MacOS 11.00 (Big Sur)

[marcarch]

My CadMouse Wireless doesn't work with Big sur at all. It doesn't click via Universal receiver, nor via Bluetooth. It doesn't click neither while attached via USB.
I uninstalled your beta driver but the mouse still doesn't work: it moves but doesn't perform clicks.

Is it probably a firmware update needed, other than the new driver you're working on?

[RVeldhuyzen]

So, with the beta, did something change in the way movements are processed to Maya (running 2020.1 and I also verified with 2019.3)?
The camera rolls a lot now. I used to be able to rotate around my scene while the camera stayed parallel to the ground plane. I could roll but I had to work hard to make that happen (which is what I prefer). But now the slightest movement rolls the camera too.

It feels like instead of treating the scene ground plane as the base it treats an imaginary horizontal line on the screen as the ground plane over which it turns.

It's difficult to explain but imagine the camera was on a tripod that sat on the ground plane of the scene (green in the image below), the Spacenavigator made the tripod move in all directions and the camera pan and tilt.

Now, it seems like the gorund plane of the scene is ignored and instead it treats the red line as the plane the tripod is on, so if the camera is positioned as in the screenshot, spinning the navigator doesn't just spin the camera, it rolls it too. Does that make sense?

It would be impossible to end up with the scene upside down unless I manually flipped the camera. Now it takes a few moves with the navigator to get me to Australia.

[KlaudioPer]

After nearly two years, we are still not there yet but we remain committed to provide the software. As you will have noticed, not all CadMouse devices will be supported but we expect SpaceMouse types to working well once we have stabilised the driver (we have reports SpaceMouse not working with SketchUp and Cinema 4D).

After 2 years and you guys are still not there??? If I work on a project and after 2 years I found myself "still not there"..... I am out of business !!!

[ngomes]

Hi KlaudioPer,

After 2 years and you guys are still not there??? If I work on a project and after 2 years I found myself "still not there"..... I am out of business !!!

Nearly two years, yes. Or 17 months since WWDC 2019 was in June of last year and macOS 11 was released last week.

During WWDC 2019, Apple announced the deprecation of "kernel extensions", a technology we relied on to provide backwards compatibility for older device types, such as the original CadMouse (wired) and the CadMouse Wireless. Kernel extensions were superseded by System Extensions but it wasn't a drop in replacement.

[marcarch]

Hi KlaudioPer,

After 2 years and you guys are still not there??? If I work on a project and after 2 years I found myself "still not there"..... I am out of business !!!

Nearly two years, yes. Or 17 months since WWDC 2019 was in June of last year and macOS 11 was released last week.

During WWDC 2019, Apple announced the deprecation of "kernel extensions", a technology we relied on to provide backwards compatibility for older device types, such as the original CadMouse (wired) and the CadMouse Wireless. Kernel extensions were superseded by System Extensions but it wasn't a drop in replacement.

We know the story since 2019.
But, that said, could you (3dconnexion staff) provide us (your users) a roadmap, a timeframe, a compatibility list?

You know, we all are a little bit disappointed about this.

[ngomes]

Hi marcarch,

We know the story since 2019.
But, that said, could you (3dconnexion staff) provide us (your users) a roadmap, a timeframe, a compatibility list?

You know, we all are a little bit disappointed about this.

We cannot. We have released the beta driver publicly last week and we had the software in limited distribution for a few weeks before that. We expect to issue a new beta before the end of the present week but that's only a tentative schedule.

You know, we all are a little bit disappointed about this.

We do know. This isn't easy for us either but, looking back, there wasn't much else we could have done differently.

We're particularly disappointed with the lack of support for the original CadMouse and CadMouse Wireless.

[marcarch]

We're particularly disappointed with the lack of support for the original CadMouse and CadMouse Wireless.

Is there a way to let the Mac recon the CadMouse as a standard bluetooth/USB mouse? No driver, no 3Dx button, just a standard 4 button mouse? Maybe a mouse firmware update?

It's not so nice you (3dconnexion) are telling you're dropping original CadMouse and CadMouse Wireless on the day the new OS is released, you knew this since 2019

[ngomes]

Is there a way to let the Mac recon the CadMouse as a standard bluetooth/USB mouse? No driver, no 3Dx button, just a standard 4 button mouse? Maybe a mouse firmware update?

The issue is the way the system parses the device hardware descriptors. The original CadMouse was launched when Mac OS X 10.9 was the newest operating system and it worked fine. A bug was introduced in Mac OS X 10.10 that broke the parsing of the hardware descriptors and buttons stopped working. In the end, our only recourse was to work around the bug using a kernel extension, a technology no longer accessible to us in macOS 11.

If you take a clean macOS 11 system and plug in a CadMouse, it will move the pointer but the buttons are ignored by the system. That's the bug we have been trying to resolve.

It's not so nice you (3dconnexion) are telling you're dropping original CadMouse and CadMouse Wireless on the day the new OS is released, you knew this since 2019

Not so. In fact, we went to great lengths to ensure compatibility but, in the end, we were unable to work around the limitation as described above.

[marcarch]

The issue is the way the system parses the device hardware descriptors. The original CadMouse was launched when Mac OS X 10.9 was the newest operating system and it worked fine. A bug was introduced in Mac OS X 10.10 that broke the parsing of the hardware descriptors and buttons stopped working.

Thank you for clarifying.
Is it macOS that parses the CadMouse descriptor, or the CadMouse that has a “wrong” hardware descriptor? I really can’t get why the new CadMouse Pro works while the older doesn’t.

Could you tell us more about this macOS bug? Is it listed somewhere (Apple dev forums, Apple bug lists etc.) so that we could pressure Apple to solve it?

[marcarch]

The issue is the way the system parses the device hardware descriptors. The original CadMouse was launched when Mac OS X 10.9 was the newest operating system and it worked fine. A bug was introduced in Mac OS X 10.10 that broke the parsing of the hardware descriptors and buttons stopped working.

Thank you for clarifying.
Is it macOS that parses the CadMouse descriptor, or the CadMouse that has a “wrong” hardware descriptor? I really can’t get why the new CadMouse Pro works while the older doesn’t.

Could you tell us more about this macOS bug? Is it listed somewhere (Apple dev forums, Apple bug lists etc.) so that we could pressure Apple to solve it?

[ngomes]

Is it macOS that parses the CadMouse descriptor, or the CadMouse that has a “wrong” hardware descriptor?

The CadMouse works fine in other operating systems, with or without 3Dconnexion software.

I really can’t get why the new CadMouse Pro works while the older doesn’t.

Devices such as the CadMouse Pro were released after Mac OS X 10.10 and we were able to modify the hardware descriptors to work around the issue.
You will notice that a CadMouse Wireless Pro will work well over Bluetooth or cable but does not over a Universal Receiver. This is precisely due to the same issue.
Again, the CadMouse and Universal Receiver devices worked fine in Mac OS X when 3Dconnexion launched the products. It was only with the introduction of Mac OS X 10.10 that the problem came up.

Is it listed somewhere (Apple dev forums, Apple bug lists etc.) so that we could pressure Apple to solve it?

We're not aware of anything available in public forums. The issue was reported to Apple using the tools available at the time ("bug reporter") but have since been discontinued.

[marcarch]

Devices such as the CadMouse Pro were released after Mac OS X 10.10 and we were able to modify the hardware descriptors to work around the issue.

Can’t a firmware update tweak the hardware descriptor?

The issue was reported to Apple using the tools available at the time ("bug reporter") but have since been discontinued.

Why don’t you try to post the issue on the Apple developers forum?
I’m sure their some developers have an eye on that.

[ngomes]

Can’t a firmware update tweak the hardware descriptor?

I don't think so. It would likely have a cascade effect on the software for other operating systems and we wouldn't know it until the work was done.

Why don’t you try to post the issue on the Apple developers forum?
I’m sure their some developers have an eye on that.

We were in contact with Apple at the time and we had to resort to a kernel extension to work around the issue.

Perhaps as the "System Extension" technology matures we will be in a position to partially restore the functionality but it is too late now as customers have begun to transition to macOS 11.

[marcarch]

I don't think so. It would likely have a cascade effect on the software for other operating systems and we wouldn't know until the work was done.

Still can't get why you can't update the old CadMouse in order to show itself to the OS as the new CadMouse...

We were in contact with Apple at the time and we had to resort to a kernel extension to work around the issue.

Perhaps as the "System Extension" technology matures we will be in a position to restore partially restore the functionality but it is too late now as customers have begun to transition to macOS 11.

Yeah, it's too late now, you definitely had time to tell us users about this issue.
What 3Dconnexion can do now is give us discounts for the new CadMouse, or update the original CadMouse hardware descriptor.

[hausarkitekt]

Future support for orignial CadMouse, CadMouse wireless, SpaceNavigator, SpaceNavigator wireless.

We're particularly disappointed with the lack of support for the original CadMouse and CadMouse Wireless.

Is it correct that all the mentioned devices on top of my post will not work with Big Sur and you are not working on at fix anymore?

In the office and home I am using 2 CadMouse, 2 SpaceNavigator (one wireless, one with cable), one CadMouse Wireless.
Does that mean I can through all these input devices out and buy new ones?

I updated to Big Sur already - have not been aware of the problem before I did. Mouse works, buttons do not. SpaceNavigator wireless does not work. Original CadMouse - same as the wireless model - buttons do not work.

To be able to continue my work as an architect I will have to deal with the Magic Mouse, or temporary to back to Catalina (using hours for the downgrade process), but on the long run I will be able to stay with Catalina anyway.