MacOS High Sierra 10.13.3 FTDI Driver Fix - January 31, 2018

PROBLEM: FTDI devices not usable in MacOS High Sierra. In my own case, I was having trouble connecting FT232R chip devices to my 2016 Macbook Pro with C-Ports. The devices appeared in my USB device tree (System Information -> Hardware -> USB), but did not show up as a serial device using Arduino, or Coolterm. - NOTE: they did not appear either when in Terminal with the command (ls /dev/cu*) or (ls /dev/tty*)

SOLUTION:

3) Download the 2.4.2 drivers from FTDI's website http://www.ftdichip.com/Drivers/VCP.htm and install. The install will succeed, BUT due to Apples built-in FTDI drivers they will not work.

2) Reboot computer and enter recovery mode Via powering down and holding down CMD + R on reboot.

3) In recovery mode open terminal from utilities at the top of the screen and type the following to tempraily disable System Integrity Protection:

csrutil disable

The computer will prompt you to reboot to make changes take effect.

4) On reboot we now need to disable the Apple FTDI drivers (NOTE: this can be reversed at any time so do not worry). - open Terminal and type the following.

cd /system/library/extensions

sudo mv AppleUSBFTDI.kext AppleUSBFTDI.disabled

sudo touch /System/Library/Extensions

chgrp -R wheel FTDIUSBSerialDriver.kext

sudo mv D2zzHelper.kext D2xxHelper.disabled

Now you will have successfuly have disabled Apple's built-in FTDI drivers and replaced them with FTDI v2.4.

5) Restart your computer in recovery mode. Shutdown, hold Command + R and open terminal in the Utilities tab. Enter the following to reenable Apple's System Integrity Protection

csrutil enable

**NOTE: I have tested this on a 2016 Macbook Pro with MacOS 10.13.3 on the following devices/apps: 1) Screen from within terminal, CoolTerm, Bus Pirate V3.6, JTAGulator, Arduino Uno, Adafruit Mega AT, Arduino Mega clone.

I had the same issue, albeit on Sierra, talking to an Arduino Nano clone (which also uses a FTDI FT232RL bridge).

What seems to have worked for me is actually removing the FTDI driver (/Library/Extensions/FTDIUSBSerialDriver.kext), after finding that Apple ships an FTDI driver with the OS itself (/System/Library/Extensions/AppleUSBFTDI.kext).

I think having both drivers active at the same time causes a conflict, which ties up the USB port.

I'd like to provide an additional answer that solves one more piece of the puzzle that I had. Even following Garrett Johnson's excellent answer above, my FTDI driver was still not working. It turned out that - and I know this sounds insane - that my System Preferences "Security & Privacy" tab was not accepting my trackpad's click on the "Allow" button that would allow the driver to load. I got down this path after seeing this message in install log:

2018-09-15 16:21:04-04 host installd[1160]: kextcache: Kext rejected due to system policy: <OSKext 0x7f869ab80530 [0x7fff87e7aaf0]> { URL = "file:///Library/StagedExtensions/Library/Extensions/FTDIUSBSerialDriver.kext/", ID = "com.FTDI.driver.FTDIUSBSerialDriver" }

Of course, I clicked "Allow" in there, but nothing seemed to happen. The button registered the click, but I didn't have any window pop up or anything else for some form of confirmation. Searching around the Internets, I discovered this lengthy thread on Karabiner's github page discussing several solutions for forcing System Preferences to permit the mouse click:

https://github.com/tekezo/Karabiner-Elements/issues/1017

Apparently I had some software running that was intercepting the trackpad activity. It wasn't chrome in my case, unlike several people on that list. I have no clue what it was, which is a little concerning. The solution that worked for me was to enable Mouse Keys, then push "I" to click the mouse over the "Allow" button. At that point, a window popped up, and I was able to permit the FTDI driver to load.

I'm still shaking my head!

I had the same problem. I had installed the FTDI drivers via a link from the Creality Ender 3 installation notes, and the link installed version 2.2.18, which is for OS X 10.8 and below. (I'm running Sierra, 10.12). The driver worked, but would not release. I deleted the driver using sudo rm /System/Library/Extensions/FTDIUSBSerialDriver.kext/ and then downloaded and installed version 2.4.2. All working now.