TP-Link Printer Software Destroyed my Hack (El Capitan, Clover)

[WhiteBlues]

Hey All,

Any help on this during this holiday season would be much appreciated . I had a very stable hack running on my MSI z97 Krait, 4790k @ 4.0, 32gb DDR3, MSI R9-290X, Samsung Evo 256GB SSD system for quite a few months with no issues. I recently upgraded my wi-fi setup in my apartment to a TP-Link network card (Archer T9E) and an Archer C5 router. I then wanted to move my giant printer away from my computer desk to the TP-Link Router to print wirelessly. I followed the steps on the TP-Link website to set up a wireless printer via the router and downloaded the appropriate software to allow my "Mac" to communicate with the printer through the wi-fi router... PLEASE NOTE THIS SOFTWARE IS THE SOFTWARE THAT BROKE MY HACKINTOSH, INVESTIGATE WITH CAUTION:

http://www.tp-link.com/en/download/Archer-C5.html#Utility

And now looking at the site I can clearly see this software is not supported on El Capitan yet. So, bottom line is I'm an idiot and I should have looked more carefully before downloading. However, I would not expect not-supported software to result in a kernel panic that I cannot get around for the life of me. I took some shots with my cell phone before leaving for vacation. I have tried verbose mode, safe mode, cpu=1 boot flags, pretty much everything I can think of. Clover seems to think the OS has been downgraded back to Yosemite, because in the section in boot options where it lists "OS if other than..." it has 10.10.10.

I don't want to start from scratch with a new USB install, that should be the last resort. Is there anyway to get around this, maybe undo the changes that this new software downloaded did? I do not have a backup - so that is off the table. I'm expecting I will have to do a fresh install so any other news than that is welcome

Thank you in advanced for your help. Below are the cell phone pics of the logs I get when trying to boot.
They are in order from left to right, top to bottom as you would read it on screen. Also, keep in mind I'm a newbie with all this stuff so please make all instructions as idiot-proof as possible. For example, I had to look up how to enter boot-flags in Clover boot-loader.

 

[nobodynose]

Hey All,

Any help on this during this holiday season would be much appreciated . I had a very stable hack running on my MSI z97 Krait, 4790k @ 4.0, 32gb DDR3, MSI R9-290X, Samsung Evo 256GB SSD system for quite a few months with no issues. I recently upgraded my wi-fi setup in my apartment to a TP-Link network card (Archer T9E) and an Archer C5 router. I then wanted to move my giant printer away from my computer desk to the TP-Link Router to print wirelessly. I followed the steps on the TP-Link website to set up a wireless printer via the router and downloaded the appropriate software to allow my "Mac" to communicate with the printer through the wi-fi router... PLEASE NOTE THIS SOFTWARE IS THE SOFTWARE THAT BROKE MY HACKINTOSH, INVESTIGATE WITH CAUTION:

http://www.tp-link.com/en/download/Archer-C5.html#Utility

And now looking at the site I can clearly see this software is not supported on El Capitan yet. So, bottom line is I'm an idiot and I should have looked more carefully before downloading. However, I would not expect not-supported software to result in a kernel panic that I cannot get around for the life of me. I took some shots with my cell phone before leaving for vacation. I have tried verbose mode, safe mode, cpu=1 boot flags, pretty much everything I can think of. Clover seems to think the OS has been downgraded back to Yosemite, because in the section in boot options where it lists "OS if other than..." it has 10.10.10.

I don't want to start from scratch with a new USB install, that should be the last resort. Is there anyway to get around this, maybe undo the changes that this new software downloaded did? I do not have a backup - so that is off the table. I'm expecting I will have to do a fresh install so any other news than that is welcome

Thank you in advanced for your help. Below are the cell phone pics of the logs I get when trying to boot.
They are in order from left to right, top to bottom as you would read it on screen. Also, keep in mind I'm a newbie with all this stuff so please make all instructions as idiot-proof as possible. For example, I had to look up how to enter boot-flags in Clover boot-loader.


View attachment 168519View attachment 168518View attachment 168517View attachment 168516View attachment 168515

Without a backup, you're pretty much screwed, as there's no way to know all the places that software installed itself. It's very likely that it installed a kext into /System/Library/Extensions, since that's about the only thing I can think of that could cause kernel panics. So if you can boot up with a USB installer you might be able to poke around and find the offending kext. You also should be able to boot into safe mode with a USB installer (use the -X boot argument), which may give you an opportunity to uninstall the TP-Link software (hopefully it has an uninstall program which will reverse the damage).

I encountered a similar problem earlier today when I installed some firewall software - it caused my system to KP and not boot up. I simply attached my bootable CCC clone, booted into safe mode from that, and restored my boot drive from it. Since my clone was only a few days old, I didn't lose anything.

Good luck!

 

[WhiteBlues]

Thank you for the reply! That's actually a great idea. I was planning on making my USB installer today and see if I could at least create a new boot drive and somehow access my existing boot drive that is currently out of commission due to the faulty software. If your idea works though, it would save a lot of time and headaches in trying to restore my system.

TP Link customer service got back to me and actually their software has even been causing this issue on legitimate Macs that are running El Capitan, resulting in the need to boot into safe mode and remove the software before being able to use the Mac again: http://www.tp-link.com/en/faq-933.html

"You may encounter the system reboot due to the compatibility issue. If it does, please start up your Mac in safe mode and remove the utility"
​

In any case I'll give this a shot. Quick noob question: would a Clover Yosemite bootloader USB stick allow me to boot into safemode on the faulty El Capitan SSD? Asking because I will probably have two separate boot drives - one for printing via the wi-fi router with the TP Link software and the main one for running El Capitan.

Thank you again for your help.

 

[nobodynose]

In any case I'll give this a shot. Quick noob question: would a Clover Yosemite bootloader USB stick allow me to boot into safemode on the faulty El Capitan SSD?

Yes, you can boot from about installer USB stick, set your boot flags (in this case you'll be using the - X flag for safe mode), then choose the OSX installation you want to boot to.

 

[WhiteBlues]

Many thanks! I'll let you know if it works later tonight.

 

[WhiteBlues]

So as a follow up I was unable to boot in safe mode to the faulty SSD via the USB bootloader. However, after installing a new El Capitan system on a spare HDD, I was able to access the S/L/E to find and delete the TP Link Kext that had been installed there - so thanks for pointing me in the right direction with that tip. All is working fine now, and I have the backup El Capitan instal on the HDD as a bonus.

 

[nobodynose]

So as a follow up I was unable to boot in safe mode to the faulty SSD via the USB bootloader. However, after installing a new El Capitan system on a spare HDD, I was able to access the S/L/E to find and delete the TP Link Kext that had been installed there - so thanks for pointing me in the right direction with that tip. All is working fine now, and I have the backup El Capitan instal on the HDD as a bonus.

Glad it worked out! Keep that backup up-to-date!

 

[Errc]

So as a follow up I was unable to boot in safe mode to the faulty SSD via the USB bootloader. However, after installing a new El Capitan system on a spare HDD, I was able to access the S/L/E to find and delete the TP Link Kext that had been installed there - so thanks for pointing me in the right direction with that tip. All is working fine now, and I have the backup El Capitan instal on the HDD as a bonus.

Hey I recently ran into thise problem as well. Were there any other steps you took to get things back working other than removing the ktext? I used Paragon on my Windows boot to remove the tplink ktext but am still getting kernel panics on start.

Thanks in advance!