Chosen Solution

Here’s whats going on, I have a Zoom TAC-2 Thunderbolt Audio interface which I’ve been using for sometime with another macbook pro 17" and it had no problems on a macbook air either.. Just today I tried the interface on two different 17-inch macbook pros of mine (one running High Sierra the other is El Capitan and it appears to get no power from either of them. At this stage I was thinking okay this has to be either the thunderbolt cable or the Interface has died on me somehow. First I hooked one computer to the other in target disk mode to test the cable, no trouble getting target disk to do it’s thing, but I went ahead and bought a genuine apple cable anyway just to be sure, still no signs of life from the interface. Finally in a “there is no way this is going to work but what the heck” moment I tried hooking it up to my brothers same 2011 model macbook pro 17 and voilà, it does its usual LED streak up light. This made me happy but it still leaves a lot of questions about my 2 macbook pros and their thunderbolt ports. Is it possible they’re not providing power through the correct pins? The pins look clean to me so I don’t see any obvious issue and the fact it works for target disk mode also seems strange. Anyone have any ideas of what to try or similar experiences not getting power from their thunderbolt ports? Could this be software even? Thanks!

DAN! Okay I found out what the problem is, you’re going to want to make a note of this as it will be helpful to others. Firstly, I stumbled across this which provided clues https://discussions.apple.com/thread/787… It’s the firmware that is the issue! I noticed both the 17" models that wouldn’t power on my interface had the same firmware as I posted in the screenshot! Firmware Version: d.0, Port Micro Firmware Version: 1.2.1 Unfortunately the correct firmware cannot be installed from any of the later versions of OS X (not sure from when, but presuming Yosemite?) so after a late night and a lot of mucking around I managed to get Mountain Lion 10.8.5 installed onto a spare toshiba drive I had, for some reason I couldn’t install from an external caddy either so had to mount the drive internally. I also ran into an an error regarding installing from usb “There was a problem installing “Mac OS X”. Try Reinstalling”. Considering how much time it took me I’m very relieved that my hunch was correct! I downloaded this here: Thunderbolt Firmware Update v1.0 The newer updates 1.1 and 1.2 did not work at first saying “Your computer’s Thunderbolt port does not need this update” and 1.2 says something about needing to be on 10.9, but I installed Thunderbolt Firmware Update v1.0 and then I was somehow able to install Thunderbolt Firmware Update v1.2 afterward.

Now I just have to switch back to my SSD and go from there but at least I can see it’s powering up now :) Note to anyone reading this: Make sure you’re plugged into AC power or the firmware update won’t work (quite possibly why it didn’t automatically update the first time around back in the day!). Also, take your time and breathe ;)

Double check to make sure your ports are indeed Thunderbolt. The older MacBook Pro’s had mini DisplayPort which looks the same! The port needs to have a lightning bolt next to it. As an example, the 2009 & 2010 models have a DP port, both 2011 models have Thunderbolt.

First of all thank you for finding out a way to fix the thunderbolt problem on the 2011 MB Pro. I’d like to install the newer firmware on my 2011 machine too. Because I have a recent OS running (Catalina) I need to boot from a Mountain Lion image which I have on a USB key. I can boot from it but does anybody know how I can then run the firmware update file? Do I need to go into terminal to do it because the only options I have when I boot from USB are restore time machine backup, install Mountain Lion or disk utility but there seems to be no way to browse to the firmware update file to install it. Thanks in advance. Rob

Hello Wolfgang. Thirst thing : thank you very much. I’ve install Sierra and the response of Firmware Thunderbolt 1.0 is the same : “This update is not necessary for the Thunderbolt port of your computer” I think it’s dead for my computer. It’s too bad . Have a good day. John. REVISION from 01/01/2021 Hello everyone ! Here is a good news to start the new year. Lately I worked on the case of creating a Mac OS installation key in Recovery mode with an El Capitan or Yosemite installer which comes with a dmg containing a pkg that we can find here for El Capitan. I have been looking around for a while and found how from Recovery mode, with this dmg we can create an installation media without too much effort: D And this is the method that allowed me to explore the firmware pkg and figure out how to force the system to take it into account. Here is how I was able to successfully force the installation of Thunderbolt Firmware. Be careful though: I was sure that this Firm was suitable for my MBP and that it was not going to break everything. However it is highly risky if you do not really know what you are doing. In short, I had the pkg from the dmg downloaded that I copy and extract in the directory Firm_Thunderbolt on the Desktop of the Mac : pkgutil –expand ~/Desktop/ThunderboltFirmwareUpdate.pkg ~/Desktop/Firm_Thunderbolt Which gives the following structure: drwxr-xr-x@ 7 jean staff 224 1 jan 09:28 21.5-inchiMacThunderboltFirmwareUpdate.pkg drwxr-xr-x@ 7 jean staff 224 1 jan 09:27 27-inchiMacThunderboltFirmwareUpdate.pkg -rwxr-xr-x@ 1 jean staff 28896 4 avr 2012 Distribution drwxr-xr-x 24 jean staff 768 31 déc 07:38 Resources drwxr-xr-x@ 7 jean staff 224 31 déc 07:39 ThunderboltFirmwareUpdate.pkg The directory I’m interested in here is ThunderboltFirmwareUpdate.pkg. The others are either for the iMac or not used here. So I work in the ThunderboltFirmwareUpdate.pkg directory cd ~/Desktop/Firm_Thunderbolt/ThunderboltFirmwareUpdate.pkg And here is its structure: -rw-r–r–@ 1 jean staff 87688 4 avr 2012 Bom -rw-r–r–@ 1 jean staff 500 4 avr 2012 PackageInfo -rw-r–r– 1 jean staff 84153 4 avr 2012 Payload drwxr-xr-x 6 jean staff 192 31 déc 07:38 Scripts And here is the command that changes everything: tar -xvf Payload x . x ./System x ./System/Library x ./System/Library/CoreServices x ./System/Library/CoreServices/Firmware Updates x ./System/Library/CoreServices/Firmware Updates/MacBookProTBUpdate10 x ./System/Library/CoreServices/Firmware Updates/MacBookProTBUpdate10/HPM-em-00020007.bin x ./System/Library/CoreServices/Firmware Updates/MacBookProTBUpdate10/MBP-22-01.bin x ./System/Library/CoreServices/Firmware Updates/MacBookProTBUpdate10/ThorUtil.efi And now here is the new directory structure: -rw-r–r–@ 1 jean staff 87688 4 avr 2012 Bom -rw-r–r–@ 1 jean staff 500 4 avr 2012 PackageInfo -rw-r–r– 1 jean staff 84153 4 avr 2012 Payload drwxr-xr-x 6 jean staff 192 31 déc 07:38 Scripts drwxr-xr-x 3 jean staff 96 4 avr 2012 System A System directory with the correct tree structure has been created by the tar command with the correct firmware. All you have to do is copy the MacBookProTBUpdate10 directory from ~/Desktop/Firm_Thunderbolt/ThunderboltFirmwareUpdate.pkg/System/Library/CoreServices/Firmware Updates into the native system structure of the Mac : /System/Library/CoreServices/Firmware Updates There is however a little problem with Catalina, as the system is mounted in read only. Never mind. To go ahead you must first deactivate SIP from the Recovery mode terminal: csrutil disable Then restart and type the following command: sudo mount -rw / Then we copy the MacBookProTBUpdate10 directory which contains all necessary information for the installation of the Firmware on the System. First we go to the install directory : cd ~/Desktop/Firm_Thunderbolt/ThunderboltFirmwareUpdate.pkg then sudo cp -a System/Library/CoreServices/“Firmware Updates”/MacBookProTBUpdate10 /System/Library/CoreServices/”Firmware Updates” Then you have to enter the command that allows the firmware to be updated. The flashTBFirmware script which is in the Scripts / postinstall_actions directory gives us all we need. You have to open it with any editor (textedit for example) and here is its content: #!/usr/bin/perl #################################### my $targetVolume = $ARGV[2]; my $FirmwareDirectory = “/System/Library/CoreServices/Firmware Updates/MacBookProTBUpdate10/”; my $firmwareTool = “ThorUtil.efi”; yes this is secure my $debug = (-e “/tmp/com.apple.pkg.testing”); ##################################################################### #set NVRAM for tbft (rdar://problem/9282793 Use Safe Mode for T29 updates (EPROM, Micros) to prevent PCIe unplug during update) system("/usr/sbin/nvram tbt-options=%04");

bless the firmware

my $retVal = system("/usr/sbin/bless", “-mount”, “/”, “-firmware”, $FirmwareDirectory . “ThorUtil.efi”, “-payload”, $FirmwareDirectory .“MBP-22-01.bin”, “-payload”, $FirmwareDirectory .“HPM-em-00020007.bin”, “-options”, “-o -ee -f efi-apple-payload0-data -em efi-apple-payload1-data”); This is the bless command which will start the Firmware installer during the next boot. You just have to adapt it to create the terminal command which match with your system and which can be found below: sudo bless -mount / -firmware /System/Library/CoreServices/Firmware\ Updates/MacBookProTBUpdate10/ThorUtil.efi -payload /System/Library/CoreServices/Firmware\ Updates/MacBookProTBUpdate10/MBP-22-01.bin -payload /System/Library/CoreServices/Firmware\ Updates/MacBookProTBUpdate10/HPM-em-00020007.bin -options “-o -ee -f efi-apple-payload0-data -em efi-apple-payload1-data” I admit that I was a bit anxious when I restarted the Mac, but I quickly saw the famous Firmware update bar progressing and then the Mac restarted and there I plugged in the Thunderbolt DDE which was recognised without any concern. And now here’s the Thunderbolt info: Bus Thunderbolt : Vendor ID: : Apple Inc. Nom du périphérique : MacBook Pro UID : 0x0001000A156383E0 Logical Unit: 0 Version du programme interne : 22,1 UUID du domaine : B6969003-5485-245E-8FED-2538703498FC Port : État : Aucun périphérique connecté État du lien : 0x101 Vitesse : Jusqu’à 10 Gbit/s x2 Réceptacle : 1 Version du programme interne de Port Micro : 2.0.7 to compare with the old ones. Bus Thunderbolt : Vendor ID:: Apple Inc. Nom du périphérique : MacBook Pro UID : 0x0001000A156383E0 Logical Unit: 0 Version du programme interne : d.0 UUID du domaine : B6969003-5485-245E-8FED-2538703498FC Port : État : Aucun périphérique connecté État du lien : 0x101 Vitesse : Jusqu’à 10 Gbit/s x2 Réceptacle : 1 Version du programme interne de Port Micro : 1.2.1 End of the adventure, thank you for staying all along this journey. : D Many many thanks to my friend Dominique for the translation in English. You can find the French version here : https://forum.macbidouille.com/index.php… Bye

I still can’t install the firmware update (getting that software is not supported by this system). I’m suspecting it’s because my firmware version is up to date (27.1), but not the Port micro Firmware version 0.15.0. I’m suspecting it’s that latter one causing the problem of not detecting the device. Do you have any other clue how to update that micro firmware?

It turns out my newer laptop, despite having an identical model# to my older laptop, has a slightly different quirk. The “newer” one’s DVI port does not double as a Thunderbolt like my older one. No amount of firmware updates will enable this function. I blew a bunch of money for the wrong device completely.

Hey. I have a MBP Early 2011 and the Thunderbolt version are there : Bus Thunderbolt : Nom du fournisseur : Apple Inc. Nom du périphérique : MacBook Pro UID : 0x0001000A156383E0 Chaîne de routage : 0 Version du programme interne : d.0 UUID du domaine : B6969003-5485-245E-8FED-2538703498FC Port : État : Aucun périphérique connecté État du lien : 0x101 Vitesse : Jusqu’à 10 Gbit/s x2 Réceptacle : 1 Version du programme interne de Port Micro : 1.2.1 My os version is 10.13.6 and the update firmware 1.0 : https://support.apple.com/kb/DL1407?view… don’t work. I have try with Mountain Lion, Maverick, Yosemite and the response is alway : “Cette mise à jour n’est pas nécessaire pour le port Thunderbolt de votre ordinateur.” “This update is not necessary for the Thunderbolt port of your computer” Il don’t know if there is a way to force this update? I will try later with a clone of Snow Leopard 10.6.8. If somebody as an genial idea, thank you in advance. John Update (10/21/2020) I have try with Snow Leopard, same response : “This update is not necessary for the Thunderbolt port of your computer” i’m desperate. :-(

Hi, I’ve got the same problem with my MBA Early 2015. My firmware was updated but the thunderbolt controller firmware was not. Tried everything but my skills are not up to this task. Can you help-me somehow? Maybe with a tutorial for MBA? I think a lot of users have this problem, and Apple does not care. Thank you so much. My Thunderbolt config: Barramento Thunderbolt: Nome do Fabricante: Apple Inc. Nome do Dispositivo: MacBook Air UID: 0x000100180A528C40 String de Rota: 0 Versão de Firmware: 27.2 UUID de Domínio: B117FEDF-264B-0D5C-94ED-E3BBDEC0C844 Porta: Estado: Não há nenhum dispositivo conectado Estado do Link: 0x101 Velocidade: Até 20 Gb/s x1 Largura do Link Atual: 0x1 Receptáculo: 1 Versão do Firmware do Controlador de Link: 0.15.0

Chosen Solution#

bless the firmware#

bless the firmware#

Chosen Solution

bless the firmware

bless the firmware