MOTU system extension conflict

[FrankM]

I usually sleep my laptop (M2 15" Air) but today I restarted and was greeted by an alert that said this -

"Legacy System Extension
Existing software on your system loaded a system extension signed by "MOTU" which will be incompatible with a future version of macOS. Contact the developer for support."

I'm on Ventura (13.6.9). I guess I'm OK until I update my system, but I'm curious what this is about. I took a look in /Library/Extensions and all I see that might be an issue is the MOTUFireWireAudio.kext, which I thought was deprecated a few years ago. Does MOTU's installer not see what machine you're installing on? Maybe I'm wrong and there are Apple Silicon Macs using firewire?

Looks like I have another reason to not update my system, not yet anyway!

[mikehalloran]

You will see that on occasion until MOTU does whatever they need to do to conform to all of Apple’s requirements, whenever that happens.

If you reread it, you’ll see that it is neither a conflict nor an error. It’s just a message that something someday may become incompatible with a future update. It doesn’t even tell up what extension that is.

It’s not specific to Intel or Apple Silicon. I don’t recall when I first saw it a few years ago but it appeared on my Mac day before yesterday over Sequoia 15.2.

MOTUFireWireAudio.kext Is still supported over Sequoia but that may be what’s triggering it — or not. My 828mkII FW runs fine.

Core Audio FireWire is depreciated as those running older UAD FW devices have found out. MOTU never supported FW Core Audio.

[FrankM]

Yea I know, not a conflict.... yet! I used to see a similar message on my old Intel Mac when running 32-bit apps in Mojave, warning me of future incompatibility. I've never seen the message that just came up on my M2 air until now.

Thanks for setting me straight on the Firewire issue. I kinda remember a lot of pissed-off people when Apple killed it in their more recent OSes (I forget exactly which one). I guess they weren't using MOTU interfaces.

[rogertelliercraig]

Hiya,

I've also gotten this message quite a few times since I bought my Macbook Air M2 back in September 2022. I just got it again this morning which is why I'm writing here. I'm now running on Sonoma 14.4.1 and haven't updated it in over a year or so because of this, but now I can't connect my phone to my Macbook until I update.

Is it safe to ignore this alert and just go ahead with an update? Or does it mean that I will eventually no longer be able to use a plugin, or anything else like that, if I do?

[mikehalloran]

I get this message from other applications, too.

All it means it that, sometime in the future, a macOS may be released that is incompatible with (fill in the system extension here). That has not happened yet.

It means nothing else.

[rogertelliercraig]

OK, thank you! I tend to be wary about messages like that but I'll just go ahead and do an update if that's all it is...