Question

I have a Thunderbolt 3 cable, Macbook Pro running Catalina, and Catalina Version of Universal control. Yet here I sit with a blue blinking light. Please somebody save me

Answer 1

With the release of Mac OS X 10.13 (continued with 10.14 and 10.15) have introduced a security challenge for installing our custom Thunderbolt and FireWire interface drivers into MacOS.  There are additional screens that you will encounter that you'll need to check off some boxes and possibly go through a reboot or two to get the driver install that is part of Universal Control to work correctly.

From the Apple Site Technical Note TN-2459: "macOS High Sierra 10.13 introduces a new feature that requires user approval before loading newly-installed third-party kernel extensions (KEXTs). When a request is made to load a KEXT that the user has not yet approved, the load request is denied. Apps or installers that treat a KEXT load failure as a hard error will need to be changed to handle this new case, Approval is automatically granted to third-party KEXTs that were already present when upgrading to macOS High Sierra".

• Run Universal Control 3.2 Installer (or newer)
• Open up System Preferences and click on Security and Privacy Icon so the two windows are running side by side.

The first time you install Universal Control 3.2 or higher after you approve installation by typing in your password, the system will throw a warning at you. The default choice is to hit the blue button (CLOSE).

If you're in a hurry to install the driver, you may not notice that clicking OK dismisses the prompt and does not install the driver.

You need to instead click the "Open Security Preferences" button.

In the case the Security Preferences Windows does not open, click on the Preferences Icon in your Dock or go to Apple Drop down on your desktop and select "Preferences"

Here you will need to click "Allow" to approve the installation of the device driver into the OS.

NOTE:

• Then the installation will complete. Once finished reboot your system.
• Upon restart open System Preferences again, go to Security and Privacy and click the "Allow" button.
• Your Quantum device will now appear in Universal Control.

NOTE:

• If you have already installed Universal Control 3.2 or higher and are now able to see this "Allow" button.
• Open the Universal Control download DMG and run the Uninstaller, reboot is required when finished the Uninstaller.
• After the restart, install the latest version of Universal Control again and then the "Allow" button will appear.

NOTE: VERY IMPORTANT!

• If you do not click the Allow button within 30 minutes of it appearing, the "Allow" button will disappear and you'll need to uninstall and re-install again to get it to reappear.

Parts of this text were taken from this PreSonus KB Article

Answer 2

Alex Tinsley, if you have a moment, I have a question regarding the situation where upon installation of Universal Control on Catalina the "Allow" button only appears once after the first steps of the installation process before restarting the computer.  After restart, the button is gone so that the installation cannot be completed.  At that point, you're left with only the solid red power button and no audio.  To make matters worse, uninstalling by using the "hardware uninstaller" app does not prompt any reappearance of the "Allow" button. After reinstalling the Mac OS 3x now to try to recreate the steps that you've outlined below, I'm about to give up on using the Quantum until a fix is published, but if you know of a solution, I'd love to hear it!  Thank you in advance for your response. - Tom

Answer 3

To add to their answer, if you're like me and messed it up already, you'll see the ALLOW button grayed out. Steps to fix:

1. Uninstall UC/hardware drivers.

2. In System Preferences > Security & Privacy - General, click the lock icon at bottom left to unlock settings options.

3. Click Allow

4. Read message for instructions on how to access System Startup.

5. In System Startup, choose Reduced Security to allow kernel extensions. (I chose user control, not remote control + auto updates).

6. Restart

7. Go back to Security & Privacy settings and confirm the Allow button is gone.

8. Reinstall UC & hardware drivers.

Solid blue light for me now! UC recognized the hardware and I was able to update firmware.

Answer 4

For iMac OSX 10.13/14/15 users with plain intel chip here is the solution that worked for me:
- uninstall UC (Universal Control)
- restart Mac in recovery mode by holding Command R
- Open Terminal from top menu and type `csrutil disable` and press enter to allow kext extensions (the driver) to be installed to your mac
- Restart Mac normally and fresh install UC**
- **Make sure System Prefs->PrivacySecurity is open and unlocked and allow UC access during install when it asks
- restart Mac in recovery mode holding Command R
- Open Terminal from top menu and run `csrutil enable` to reset security on your mac
- Restart Mac normally and open UC and connect Quantum

Hope this helps for non laptop macs with older intel chips