiple cloud providers like Google Drive, Onedrive, Dropbox too.

    Thank you for your recommendation!

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  • Robert Kenig

    @Tan Sharma fix worked for me as well on intel mac

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  • Duncan Northern

    You can add my voice to the frustration. Need Box to get on it and provide the fix. 

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  • John Herring

    Same issue. New mac mini. Add me to the list. 

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  • David Hood

    FYI I have a ticket raised and have recently supplied some terminal data so BOX can review the issue.

    Will keep you posted if I get anything back.

    Interestingly they also asked for my BOX Drive log files, which as I cannot run the app. noy sure how I could even supply those?

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  • Nate Borland

    I provided the same information to them a week ago. I was hopeful that meant they would actually use it. A week later, all I've received is "our engineering team is working on it" with no estimated time to complete the fix.

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  • David Hood

    @Nate, so who knows how long it will take them to work out how to fix it?

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  • Bart Catrysse

    Waiting for box before upgrading to M1. Add me to the list of impatient users...

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  • Curtis Frazier

    Received the following update to my ticket today:

    Thanks for that insight into your environment. Since you aren't experiencing this issue in an Intel environment, and Box Drive in M1 environments isn't currently supported at this time until a future release, I'll be closing out this ticket since there is no further troubleshooting we can undertake here. 

    If you have any other questions/issues in the future, don’t hesitate to file a ticket with us at support.box.com - We’re happy to help.

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  • Nate Borland

    I didn't expect Box to turn to blaming the customer instead of fixing the problem. That's unfortunate.

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  • Curtis Frazier

    Apple gave plenty of time, resources and tools to make this a smooth process. If they told us hey we tried to get a Developer Transition Kit but couldn’t, I would have pity. So far they just look very unprepared and opaque as to a resolution timeline. Just saying it’s unsupported is not acceptable as a paying Enterprise customer.

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  • Derek Myers

    Any thoughts on Box alternatives that are working with M1? We've been eyeing a move to Google Drive and maybe now's the time...

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  • Bart Catrysse

    Good customers complain, most customers just switch. You'll only notice after subscription periods end and customers don't renew, because they are happy with some other cloud service. 

    Perhaps the M1 customer base is deemed unimportant. If M1 customer based does is important, pressure will only rise is time goes by. As the late William Deming said, survival is not mandatory. 

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  • Tan Sharma

    @Derek I'd test Google Drive File Sync before you switch over.

     

    Last I checked it had a similar issue. GDFS has the kext in the Application folder along with a script that loads it. On an Intel machine you can call the kext from the recommended location (either copy it over or symlink and load). Having said that I don't think that's compiled for ARM either and rosetta will not translate the kext so it's quite likely that GDFS will fail on M1 devices as well. 

     

     

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  • tim gauthier
    • Edited

    Tan Sharma, 

     

    Could you paste in here the method you used to copy files over? 

    Here is what i get;

     

    Hoping to finally fix this Box Drive issue today after weeks of back n forth with the box support team.

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  • Tan Sharma
    • Edited

    Hi Tim,
    The process I used is on page one, this link should work: https://support.box.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/360051323454/comments/360013689894

     

    also, you’ll either need to use sudo or elevate to root. The directory you’re copying to is owned by root.

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  • Tan Sharma

    Hi Tim, you just need to re run your command with ‘sudo’.

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