Box Drive's system extension failed to load
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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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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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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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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. -
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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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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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. -
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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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. -
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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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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@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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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/360013689894also, 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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