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Mysterious Avid Issue Knocks Out Mac Pro Workstations Across Hollywood
- foxhill 7y agoyikes. having written aax plugins for a while, i have to say, i’m kind of surprised this came from AVID. from what it sounds like (having scraped the surface), it’s not their editing software (Pro Tools, et al.) but their copy protection management tool/device driver - iLok. i’m sure there are some very anxious engineers in the AVID offices today.
- dvfjsdhgfv 7y ago> their copy protection management tool/device driver - iLok. They're still using that? These things were successfully cracked in the nineties, I was convinced nobody uses hardware dongles anymore.
- trynewideas 7y agoBuy your third-gen iLok today for only $49: https://www.avid.com/licenses/ilok https://www.avid.com/licenses/ilok
- adreamingsoul 7y agoyes, they are still an industry standard.
- lukeh 7y agoI believe the current generation is stronger.
- RealDinosaur 7y agoOh, it's not just Avid. Some audio production software such as ReFX Nexus still uses a USB dongle. There is no way to use the software without it plugged in. It also has a policy where if you damage the dongle, you have to buy again and get a 10% discount off the FULL price of the VST. In the age of people gigging on laptops, I'm not entirely sure how they think they are gonna sell any more of them. I fancy it myself as it has quite a few 'familiar' sounds on it, but not with all the downsides.
- episodeiv 7y agoTo add to that, it's not just media production. In the medical field, almost all software for performing and analyzing EKGs, X-rays, MRIs etc. comes by default with some sort of dongle-based protection. Apparently, it's not enough that you need the biggest dongle in the world (i.e. the machine itself!) to use the software. Some vendors do offer alternatives if you fight them hard enough but the default still is a trip to dongle town.
- tecleandor 7y agoAh, but they need to control that CD recording device on the workstation, just in case you're handing out CDs to your patients WITHOUT A CD RECORDING LICENSE. They have the weirdest licenses.
- stallmanite 7y agoSo there is software on a medical device concerned with users copying a Billy Joel CD?
- tecleandor 7y agoThey sell every functionality as an aditional "license" or "plugin". So, for example, it's not unusual that, by default, your half a million USD scanner, that includes a powerful workstation to control it (the one the technician uses behind the window) will only let you write CDs (for example, to give your patient a copy of his/her scan) if you pay an additional "CD Writing license" Now, with PACS and centralization that have changed a bit, but still...
- stallmanite 7y agoThanks for the explanation. Still gross but not as bad as RIAA checks being performed somehow.
- userbinator 7y ago
- hajhatten 7y agoSteinberg Cubase uses these aswell
- NikkiA 7y agoCubase uses eLicenser, not iLok, and it hasn't been cracked since a version about 10+ years ago so it does a pretty good job - even if that does mean cubase has fallen in popularity.
- tolien 7y agoThe new Mac Pro tower has an internal USB-A port, explicitly for this reason [1]. 1: https://appleinsider.com/articles/19/06/04/apples-new-mac-pro-internal-components---answers-and-lingering-questions https://appleinsider.com/articles/19/06/04/apples-new-mac-pr...
- justinjlynn 7y agoI look at what the industry has allowed itself become and cringe.
- SyneRyder 7y agoiLok doesn't require the hardware dongle anymore, licenses can be installed onto the hard drive now. Some people prefer the dongle because they can carry their licenses from machine to machine, studio to studio etc. But as a user, I still much prefer the old-school serial number unlock without internet activation, though.
- unicornfinder 7y agoIt depends - a lot of software still requires the hardware dongle and it's much more secure than the machine licensing option I'm told.
- unicornfinder 7y agoActually the current generation of iLok hasn't been cracked yet (and from what I've heard it's unlikely that it ever will be). There was a time a few years ago when the wrapper got cracked but as far as I know the security itself is still strong.
- flukus 7y ago> but their copy protection management tool/device driver - iLok. Maybe Hollywood will learn that DRM hurts legitimate users. But they probably won't, I won't be shedding any tears either way.
- org3432 7y agoIronically film tools have some of the most stringent copy protection systems, and big studios break the licenses agreements without hesitation when they need to get something done.
- api 7y agoI wonder if Hollywood is so obsessed with DRM because they themselves are such f'ing pirates. The entire culture of Hollywood is around stealing (e.g. the endless so-and-so stole my script idea lawsuits) and defending oneself from having one's stuff stolen. Maybe they're projecting and imagining that everyone is constantly trying to steal everything. As a normal movie and TV viewer I will always look for an option to rent, buy, or stream stuff because I like to support the production of stuff I like and because the time it takes to jank around with pirated crap is generally worth more than the cost of just paying. The only time I've turned to piracy in recent (post-broke-college-kid) memory is when something is literally unavailable by any other means. I suspect I'm typical. DRM has zero effect on my behavior. If anything DRM encourages me to consider pirating because it adds pain and hassle. In the case of actual purchases (vs streaming and virtual renting) I really despise DRM since I purchased a copy and should be able to play it on any device I have and store it for posterity. I generally will not outright purchase DRMed content.
- zerocrates 7y agoSince we're talking Hollywood, what's your success rate in being able to buy movies that don't have DRM? I can't think of any way to do that, really. Or are you saying that you basically can't, and therefore don't buy movies and instead stream or rent?
- 7y ago
- auslander 7y ago> their copy protection management tool/device driver - iLok MacOS Catalina makes running kernel extensions hard, they probably were testing new iLok version for Catalina.
- rock_artist 7y agoCatalina major change is ANY dll should know pass through security. That's why notirisation also for software plug-ins is needed meaning also runtime hardening in future and proper entitlements by host and plug in
- saagarjha 7y agoYour comment is a bit hard to parse. Would you mind clarifying it a bit?
- rock_artist 7y agoI’ve started to write something but here is a good tl;dr - https://forums.developer.apple.com/thread/122566 https://forums.developer.apple.com/thread/122566
- saagarjha 7y agoRight, Library Validation is tightened when you opt-in to Runtime Hardening.
- josteink 7y ago> MacOS Catalina makes running kernel extensions hard So it has bad compatibility? Is that a good thing which we’re excusing now?
- lukeh 7y agoOT, what plugins? I’m a keen Pro Tools user!
- SyneRyder 7y agoA few of the Twitter replies say they've seen it on non-AVID devices, which might lend more credence to the iLok theory. https://twitter.com/FamousJerry/status/1176422298535940097 https://twitter.com/FamousJerry/status/1176422298535940097 I'm kinda hoping iLok is the culprit, because I've been refusing to buy any plugins that require iLok, even though that means avoiding some effects I'd really love to have & developers that I'd love to support. Thankfully iLok is optional for the iZotope stuff...
- femto113 7y agoThe iLok is just a repository of keys and can’t hurt anything by itself. It’s communicated with by code either built into a license protected application or in a “wrapper” added to an otherwise unprotected app. Pace AP (maker of the software and reseller of the iLok) is essentially in a never ending arms race with the warez crowd, and in the past has resorted to some gray-hat, rootkit-like techniques to prevent cracking. It wouldn’t surprise me if this was either some old Pace code going rotten or some sort of crack gone viral/rogue. I used to develop an iLok protected app and am still on their developer mailing list, but note that I haven’t seen any recent alerts from them so it’s entirety possible it’s something else.
- SyneRyder 7y agoYep, after I posted I realized that if this is really widespread & iLok related, surely someone would have posted on Gearslutz complaining about it by now. So far I can't find any threads about it there. In my iLok case years ago, it was a problem with the iLok KEXT kernel extension drivers causing my Mac to kernel panic at startup that put me off. That would've been around the Mac OS X 10.5 / 10.6 era.
- pier25 7y agoI bought a plugin from UVI and had to use iLok for the first time recently and the experience was atrocious. Not only that, if you want to sell and transfer your iLok license you have to pay $20. I will never buy anything that requires iLok.
- cheeze 7y agoIronically, the folks pirating the software didn't run into any interruption because there is no iLok
- holy_city 7y agoiLok has been extremely effective at stopping cracks or at least slowing them down enough to where the software is obsolete by the time a crack appears. The pirates don't have access to this software in the first place. We can debate the merits of DRM all we want, but PACE's stuff actually works (at stopping pirates, and sometimes paying users)
- leetrout 7y agoIt is truly a cancer and the worst part about using Avid tools. I wish they would get rid of it.
- pnako 7y ago>Film and TV editors across Los Angeles were sweating Monday evening as their workstations were refusing to reboot The irony of something refusing to reboot in Hollywood. Hopefully the production of Star Wars 12, Rambo 8 and Terminator 9 has not been too disrupted.
- gnrlst 7y agoThe rebellion has got to start from somewhere. Humans are still consuming mindless reboots, but the machines have decided it's too much and have given up.
- theclaw 7y agoSounds unlikely to be a virus. Certificate expiry seems probable if it’s happened suddenly to everyone using this software and dongle.
- comex 7y agoWhatever it is, it's changing operating system settings, so not just certificate expiry: https://twitter.com/MarcusPun/status/1176369954255331328/photo/1 https://twitter.com/MarcusPun/status/1176369954255331328/pho...
- djsumdog 7y agohuh .. to the point of changing what groups a user is in (or corrupting the local user info).
- rolltiide 7y agoWhats with this kneejerk advice? Honestly who turns off their macs? Are they talking about sleep mode?
- imdsm 7y agoI had an issue recently with Virtualbox which caused my iMac Pro to crash and power cycle. That, as well as certain Xcode updates (required by other software), meant I lost my 200+ days of workstation uptime.
- valerij 7y agoi, as an app developer, have to reboot my mac atleast two times the week to get xcode back into a working state. not to sound like a jerk, but if you dont have to powercycle you prob not pushing your machine far enough
- michaelmrose 7y agoOr running stable software that locks up less? Maybe Xcode is just badly written?
- donedealomg 7y agowhy `maybe` XCode's codebase is a mess
- valerij 7y ago
- lukeh 7y agoOne Twitter thread I followed said something was trashing /var.
- mohlmag 7y agoIts unlinking /var from /private/var and laying down a new incomplete /var
- archi42 7y agoSound like someone messed up a removal routine, equivalent to "rm $base_dir/$temp_dir -rf".
- madaxe_again 7y agoYeah, that’s exactly what the behaviour sounded like to me too, having inadvertently done this to myself a few times over the years, and given that many autoupdaters run with root permission, it’s perfectly plausible.
- archi42 7y agoYeah, I think we had that twice: 1. "I can't work if all the NFS mounts empty" 2. "You're aware that closing the GUI empties /home/$(whoami)? Related: Did you see our sysadmin?". Backups are awesome.
- 693471 7y agoNot possible with SIP. The OS files are read only. Not even root can change them.
- fredoralive 7y agoSomeone else in thread mentions an kext for the iLok dongle AVID uses, so are kexts covered by SIP? Or are they counted as part of the kernel, and thus all powerful?
- 693471 7y agoLooks like some situations AVID requires SIP disabled for external video cards? So dumb. Why do companies pull this crap instead of fixing their issues with the vendor instead of leaving their users vulnerable
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- tmikaeld 7y agoHm, I'm not using any AVID software, but I had to re-install from Time Machine after trying the 10.14.6 update on my Mac Mini 2018 last week.
- aiCeivi9 7y agoSounds like the case when EvE Online removed some Windows boot files: https://www.eveonline.com/article/about-the-boot.ini-issue https://www.eveonline.com/article/about-the-boot.ini-issue
- Zenst 7y agoAh bless, I recall that (played at the time), I was fortunate to of had separate drives for programs and temp/swap to the OS and didn't have eve installed upon th C: drive, but knew many who didn't. That said, it was somebody who did the same kind of thing that tested the update and equally had no issue and it rolled out. Though fair play, they put their hands up fast and if needed, paid for peoples to get a tech to fix the issue for users who just gamed and unable to handle the minutiae of fixing themselves.
- penispooper 7y agoiToddlers BTFO
- kalev 7y agoThe use of 'trashcan' to refer to the MacPro by multiple users in the link is pretty amusing. > Has anyone had their trashcans go down today out of nowhere?
- shoghicp 7y agoWe have a bunch of Mac build servers here. They are also called trashcans by everyone that works with them.
- Mindwipe 7y agoLiterally everyone in television and film production calls them trashcans. I've seen them called that in contracts even.
- Austin_Conlon 7y agoThey threw the kitchen sink at the problem but just ended up buying cheese graters!
- tiborsaas 7y agoIt's a level up, now it looks like a tool for processing ingredients rather then collecting the junk :)
- semi-extrinsic 7y agoApple Cheese Grater CNC and performance testing on Pecorino: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=s29YZqe9Cso https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=s29YZqe9Cso
- 52-6F-62 7y agoThis is exactly what I was looking for in this thread. Of course it exists.
- Havoc 7y agoThat must really be annoying someone over at apple. Spend all that time design something beautiful. And... Everyone calls it garbage
- KaiserPro 7y agorule 1 of hollywood tech support: Always take what the editor says with a massive pinch of salt. I spent ten years in the movie industry, and the people that were the most forthright, and almost universally wrong about technical things were editors. "The monitor is out of grade" No, you've set the background lights to red. "The sound is out of sync" No, you've turned off the amp and somehow managed to get the crappy test tv to play sound "the hardrive is corrupt" no, its clearly asking you to update OSX my personal favorite: "my station is slow" No, what you appear to be doing is copying 135 TBs of data from one share to another.
- rock_artist 7y agoAny non tech savvy would provide or will be treated by grain of salt. But, I have several reports from colleagues.
- KaiserPro 7y agooh indeed, its a pinch of salt, not ignore entirely :)
- nkozyra 7y agoWhat you're describing sounds like industry-specific anecdotes from a very common, cross-industry reality about non technical users.
- jon-wood 7y agoI'd revise that to the far more irritating segment of users who think they're more technical than they really are. Actual non technical users are fine, because they generally know when they don't understand a thing. The thinks-their-technical users will bravely throw in whatever phrases they've heard mentioned in relation to a completely unrelated problem.
- xiconfjs 7y agoAmen.
- blobs 7y agoThis is what Avid sends you after creating an account: Your iLok account allows you to: - Use the free iLok License Manager application to manage your licenses - Take advantage of Zero Downtime and Theft & Loss Coverage premium services to help protect your investment Take advantage of Zero Downtime I never understand what they mean with this, but now it definitely lost all its meaning.
- franky47 7y agoZero Downtime is a paying option provided by PACE (makers of the iLok and the copy protection software) for extended support if one loses their licenses. It covers a broken/lost/stolen iLok, not sure how it would fit in this case. A few years back I was working for a company that used iLok protection and had a major outage like this, we nicknamed it the iLokalypse.
- devm0de 7y agoFrom what I recall zero downtime simply meant if a ilok went missing then PACE would assist you in replacing license(s) to a replacement ilok from their end. Trouble is often times you couldn’t quickly find a replacement ilok without a guitar center nearby and would still have to order it through avid store and wait for it to arrive if you didn’t plan for this.
- entropicdrifter 7y agoZDT also covers RMA situations where you iLok broke. Instead of them sending you a new iLok after a couple of weeks that has whatever licenses they were able to recover off the old one, they send you a new one with all of the licenses from the old one the same day you send them the old one, so you end up with like a 24-48 hour turnaround instead of losing a week or two.
- unicornfinder 7y agoAh yes, the excellent service of paying additional money to be able to actually use the software you've paid for...
- holstvoogd 7y agoSounds like another 'DRM so strong you can't even boot anymore!'
- TheSpiceIsLife 7y agoDRM so strong they can’t even produce the film.
- KibbutzDalia 7y agoI switched to Adobe Premiere under Windows 10 with NVIDA 2080 for accelerated rendering and have been very satisfied.
- Waterluvian 7y agoIt's really warming to me that Avid and Premiere, two applications I learned video editing on at school when I was 10, are still big things today.
- 693471 7y agoHow is this possible with SIP in modern MacOS? Did they turn SIP off?
- dannyw 7y agoSIP is a whitelist, not a blacklist. It's possible they (Apple) missed something.
- tjpnz 7y agoIs this really an issue localised to LA? I've worked for companies equipped with Avid suites that were (at least in geographic terms) as far away as you can get from LA.
- x86_64Ubuntu 7y agoDid anyone else get a drive-by download from synchroscript.deliveryengine.adswizz.com?
- jboggan 7y agoYes, what was that?
- x86_64Ubuntu 7y agoI have no idea. It was a 0 byte afp.php file. You only really get those when a webserver isn't setup to process the PHP files and ends up sending it out like a download.
- bananamerica 7y agoWhy people still use Avid?
- holy_city 7y agoBecause it's the industry standard when you need to work with more than one person. Most other offerings don't scale with team size/production pipeline like Pro Tools/Media Composer. And there's a certain class of professional who resists change/upgrades at every turn, specifically because of stuff like this where updates would typically break everything.
- 52-6F-62 7y agoI don't know about the video production side, but Pro Tools is fantastic software.
- wizardforhire 7y agoOh man I’d hate to be on the receiving end of this shit storm. There’s a film called swimming with sharks [1] that perfectly illustrates the wrath of producers [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swimming_with_Sharks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swimming_with_Sharks
- ratww 7y agoSomeone on Reddit posted some more details. Apparently it's iLok removing the /var directory. https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/d8nxhk/mysterious_avid_issue_knocks_out_mac_pro/f1bnun2/ https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/d8nxhk/mysterious_av...
- theclaw 7y agoIt now looks as though it might be Google Chrome. Whoooops. https://mrmacintosh.com/google-chrome-keystone-is-modifying-var-symlink-on-non-sip-macs-causing-boot-issues/ https://mrmacintosh.com/google-chrome-keystone-is-modifying-... e: hn discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21064663 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21064663
- holy_city 7y agoI can't wait for the post mortem, I wasn't expecting anything with Avid/PACE but if it's Google's problem then maybe we'll get info. I work in this space (and am a casual user in the space) and I really want to know why /private/var was getting unlinked through a normal update and why Avid got pinged for it.
- ratww 7y ago> why Avid got pinged for it I think that was just because it was Avid users discovered it on the FB group[1]. I thought it was cool of their CEO to talk to the community, despite no evidence of it being their fault. [1] https://www.facebook.com/groups/mediacomposer/permalink/10158340050634460/ https://www.facebook.com/groups/mediacomposer/permalink/1015...
- batmanthehorse 7y agoThis site says Chrome Updater is the cause of the problem: https://mrmacintosh.com/google-chrome-keystone-is-modifying-var-symlink-on-non-sip-macs-causing-boot-issues/ https://mrmacintosh.com/google-chrome-keystone-is-modifying-... It only happens on Macs with SIP disabled, which includes a lot of Mac Pros with Avid (for third-party video card support)
- mitchtbaum 7y agoSay it with me, EOL, Eunuchs (Operating System).
- IOT_Apprentice 7y agoWell, looks like Google has some splaining to do in this incident.
- tinus_hn 7y agoIsn’t this just the Google Updater issue that removes the /var link on Macs that have SIP disabled? Perhaps that is required for Avid?