DJ controller not connecting to Mac? – How to fix the common driver issue!

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Decks, sound card or other hardware not connecting to your Mac?

Apple computers have long been the choice of professional musicians thanks to Core Audio. Core Audio is a software framework that allows audio devices such as decks, sound cards and midi devices connect to the computer and perform with minimal latency, maximising the musicians performance.

All Mac’s use core audio as it’s built directly into the operating system and it’s long been the reason for superior performance when using Apple computers to DJ or produce music.

However that doesn’t mean that hardware such as controllers, sound cards and mixers won’t still need additional drivers to work. Some DJ hardware will require you to download and install additional drivers and thanks to a recent security update, it’s causing issues for DJ’s.

What are the symptoms?

After installing drivers “successfully” you may find your hardware is suffering from audio dropouts, losing connection moments after being plugged in or simply not powering up at all. All of this can be very confusing and the problem isn’t obvious at first glance. Pioneer DJ DDJ-1000 units may show No Audio Driver Installed.

How do we fix the driver issue?

The problem lies in the installation process of the drivers. During the installation process you will be prompted with a security message stating that a system extension has been blocked.

The default button the mac will want you to press is okay, and if you press this you will continue to the installation successful screen. Unfortunately the installation hasn’t actual been successful as the security has blocked part of the instal and as such you will start to experience issues. Security Extension Blocked To solve the issue we have to head into security settings and unblock, we can do this by pressing the “Open Security Preferences” during the installation process.

If you have gone too far and completed the install, we can open the same panel by going to “System Preferences” and then clicking “Security and Privacy” note you must do this within 30 minutes of installing the driver. Inside Security and Preferences you will see that a system software from the hardware manufacturer was blocked from loading. It’s this block that is causing the hardware issues, so we must click allow. Once done the hardware should now perform as intended. System Software Blocked

I installed my driver over 30 minutes ago, what should I do?

If you have been experiencing issues with hardware you have installed previously, uninstall the driver and reinstall following the steps above. To uninstall a driver please contact your hardware manufacturer for further information, Rane products need software to uninstall drivers and Pioneer drivers can be removed by deleting the utility application from your applications folder.