MOTU MIDI Express 128 not working after Sonoma upgrade. -solved-

[Xyla]

Hi,

I had a working MOTU MIDI Express 128 in Ventura, but my install got corrupted and wouldn't boot, so I did a fresh install of Sonoma. The MOTU extension is installed and it says its working. IOREG reports the device. But it will not show up in Audio MIDI Setup or Logic.

This is awful. Not sure what to do. Does anyone else running Sonoma use a MIDI Express 128 or any other MOTU USB MIDI interface?

Here's my IOREG output for the device:

Express 128@14500000 <class AppleUSBDevice, id 0x100000656, registered, matched, active, busy 0 (0 ms), retain 14>
{
"sessionID" = 7575259514
"idProduct" = 1
"iManufacturer" = 1
"bDeviceClass" = 255
"bMaxPacketSize0" = 8
"bcdDevice" = 256
"iProduct" = 2
"iSerialNumber" = 0
"bNumConfigurations" = 1
"Bus Power Available" = 250
"USB Address" = 14
"Built-In" = No
"locationID" = 340787200
"bDeviceSubClass" = 3
"bcdUSB" = 256
"USB Product Name" = "Express 128"
"PortNum" = 5
"non-removable" = "no"
"AppleUSBAlternateServiceRegistryID" = 4294968916
"bDeviceProtocol" = 0
"IOCFPlugInTypes" = {"9dc7b780-9ec0-11d4-a54f-000a27052861"="IOUSBHostFamily.kext/Contents/PlugIns/IOUSBLib.bundle"}
"IOPowerManagement" = {"DevicePowerState"=0,"CurrentPowerState"=3,"CapabilityFlags"=65536,"MaxPowerState"=4,"DriverPowerState"=3}
"kUSBCurrentConfiguration" = 1
"Device Speed" = 1
"USB Vendor Name" = "Mark of the Unicorn"
"idVendor" = 2045
"IOGeneralInterest" = "IOCommand is not serializable"
"kUSBProductString" = "Express 128"
"kUSBVendorString" = "Mark of the Unicorn"
"IOClassNameOverride" = "IOUSBDevice"
}

 

[Feartech]

Hi,

I had a working MOTU MIDI Express 128 in Ventura, but my install got corrupted and wouldn't boot, so I did a fresh install of Sonoma. The MOTU extension is installed and it says its working. IOREG reports the device. But it will not show up in Audio MIDI Setup or Logic.

This is awful. Not sure what to do. Does anyone else running Sonoma use a MIDI Express 128 or any other MOTU USB MIDI interface?

Here's my IOREG output for the device:

Express 128@14500000 <class AppleUSBDevice, id 0x100000656, registered, matched, active, busy 0 (0 ms), retain 14>
{
"sessionID" = 7575259514
"idProduct" = 1
"iManufacturer" = 1
"bDeviceClass" = 255
"bMaxPacketSize0" = 8
"bcdDevice" = 256
"iProduct" = 2
"iSerialNumber" = 0
"bNumConfigurations" = 1
"Bus Power Available" = 250
"USB Address" = 14
"Built-In" = No
"locationID" = 340787200
"bDeviceSubClass" = 3
"bcdUSB" = 256
"USB Product Name" = "Express 128"
"PortNum" = 5
"non-removable" = "no"
"AppleUSBAlternateServiceRegistryID" = 4294968916
"bDeviceProtocol" = 0
"IOCFPlugInTypes" = {"9dc7b780-9ec0-11d4-a54f-000a27052861"="IOUSBHostFamily.kext/Contents/PlugIns/IOUSBLib.bundle"}
"IOPowerManagement" = {"DevicePowerState"=0,"CurrentPowerState"=3,"CapabilityFlags"=65536,"MaxPowerState"=4,"DriverPowerState"=3}
"kUSBCurrentConfiguration" = 1
"Device Speed" = 1
"USB Vendor Name" = "Mark of the Unicorn"
"idVendor" = 2045
"IOGeneralInterest" = "IOCommand is not serializable"
"kUSBProductString" = "Express 128"
"kUSBVendorString" = "Mark of the Unicorn"
"IOClassNameOverride" = "IOUSBDevice"
}

assuming you have installed the updated software for it:

https://motu.com/en-us/news/motu-and-macos-sonoma/

and you have setup your USB ports correctly as per:

The New Beginner's Guide to USB Port Configuration

Important Update: June 2023 From Big Sur 11.3 on the built-in OpenCore XhciPortLimit quirk no-longer worked as described. This became a known "bug", though in reality it was Apple changing their internal code, making a simple "peek and poke" to keep it operating, a difficult task. However, with...

www.tonymacx86.com

 

[Xyla]

assuming you have installed the updated software for it:

https://motu.com/en-us/news/motu-and-macos-sonoma/

and you have setup your USB ports correctly as per:

The New Beginner's Guide to USB Port Configuration

Important Update: June 2023 From Big Sur 11.3 on the built-in OpenCore XhciPortLimit quirk no-longer worked as described. This became a known "bug", though in reality it was Apple changing their internal code, making a simple "peek and poke" to keep it operating, a difficult task. However, with...

www.tonymacx86.com

Yeah I've done all that. I have the newest MOTU driver and my USB mapping was perfect already from Ventura. I confirmed all the ports are still mapped properly and working.

The thing that concerns me is that there is no new driver for Sonoma from MOTU, they just claim the old one works. Maybe it does for real Macs...

 

[Feartech]

Yeah I've done all that. I have the newest MOTU driver and my USB mapping was perfect already from Ventura. I confirmed all the ports are still mapped properly and working.

The thing that concerns me is that there is no new driver for Sonoma from MOTU, they just claim the old one works. Maybe it does for real Macs...

and you allowed the extension?:

 

[Xyla]

and you allowed the extension?:

Yes, and it was already allowed from being installed in Ventura anyway. Either that, or it never even attempted to actually install it. I have no blocked extensions, and it says it's running.

 

[Xyla]

So I just disconnected my MOTU and plugged it into my Mac Pro 5,1 running Ventura, and it doesn't work there either. After the install the extension was blocked, but I enabled it. Says it's running, but it doesn't exist in Audio Midi Setup, just like on my hackintosh. So I guess Sonoma isn't the problem, but that's quite the coincidence that it died right after installing Sonoma.

 

[Xyla]

Ok, nothing really died... My MOTU MIDI Express 128 is clearly not broken, because I tried it on Mavericks on my Mac Pro 5,1 and it works fine. However it doesn't work on Sonoma on my hackintosh, or on Opencored Ventura on the same Mac Pro. But it used to work fine with my hackintosh when I was running Ventura. So I'm convinced this is just a shitty driver problem and MOTU is in denial about their 2022 drivers not needing to be updated... which makes sense considering I found other people having the same issue.

Marking this solved, but the solution is... I ordered a different MIDI interface, and I'm going to sell this piece of junk MOTU with a disclaimer that it probably won't work on newer MacOS versions despite the company's claims otherwise.

 

[psygoat]

I have the MOTU UltraLite mk5 which also stopped working after upgrading to Sonoma, but I was able to update the driver/firmware to get it going again. It now works fine