Help! Audio Driver Causes Boot-up Kernel Panic!

Hi all, I'm some serious need of some help... I've been running Lion 10.7.4 pretty painlessly for about 4 months now. However, I just got a new Universal Audio Apollo audio interface, and after installing the drivers for it, I can no longer boot up. I've tried booting up with the unibeast usb drive, but this does not work as well. Tried all the boot flags I can think of with no luck. If anyone could help me make sense of the -v screen, or tell me if there is a way to disable the driver somehow, I would be so grateful! PLEASE HELP!!

mrmr450 said:

Hi all, I'm some serious need of some help... I've been running Lion 10.7.4 pretty painlessly for about 4 months now. However, I just got a new Universal Audio Apollo audio interface, and after installing the drivers for it, I can no longer boot up. I've tried booting up with the unibeast usb drive, but this does not work as well. Tried all the boot flags I can think of with no luck. If anyone could help me make sense of the -v screen, or tell me if there is a way to disable the driver somehow, I would be so grateful! PLEASE HELP!!

Click to expand...

Try booting with the UniBeast USB as primary boot device and -v -f boot flag to force ignore cache. If this doesn't get you to the desktop, do you have a cloned bootable backup drive? If not I would suggest you make one once you get back up and running. A 16 Gb flash drive works well - just clone your SSD/HDD to the flash drive and install chimera bootloader.

Next fix, boot single user, cd to s/l/e and delete the offending kext.

Have you updated the OS recently?

I had a serious KP recently due to the install of some drivers. My only way around this was to install the combo update of 10.7.4. I started the computer on another disk and choose the KP`d disk for install. http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1524

Or, you can erase the kexts thats causing the error with starting from another disk, and then run Repair Permissions from the installer USB.

Asuming that you have the right BIOS settings and the right BIOS verision

http://www.gigabyte.no/products/page/mb/ga-z68x-ud3h-b3rev_10/download/bios

I have had no trouble with the Apollo installer on any of the disks I run. Do you have the Apollo plugged in when you boot?

Going Bald said:

Try booting with the UniBeast USB as primary boot device and -v -f boot flag to force ignore cache. If this doesn't get you to the desktop, do you have a cloned bootable backup drive? If not I would suggest you make one once you get back up and running. A 16 Gb flash drive works well - just clone your SSD/HDD to the flash drive and install chimera bootloader.

Next fix, boot single user, cd to s/l/e and delete the offending kext.

Click to expand...

I've tried the -v -f boot flags with no luck. Unfortunately no bootable back up drive. Would I clone everything on my SSD to the flash drive, or just the OS? And I'm not sure what you mean by the last sentence... cd to s/l/e? Forgive my lack of technical knowledge...

ketilschei said:

Have you updated the OS recently?

I had a serious KP recently due to the install of some drivers. My only way around this was to install the combo update of 10.7.4. I started the computer on another disk and choose the KP`d disk for install. http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1524

Or, you can erase the kexts thats causing the error with starting from another disk, and then run Repair Permissions from the installer USB.

Asuming that you have the right BIOS settings and the right BIOS verision

http://www.gigabyte.no/products/page/mb/ga-z68x-ud3h-b3rev_10/download/bios

I have had no trouble with the Apollo installer on any of the disks I run. Do you have the Apollo plugged in when you boot?

Click to expand...

I haven't updated lately. There has been a KP issue when I boot up about 30% of the time, but I typically restart and it works fine. The first time I restarted after installing the Apollo drivers I had the unit plugged in and turned on. Since then it's been out.

I'll try the combo update tonight after work if I can get a bootable drive working. Any advice on creating that? Does it matter if installing OS X on my MacBook or the Hackintosh?

Thanks for the advice so far guys. This is pretty frustrating and daunting to a non-expert.

Ah, their may be some light. Found a review of the Syba Low Profile PCI-Express 1394b/1394a Firewire Card I am using:

http://www.amazon.com/Syba-Profile-PCI-Express-Chipset-SD-PEX30009/product-reviews/B002S53IG8/ref=cm_cr_pr_hist_1?ie=UTF8&filterBy=addOneStar&showViewpoints=0

"After tests that have been around one half of a year, UAD and I have discovered that this Syba card has caused the hundreds of firewire interruptions and errors that I have had since purchasing it for the UAD Apollo. It may be fine for a hard drive that is not used in a professional setting, but it is not a good card for stable usage with profession equipment. It has been discovered that some cards are usable and some are not, therefore the consistency of this product is not there at all. I did tests for so long that I couldn't return the card, so this review is for helping people to find the right card for their pro audio equipment."

I've always felt this firewire card was fairly unstable, and would just not load properly every boot up, causing me to restart to *hopefully* be able to use my firewire drives. But I didn't know enough to pin it on the card. I'm going to order a new one and see where that gets me. Will update!

Well, it wasn't the firewire card. I bought the SIIG 3 Ports FireWire 800 PCIe Card Model NN-FW0012-S1, mostly because it has its own 4-pin power connector instead of using bus power. I'm still going to swap for this card, it should be more reliable.

I tried deleting the offending kexts, but that left me without audio and without firewire, which is not an option. Tried all I could and gave up, doing a fresh install of Lion, updating to 10.7.4 via the combo update, installing the Apollo drivers, repairing disk permissions, and now no kernel panics!!! Apollo works (so far) but I need to install all of my other software inc Logic to make sure everything's gravy.