- The D2XX driver allows direct access to a USB device via a DLL interface. To locate the drivers you want to install for a device, select which of the driver types you wish to use (VCP or D2XX) and then locate the appropriate operating systems. With the exception of Windows 98 and Windows ME, all devices are supported in each driver package.
- Mac OS X Note: The latest FTDI driver (version 2.2.14 or higher) recognizes the Oceanic cable automatically and the procedure below is not necessary anymore. Follow these steps to make the FTDI driver recognize the Oceanic cable.
If you are on a Mac and not able to see the FTDI in your Arduino IDE's listed COM ports, you need to install the FTDI drivers for your computer. When opening the iOS's device manager located in the /Applications/Utilities under the USB tree, the computer was able to see the FTDI.
Comments
Ftdi Driver Mac Os X64
- Since upgrading to OS X Sierra 10.12, I've started using PropellerIDE. (Thanks, Brett, Steve, and Parallax!) Initially I had a problem with the FTDI serial ports, including but not limited to the Prop Plug and my own FT231X boards.
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Thank you Tracy! This problem has been haunting me as well in the exact manner you describe. - I'll get Jeff to take a look at this thread. He's likely up to date on all aspects of it and will have some input. - Ken Gracey
- edited 2017-04-17 - 22:33:12These are links that helped me resolve this issue...
https://forum.arduino.cc/index.php?topic=427825.0 . <-- 3rd comment quotes email from FTDI tech support
https://superuser.com/questions/1135730/how-to-release-reset-serial-port-ftdi-devices-mac-osx
https://discussions.apple.com/message/31195311#message31195311
https://developer.apple.com/library/content/technotes/tn2315/_index.html
http://www.mommosoft.com/blog/2014/10/24/ftdi-chip-and-os-x-10-10/
http://www.ftdichip.com/Support/Documents/AppNotes/AN_134_FTDI_Drivers_Installation_Guide_for_MAC_OSX.pdf - Hi Tracy,
This is a revisit of a long-time problem that, of course, started back with OSX Mavericks. For a long time we stopped including the FTDI drivers with the installers of certain Mac software because of the problems caused, ultimately, by Apple's supplied driver.
It sounds like I need to check this very carefully again (though I recall doing so with Sierra even) because Apple's driver for FTDI devices did not include support for DTR control; an important requirement for programing Propeller's and BASIC Stamps.
In all my testing, I never found there to be a problem on my systems (old and new Mac OSXes) if the FTDI driver was installed, then the system was rebooted; however, based on your experience above, I'm compelled to retest those specific situations again.
I've also tried directly disabling Apple's 'FTDI' driver or FTDI's driver to see the effect.
Our current releases of SimpleIDE and BlocklyPropClient includes the FTDI drivers, but also required a system restart after install to ensure that Apple's driver takes a 'back seat' to the FTDI driver, as Apple intentionally set theirs to a lower priority.
When I get a chance to do this, I may be calling you to compare notes more in real-time. - edited 2017-04-18 - 00:41:06Hi Jeff, Thanks for looking into it; what a mess! It looks like earlier versions of the Apple driver were crippled but have improved with with El Captan and Sierra. The 3rd comment from 'armless' in link I posted above quotes FTDI tech support:
Since 10.9 (Mavericks), OS X has included built-in partial support for some FTDI devices in VCP mode. Starting with 10.11 (El Capitan), Apple's own driver seems to be sufficiently comprehensive that many customers will not need to install FTDI's own VCP unless they wish to use its advanced features such as baud-rate aliasing and configurable latency times.
Such as... ???
My own experience is that the Apple driver does work to reset the Prop in Sierra for PropellerIDE once the doubles issue is resolved. I was using bst in El Capitan, 10.11, after a jump direct from 10.6.8, and it was working, but I didn't keep careful track of anything special I did to tweak the system for the FTDI driver. I would say though it was flaky. Yesterday I built Yosemite 10.10 in a separate partition. But that is still not working, as in no DTR response. I tried renaming the Apple driver as .disabled and FTDI 2v3 installed, but that didn't work. I think. I'll take another look.
I'm puzzled about your observations of a priority in the system's choice of which driver to run. It is strange and I don't fathom the inner workings of the OS. The FTDI driver you download is installed in the user library/extensions, whereas the Apple driver is installed in root library/extensions. - ... because Apple's driver for FTDI devices did not include support for DTR control; an important requirement for programing Propeller's and BASIC Stamps..
Wow, I'm surprised such a variant is even allowed to exist ?
How do the SiLabs drivers stack up on MAC OS's ?
I find these release notes, only broad brush ?
http://www.silabs.com/documents/public/release-notes/CP210x_ReleaseNotes.txt - Wow, I'm surprised such a variant is even allowed to exist ?
How do the SiLabs drivers stack up on MAC OS's ?
I find these release notes, only broad brush ?
http://www.silabs.com/documents/public/release-notes/CP210x_ReleaseNotes.txt
It all seemed incredibly ridiculous and infuriating, yes. And we had it independently verified too, so it wasn't just us having the problem.
I haven't tried the SiLabs drivers. - ... The 3rd comment from 'armless' in link I posted above quotes FTDI tech support
<snip>
My own experience is that the Apple driver does work to reset the Prop in Sierra for PropellerIDE once the doubles issue is resolved. <snip> Yesterday I built Yosemite 10.10 in a separate partition. But that is still not working, as in no DTR response. I tried renaming the Apple driver as .disabled and FTDI 2v3 installed, but that didn't work. I think. I'll take another look.
Yes, I read that too, today; thanks for including those links! That's a big surprise to me because I recently did a lot of development on Sierra. I will try it again.
Here's some copied-and-pasted notes I made to myself a while back. It doesn't all apply perfectly here, but check out the kextstat commands and the kextunload / kextload commands... they will help you in your experiments on your side.
For deep troubleshooting Mac driver issues, here's some notes:* Connect the USB-based BASIC Stamp board to the Mac* Enter:* If all is well, it will report a line of information with the driver listed in reverse-domain form (com.FTDI.driver.FTDIUSBSerialDriver).* If something's wrong, it won't report anything (try rebooting the Mac)
Administrator notes for Mac OS X 10.9 (or above):* FYI: This driver's kext gets stored at: /Library/Extensions/FTDIUSBSerialDriver.kext* NOTE: You can also enable it from a terminal with:* Plug in and power the development board and try thesteps again (above)* If the editor software doesn't recognize the BASIC Stamp, you may need to disable the Apple-supplied driver with the following via a terminal:* And enable the FTDI driver with:* Try thesteps again (above) to verify
Administrator notes for Mac OS X 10.8 (or below):* FYI: This driver's kext gets stored at: /System/Library/Extensions/FTDIUSBSerialDriver.kext* NOTE: You can also enable it from a terminal with:* Plug in and power the development board and try thesteps again (above)I'm puzzled about your observations of a priority in the system's choice of which driver to run. It is strange and I don't fathom the inner workings of the OS. The FTDI driver you download is installed in the user library/extensions, whereas the Apple driver is installed in root library/extensions.
I observed it, yes, but only after trying to do so after noting it in Apple's initial documentation... which may have since changed. Ironically, when I learned of all this, I happened to have the ear of a very great, former Apple employee who sat with me and helped me a tremendous amount, or I'd probably still be somewhat clueless about it! Unfortunately, now it sounds like that's not the case (in Sierra+) and we'll have to do something else again. - I now see the symptoms you mentioned, where things work fine until you unplug the board, then plug back in.
However, if I disable the FTDI driver and let the Apple driver take over, I can't download to the Propeller. I seem to be able to reset the Propeller through proploader, but every download attempt fails.
You're probably using propeller-load. Can you confirm? - edited 2017-04-20 - 00:51:23Hi Jeff,
I've emailed FTDI field engineering. My most recent question was for clarification of the statement 'unless..' in their app note AN_134,
Since 10.9 (Mavericks), OS X has included built-in partial support for some FTDI devices in VCP mode. Starting with 10.11 (El Capitan), Apple's own driver seems to be sufficiently comprehensive that many customers will not need to install FTDI's own VCP unless they wish to use its advanced features such as baud-rate aliasing and configurable latency times.
AN_107_AdvancedDriverOptions
In particular, I was concerned about the handshaking and CBUS lines, and the battery charge control features. The response was,
In your battery charger application, I recommend using the FTDI v2.3 VCP driver. Keep in mind FTDI has control of this driver.
It would make for an interesting lab experiment to see if both drivers support HW handshaking and all CBUS options.
You can determine which driver is currently enabled on your Mac by using the kextstat –a | grep FTDI command. (the kextstat, kextload and kextunload commands could be made into useful AppleScripts for non tech users)
So again it looks safest to rely on the FTDI driver for all OS X versions. Users of Mavericks and up would have to be instructed how to dump the Apple driver for good. The idea of kextunload/kextload via an Applescript after each restart is not appealing. I didn't learn anything about a 'priority' of drivers. Still in 'lab experiment' mode here too.
I'm not sure if I know what you mean by 'propeller-load'. I'm running PropellerIDE v 0.33.3 on 10.12.3, with openSpin as the compiler. It resets and downloads fine. The serial terminal app within PropellerIDE is okay, but I often switch over to CoolTerm instead. Reset works fine there too. PropellerIDE is detecting and handling multiple USB serial ports well, no lockups after unplugging or switching ports. And, that is using the Apple driver, I dumped the FTDI driver (but may reverse that)
THOMASs-Air:~ thomasallen$ kextstat -a | grep FTDI
195 0 0xffffff7f832b5000 0x6000 0x6000 x86_64 com.apple.driver.AppleUSBFTDI (5.0.0) DA746E19-3830-34FA-A6E8-5F9AF66B7419 <101 19 5 4 3 1>
About the BASIC Stamp. I haven't tried Murat's MacBS2 version 3 on Sierra yet, but I have a report from someone that it does work, but with the limitation of only one slot. - Good grief. All this fuss over a simple UART interface.
I don't know if its the FTDI guys or a USB thing.
Serial interfaces have been with us since the dawn of computing. And still they are a hassle!
How is this even possible? - Good grief, yes. Or the Apple guys. The Mac is supposed to be easy since the dawn of time.
- Never did we have such surprising and changing problems with RS-232 ports; there were problems, sure, but they were stable and well ironed out well before USB came along. It's a darned shame stuff like this makes customers struggle and companies scream.
- Back in the early 1980's a couple of us green horn engineers were trying to get a DEC VAX to talk to some control system over a serial link. After a couple of days messing with hand shakes and protocol etc the boss dropped by.
'Ah' he said, 'I always takes at least two days to connect anything to anything'
He was a wise old boss who had been round that block a few times.
Judging from the questions on forums like this, after thirty years my old boss is still right! His statement has been ringing in my head a couple of times every year since then. - When I was working on chips that went into smartphones, it seemed like the serial link (4-wire UART or I2C) was one of the harder things to get working for the customers. Often they were using a reference design done by the cellular baseband provider, and had no idea how anything really worked.
- edited 2017-04-22 - 03:53:40I'm trying to use PropellerIDE to load Tachyon V4 and am having load failures. I'm using Apple's FTDI driver and it seems to work with small programs, but not large ones like Tachyon's almost 32K. I have a recent MacBook Pro running MacOS 10.12.5. Next week (when I have the time) I plan to try FTDI's driver disabling Apple's driver as described earlier in this thread. Any other suggestions? I have a Linux netbook that I can use to load Tachyon V4 with PropellerIDE. The load fails maybe 1 out of 3 attempts, but that's good enough for my needs. I would rather use the Mac though.
- edited 2017-04-24 - 17:03:44At the moment I have the Apple driver disabled by changing the extension from .kext to .disabled, and FTDI 2.3 loaded instead.
In Sierra, the /system directory is protected by the new System Integrity Protection, and you have turn that off in order to .disable the Apple driver.
Disable SIP by booting into recovery mode, (command-R), and in terminal enter,
csrutil disable
Then reboot. Then from terminal sort of follow the instructions in section 7 of the FTDI AN-134
cd /system/library/extensions
sudo mv AppleUSBFTDI.kext AppleUSBFTDI.disabled
sudo touch /System/Library/Extensions.
SIP can be reenabled in recovery mode with, csrutil enable.
Mike, regardless of whether it is the Apple driver or the FTDI 2.3 driver on Sierra 10.12.3, on a MacBook Air (2015) I continue to see sporadic load failures with PropellerIDE. It usually times out instantly after hitting the Run or Load buttons. I have to say sporadic, because sometimes it works, sometimes not. Often it works after several tries in succession and then goes through to completion. I haven't tested your observation about longer programs. I'm interested to hear about your followup.
The serial ports using either driver show up fine in all other respects, in the PropellerIDE pulldown menu, in the System information screen for USB, and in kextstat reports from terminal. It's just erratic to load the Prop. I'll look again at DTR to see if the reset is coming through with PropellerIDE. I think it's not that. When I've tested DTR using CoolTerm, it reliably toggles DTR with either driver. - Wow what a mess.
Here is my system after the USB lockup i.e. unplug and plug in a propplug. - Still can't get PropellerIDE to download to Propeller. Currently using High Sierra beta either with Apple default driver or latest FTDI driver. Serial port shows up and download proceeds for a second or so, then fails. Same problem with earlier MacOS versions (like Sierra). SimpleIDE seems to work.
Introduction
Let's talk about FTDI drivers. These drivers are vital to getting many of our products up and running. Some parts that use these drivers include the FTDI basic, Sparkfun Redboard and other Arduino boards that make use of a FTDI chip. And that's just to name a few.
Install Drivers
To get started on a Mac, follow along with these steps.
note : My Mac is running Mac OS 10.9.5, however these steps should apply to all modern OS versions. There is a different driver version for Mac 10.3-10.8 and Mac OS 10.9 and above. Make sure you select the proper one for your OS.
When working with most of our FTDI products you are going to be using the FTDI as a 'Virtual Com Port' or VCP. This is important to note when looking at the FTDI driver download page. We will NOT be installing any D2XX drivers.
- Head over to the FTDI Chip drivers page
- Scroll down a little to find the table of download links. Find your computer operating system in the list and select the appropriate download link
- Download the driver to your computer
- Open the installer DMG file
- Open the FTDIUSBSerial.pkg file. This will open an installer dialog box. Click continue through the main windows, and agree to terms of software license agreement to install
** note : ** This operation will require Administrative access.
- Enter your admin password
- Click Install Software
- Wait while install processes
- Installation should be successful
Congratulations you have installed your FTDI drivers!
Confirm operation
Now let's make sure your device is showing up when it is plugged into your Mac.
Arduino
- If you are using Arduino, we can simply plug the device into your computer.
- Watch for a LED to blink to confirm some life.
- Open Arduino
- Look under Tools/Serial Port/ and we should see DEV/tty.usbmodem as well as DEV/cu.usbmodem
note : If you are curious, the numbers after the usbmodem is generally the device's serial number. You can use this to identify specific FTDI devices if you are using multiple units.
- If we unplug the FTDI device, these options should disappear.
Non-Arduino
Mac Os X Update
If you are not using Arduino, for this step we will be using about this Mac.
Ftdi Driver Mac Os Xerox
- Click on the Apple Menu
- Click on about this Mac
- Then click on System Report
- One the left side of this window you will see a Hardware list. Find USB and click on it
- Look for the FT232 USB UART in the list
- If you click on it you can see more information about the device.
- If this is in the list, your device is up and running properly!
For more information on installing FTDI drivers on a Mac, check out the official FTDI Mac OSX install guide