Google Drive on Macs M1 : Extension not loaded

mtc_dkirsching
New Contributor

9e3bfc1565ce48868438aa16a272f660
Hello,

Has anyone managed to get Google Drive version 46 to work on M1 macs?

https://support.google.com/a/answer/7577057?hl=en

I scrupulously followed the instructions on the Google Workspace site but the permission for the extension pops over and over again...

https://support.google.com/a/users/answer/10444081?p=apple-setup&visit_id=637511279520819452-1025626457&rd=1

this software is incredibly complex to manage

12 REPLIES 12

sirsir
Contributor

I don't think M1 is officially supported until Google Drive v47 comes out in April.

support-mg
New Contributor II

I have v46.0 working on an M1 MacBook running MacOS 11.2.2. It's working via a manual install and includes the 'press and hold the power button on restart' to dial the security policy down. The machine is managed via JAMF but we arn't deploying Google Drive via JAMF. The requirements for rebooting into special modes with admin credentials just doesn't make this viable... Greatfully we're small enough to just manually add these fussy apps to new devices until Google ships a non-KEXT solution to this tool (assuming such is even possible at the current state of BigSur's development).

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tsylwest
Contributor

...And it's broken again... we just tried v47... and the headache included, to get it working feels like a hack (reducing security) and just doesn't seem to make this viable for our M1's, fortunately we don't have that many yet, but come on google...

aarond
Contributor

It is a bit of a hack and having to disable all the new security Apple worked on is frustrating.
Here's what I found last time I worked with this.

The first account set up on an M1 (likely the account with the UID 501) has special privileges (sounds like a bootstrap token issue to me).
If using any other account tried to install the new Google Drive app (as detailed here https://support.google.com/a/users/answer/10444081 ) it would not work consistently.

If you signed in with the account with the UID 501 and followed these instructions from Google, it worked just fine.

aarond
Contributor

And as of now, it seems that Google figured it out.
Everything is working on a computer running 11.2.3 with full security enabled.

sirsir
Contributor

@aarond

Can you share your PPPC, Kext, and Extension Approvals profiles?

mmgyglobal
New Contributor

We removed all of our Config Profiles that had KEXT rules for M1 and it now behaves no security prompts. Looks like they are passing Auth through the browser now instead of it being standalone in the app.

aarond
Contributor

@SirSir

I'll save you the ones I have experimented with.
As of now, I only have one PPPC profile to make sure everyone can allow mounting virtual network drives since that's how it appears and it's just because our users don't have admin rights and I thought it may help - haven't tested without so it may be unnecessary.
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With the way Google is doing this, you could probably get away with no KEXT, PPPC, or system extensions profiles for this.

aarond
Contributor

I should also mention that this profile is failing on a significant number of our computers.
Haven't seen a trend regarding if a model or OS impacts its success.
Checking with Jamf now to see why.

Phil_P
New Contributor II

Drive v47 appears to run as a local SMB share instead of a mounted removable file system, at least on this M1. A colleague with an Intel Mac running v47 still sees the mounted removable drive.
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aarond
Contributor

@srenschen Good point - hadn't noticed that.
That seems consistent with the few I've checked as well.

seanism
New Contributor III

So in Big Sur I get the system extension approval request.  Is there a sysExt we can whitelist to prevent that?  This is an Intel Mac.