macOS Big Sur and Monterey - Pre-release Driver Available

[timpritlove]

SpaceMouse Compact USB and Google Earth. That's all I want. It has been working for years reliably on all of my Macs. Moving to M1 has made everything come to a halt.

After having tried all the betas before, I installed the latest v3291 on my Mac mini M1. After months of trying still the same problem: weird behaviour, everything totally unusable. I am quite disappointed at this point. I have been recommending SpaceMouse to many people in the past but I can no longer do this with a good conscience.

I really wonder why after so many months nothing is improving at all. Maybe you should consider throwing away the old code and start fresh with a new team? This is going nowhere. We are talking about reading out sensors of an existing USB device and passing them properly to apps. This does not exactly qualify as rocket science. Maybe you should just open up the specs and the code and do this open source on GitHub to have the chance to get help by gifted people who can find bugs (and even find a way to get the device integrated into more software than it used to support).

I know software development can be hard but this is getting quite embarrassing. Maybe the OS is to blame, but even then, talk about it. And maybe you should ditch this weird 90ies style web forum for something more helpful so at least that looking for answers and explanations isn't as hard as it now is.

[ngomes]

SpaceMouse Compact USB and Google Earth. That's all I want. It has been working for years reliably on all of my Macs. Moving to M1 has made everything come to a halt.

We are aware of a performance issue in Google Earth and our new driver in macOS 11.

After looking into it, we drew a blank. Currently, this an known issue and we don't have a path to resolution.

The issue is tracked with reference MAC-264.

[jsharpe]

SpaceMouse Compact USB and Google Earth. That's all I want. It has been working for years reliably on all of my Macs. Moving to M1 has made everything come to a halt.

We are aware of a performance issue in Google Earth and our new driver in macOS 11.

After looking into it, we drew a blank. Currently, this an known issue and we don't have a path to resolution.

The issue is tracked with reference MAC-264.

Hmmm. That makes me wonder if perhaps the problem is somehow actually a Big Sur specific bug in Google Earth Pro, rather than the driver, which would be unfortunate because IMO getting any kind of support to fix it from Google is likely to never happen Please do not give up on this issue though. That's the only application I use my Navigator for.

[FabLab RUC]

[/quote]
Wireless CadMouse support over dongle (Universal Receiver) is unsupported in macOS 11 and, regrettably, we expect no change going forward.

Thats a real bummer since the mouse is less than year old. A newer model should have been covered by warranty since critical functionality was lost in an OS upgrade. Something that shouldn't happen with a mouse. Or at least never happened to me before. The bluetooth connection is in no way as stable and fast as the dongle.

Also, will M1 support come around?

Yes. Work to create "universal" binaries of our driver software is on-going.
[/quote]
Thats nice to know, but I guess I'll hold back on buying new 3Dconnexion hardware until I see it running stable and out of any beta cycle.

[ngomes]

Hmmm. That makes me wonder if perhaps the problem is somehow actually a Big Sur specific bug in Google Earth Pro, rather than the driver, which would be unfortunate because IMO getting any kind of support to fix it from Google is likely to never happen Please do not give up on this issue though. That's the only application I use my Navigator for.

To be clear: we don't know where the problem is or even if it is limited to a single issue.

MAC-264 remains opened. We want to resolve it, if we can. As mentioned before, it's one of two open issues (the other being modifier key emulation) affecting our customer comparatively to macOS 10.15 and older.

A third problem, wireless CadMouse over dongle connectivity, is no longer being actively tracked since we're only able to support SpaceMouse types. The CadMouse limitation is due to the same underlying problem (introduced in OS X 10.10) affecting the original CadMouse and CadMouse Wireless where the buttons wouldn't click. For those two device types, we have a firmware update but that is not option for the dongle. There are no 2D mouse buttons in SpaceMouse types, so these work fine over dongle in macOS 11.

[Darcsyde]

I can't get my SpaceNavigator to work with Catalina... I'm afraid to upgrade to Big Sur and have NO hope...

I keep getting the message, "Click on Allow in Security and Privacy" but there's not even a section where 3DConnexion S.A.M. is showing..

the driver is completely broken and I've uninstalled and re-installed five times... and I can't delete the 3DConnexion.kext file... (read-only)

[mister007]

Hi 3D Connexion Team,

I bought a Space Mouse wireless last year and had really much fun with it until I upgraded to Big Sur.

As everybody knows this lead to infunctional Space Mouse wireless. Since last year I'm waiting for an final driver to use this almost brand new mouse on my almost brand new Mac. Unfortunately there isn't any progress which can be used on productive system, as the disclaimer of the beta says no warranty for deleted files. I use the Space Mouse, as probably all your customers, on a system where I really would be mad about deleted files by your driver. All my projects were stopped by this immediately.

After reading through the forum here I get the feeling that 3D Connextion is really lost by developing appropriate driver. How can it be that complicated that driver development lasts now almost for two years with no end in shight?

Therefore here is my question: will there be a final driver soon? To be honest I'm kind of dissapointed that I can't use my Space Mouse anymore because I thought I bought a premium product. If there is no perspective for this I probably would like to return my product and search for alternatves.

Thank you
Ben

[ngomes]

I keep getting the message, "Click on Allow in Security and Privacy" but there's not even a section where 3DConnexion S.A.M. is showing..

See if this helps.

Specifically:

Note: This message will be displayed only for 30 min. Each time the extension is tried to be loaded (but was not yet allowed) – for example after a reboot – the user will see this note appearing here again for another 30 min, but no visual warning dialog, like in picture 2 will be given.

You can reach to our technical support team (contacts here).

[ngomes]

How can it be that complicated that driver development lasts now almost for two years with no end in shight?

The driver was not "in development" for two years.

We have been trying to deploy an alternative to the kernel extension since WWDC 2019 (June that year) but we were unable to do so. It did not depended solely on 3Dconnexion.

Also, what is the "end" you're looking for? We have limited support for modifier keys now. It does not offer the same user experience as in macOS 10.15 but it is available now and - as mentioned before -- we will be working to see if we can deploy a "DriverKit" extension to bring the feature to parity with the older driver.

The other issue we're tracking (performance problems with Google Earth) as no clear track for resolution, meaning we don't know if we can fix it.

[ngomes]

3Dconnexon has released "beta 14" (revision r3295) of the new driver for macOS. The "beta" builds can be downloaded from the FAQ page linked here. A change history summary is available on the top post.

The issue affecting button support in Blender is resolved (MAC-277). We have also modified the Maya plugin in an attempt to minimize the "flickering" issue (MAC-278).

[ngomes]

Hi popevideo,

I'm having issues with Blender as well using Spacemouse Enterprise. On macOS Catalina I was able to map buttons in blender's Keymap preferences using NDOF option to any of the buttons on the Spacemouse Enterprise. Now blender doesn't recognize when I try to map any of the buttons. Modifier keys do not work as well.

We expect to have resolved the issue (MAC-277) you reported with Blender in "beta 14" (revision r3295).

If you can, we'd appreciate if you could confirm whether the problem is fixed for you. The software can be downloaded from the FAQ page linked from the top post.

[RVeldhuyzen]

3Dconnexon has released "beta 14" (revision r3295) of the new driver for macOS. The "beta" builds can be downloaded from the FAQ page linked here. A change history summary is available on the top post.

The issue affecting button support in Blender is resolved (MAC-277). We have also modified the Maya plugin in an attempt to minimize the "flickering" issue (MAC-278).

Okay, this is really early, so don't read too much into it, but .... WOOHOO!
I've been working from 9am this morning and have had to restart Maya at least 42 times so far because it crashed, and have almost gotten used to the flickering.
I just installed this beta and used Maya for a few minutes, but so far NO MORE FLICKERING!
I expect to do a few more hours of work today, so I'll check back in later to share how it's going. But so far so good

[ngomes]

hi ChargedNeuron,

At Present in Blender 2.91 on the PC buttons are functioning normally. On the Mac, The Face Buttons (Front, Right, Top), Fit, Menu, Modifier Buttons do not work. Buttons 1-4, Rotation Lock seem to be working as intended.

As similarly requested to popevideo, we'd like to ask you check the "beta 14" build (published today) to see if there are improvements to button handling in Blender. The software can be downloaded from the FAQ page linked from the top post.

[FabLab RUC]

When using the CADmouse Wireless what's is the relation between the native mouse setting for tracking speed and the 3Dconnexion driver setting for tracking speed?

Also after using the CADmouse Wireless as an bluetooth only mouse instead as connected to the wireless dongle the mouse is more erratic and unstable. The acceleration is hard to figure out and it makes my muscle memory less accurate and thereby loosing precision. The mouse is not anywhere near as good as when I bought it.

Is the CADmouse Pro Wireless fully supported on Big Sur?

[ngomes]

Is the CADmouse Pro Wireless fully supported on Big Sur?

The status of the CadMouse Pro Wireless and the CadMouse Wireless is identical.

The only significant difference is the CMW will need a firmware upgrade (to firmware v. 1.11). The CadMouse Pro Wireless does not need a firmware update to work on macOS 11.

Neither device type will work over the dongle on macOS 11. The system ignores the button clicks.