No Apple Internet Recovery with Belkin USB-C/Ethernet (MBP 2017)

[glpi-ios]

Hi everybody,

Please, Can you tell me if it's normal that I can't boot on Apple Internet Recovery with the adapter Belkin white USB-C/Ethernet (F2CU040) on MacBook Pro (2017).

it's working with the same adapter but with MacBook Pro 2016 versions ...

We've tried with black Dell adapter multi-ports (DA-200) too but with no success (on MBP 2017).

Thanks for your help.

[m_donovan]

I have had the same issue but disconnecting and reconnecting the adapter to the computer usually gets it going. I have seen some what better results with the ethernet/thunderbolt2 to thunderbolt2/USB-C combination of adapters. Those adapters are all Apple branded as well. Plus none of our 2017 MBP's are touchbar not sure if that could have anything to do with it.

[glpi-ios]

Thanks for your answer.

I have 2017 MBP with TouchBar.
Even If I disconnect and reconnect the adapter, I still have issue.

I can confirm that with ethernet/thunderbolt2 to thunderbolt2/USB-C adapter, it's working.

It's really annoying because we ordered more than 400 Belkin white USB-C/Ethernet adapters (F2CU040) :-((

[m_donovan]

We are a school district so we went with the Belkin adapter for teachers/staff and the double dongle setup for tech staff. With the idea that only tech staff would need the netboot/internet recovery functionality. So far wireless has not been an issue so the Belkin adapters don't get used much.

[mojo21221]

Same issue here with the Tripp-Lite Multi Port adapter (USB 3, Ethernet, HDMI, and Charge passthrough). I ended up using Wifi :( as it was only a one off.

[rrouleau]

I have 2017 MBP with TouchBar. Even If I disconnect and reconnect the adapter, I still have issue. I can confirm that with ethernet/thunderbolt2 to thunderbolt2/USB-C adapter, it's working.

I can also confirm this exact setup (Belkin F2CU040/'17 Touchbar) does not work for internet recovery in our environment.

I can also confirm that the ethernet/thunderbolt2 to thunderbolt2/USB-C adapter does.

[cbrewer]

The Dell 96NP5 works great.

[rrouleau]

@cbrewer Is that the same as the model listed on Dell's site? Manufacturer Part 50M44
If so, I may need to get one to test with... If not, does anyone have any experience with the 50M44?

[igielskv]

Good morning guys,

I can confirm probably exactly the same issue on my new MacBookPro14,3 with Belkin USB-C Gigabit Ethernet Adapter. Internet Recovery ⌘+⌥+R starts with spinning globe, but it takes for ever, drops down with errors, etc. I tried also another USB-C Hub with Ethernet port by Epico but also with no success. No big surprise cause it looks like they are using same Ethernet chipset like Belkin anyway with Product ID: 0x8153 and Vendor ID: 0x0bda (Realtek Semiconductor Corp.)

Have you guys found an Ethernet solution for MacBook Pro with USB-C ports only which works? (Well except that USB-C to Thunderbolt + Thunderbolt to Gigabit Ethernet Adapter by Apple? I just don't like this adaptors chaining which could maybe bring even more troubles).

My problem is definitely not in the network because over Wi-Fi everything works great. But actually you need Ethernet connection for Internet Recovery, because it seems like there's another bug with Apple where especially on MacBook Pro with Touch Bar the EMBEDDEDOS on your EFI partition doesn't get personalized over Wi-Fi Recovery, just over Ethernet only.

Any workarounds found? Thank you and have great day everyone.

Manoli

[ClassicII]

Bumping this up. The Belkin USB-C Ethernet adapter will NOT boot into internet recovery.

USB-C to Thunderbolt 2 - Thunderbolt 2 Ethenret dongle works perfectly.
USB-C to USB-A adapter - Apple USB-A Ethernet works but slow.

Going to get a ticket going with Enterprise support on this. If Apple sells this adapter in their own store it should work with Internet Recovery.

[ClassicII]

Calling for help if you use the Belkin adapter! @glpi-ios @igielskv @m.donovan @rrouleau

Apple is aware of the problem but we need more people to put in a ticket to get some attention to this issue.

Thanks

[kram82]

I wanted to share my finding... I am using the Tripp-Lite Multi Function device (Model U444-06N-VGU-C) connected to a 12 inch Macbook. I had the Ethernet plugged in and the power brick into the pass through port. Upon booting into the Internet Recovery mode, it did not seem to recognize the adapter. It required me to choose a wireless network. After the initial recovery image was downloaded and initialized, the GUI loaded. I opened up terminal and executed an ifconfig command. It showed both en0 and en1 as connected. This surprised me based upon what I read above. The en0 had an IP address from the wired subnet where as the en1 had an IP address from the subnet of the wireless network that I chose. I exited the terminal, turned the wireless adapter off, wiped the hard drive, and started the OS reinstall.

I pulled up my firewall logs and limited to the wired (en0) IP address and so far it has downloaded 5.47 GB worth of data. So, while it seemed to need the wireless for the initial IR GUI image download, once the recovery module loaded, it recognized the adapter and initialized the kext for the rest of the install.

[ClassicII]

@kram82

Thank you for posting your findings.

Can't believe more people are not running into this issue.

[Andrew_Bread]

I have this issue as well, driving me nuts.

[dstranathan]

I just had a desktop tech tell me that a newly-deployed 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro with TouchID (Mid 2017) with 10.13.4 was deployed with this Belkin USB-C to Ethernet adapter.

When connected, the laptop can route to servers and hosts on our LAN as expected, but it cannot route to any external sites (Google, Bing, Apple, CNN etc). This includes ping, traceroute, etc (not just http). DHCP works.

I connected the exact same adapter on my 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro with TouchID (2016) with 10.13.4 and it works fine - I can route to LAN and external Internet as expected.

Both laptops mentioned above happen to be on the same physical switch and on the same logical VLAN too. Weird stuff.

My tech is looking for more USB-C & Thunderbolt 3 laptops to test the Belkin adapter on...

[szultzie]

Hi All we are seeing the same issue here for at least a year now, so the 2017 Macbook Pros with Touchpad. I got a 2018 Macbook Pro with Touchbar and it is also showing same issue.

I am doing what @m.donovan is doing. Belkin for faculty, the combo from apple (USB-c to Thunderbolt port then Thunderbolt port to RJ45) for tech staff, seems to work ok even with the 2018 Model.

I did some testing with using wireless, and if i remember correctly worked fine using a SPrint MyFy, didn't try using our campus wifi mainly because of needing to authenticate (didnt want that to be a solution for us). But i may re test to see if using campus wifi works as well.

I also did contact Apple Education Apple Care support and they confimed the issue but had no solution.

This morning my Break/Fix manager just emailed me saying the Belkin USB-c to Ethernet adaptor is no longer available on Apple site for purchasing, but a new $350 docking station is. I guess thats Apples answer, an over prices docking station. Lets see if a Apple brnaded adaptor shows up in a few months.

-Peter

[btuttle]

Going to dig up this post in hopes it helps save others from some frustration. There is a way to enable third party Ethernet adapters as long as you can get into recovery, either an open WiFi network or local recovery on the hard disk.

Once there you can now plug in the Ethernet adapter of your choice. Go to utilities>network utility. Look for the adapter and the nickname associated with it from the drop-down i.e. USB 10/100/1000 LAN en4. Remember that nickname. Close out of network utility and open up terminal from Utilities in the menu bar. You are going to run 2 commands. The first will activate the adapter. The second will assign a DHCP lease to it.

ifconfig en4 up

ipconfig set en4 DHCP

Once you do that you adapter is now up with a DHCP lease you can run one more command to verify it has an IP address.

ifconfig en4

[rsterner]

SOLUTION: I found this on discussions.apple.com. Here's a paste from the original post to give proper credit:

"Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) to Thunderbolt 2 + Thunderbolt to Gigabit Ethernet Adapters(Both made by Apple)

With this combination of connecting Ethernet over two adapters to one of your USB-C port everything works like charm. Internet Recovery boots fast and installation is stable.

On the other hand it's pretty weird that Apple sells something officially on Apple Store (I'm talking about Belkin USB-C to Gigabit Ethernet Adapter) which doesn't really work for Apple's Key Services what Internet Recovery certainly is!

Thunderbolt to Gigabit Ethernet Adapter by Apple have Vendor Name: Apple Inc., Vendor ID: 0x1 and Product ID: 0x8003 instead of Realtek Semiconductor used in Belkin's Adapter which probably makes difference. It seems like Realtek ethernet chipset is the thing which is causing the problems.

I think that Apple should take care of this it self and at least provide it's own USB-C to Ethernet Adapter which works properly, when they left us just with 4 USB-C ports and nothing else on these days MacBooks. This adapter to adapter to adapter ... chains is not really a fancy solution.

Have great day everyone, bye".

Manolis_from_Prague
Posted on Mar 2, 2018 6:51 AM

[obi-k]

What a mess. I wanted to share my experience in case it helps someone.

I tried Wifi and three different ethernet adaptors: Belkin F2CU040, Cisco LINKSYS, and Apple USB Ethernet on a MacBook Pro 15-inch, 2018. I don't have the Thunderbolt 2/Ethernet Apple adaptor.

For me, Wifi and three ethernet adaptors failed to re-install macOS in Recovery. Oddly enough, the only way I could get to Recovery was to use the Belkin adaptor. Company Wifi and other adaptors failed to even load Recovery, leaving me with error code 2003F and 3001F. I also tested on production and non-production network.

Once in Recovery Mode with the Belkin adaptor, I followed @btuttle tips on ipconfig. I saw that the other adaptors wouldn't get an IP and the Terminal DHCP commands worked for all adaptors. Still, macOS reinstall got stuck at minute 3 or minute 2. The logs show that the Mac reached Apple Servers and the packages (6GB+) were downloading. I didn't copy the log, but after a long delay, it showed errors and the Mac tried to download the packages again. So, stuck in a loop. I left this overnight in one instance as well.

Here is what I did to get this MacBook going:

1. On a working Mac, I downloaded the latest macOS Mojave installer, 10.14.6.
2. I opened the Application AutoDMG.
3. I created a never booted macOS .dmg file with the 10.14.6 installer.
4. I put the .dmg file on a hard drive.
5. On the bad Mac, I opened Disk Utility.
6. Erased the internal drive (again).
7. I used Disk Utility to restore from the .dmg file created in step 3.
8. Afterwards, rebooted.
9. At first, the MacBook looked like it was booting into Recovery Mode again, so I thought it didn't take. Hoping to get back into Recovery, I plugged in the Belkin adaptor.
10. That Mac looped for a bit, but finally it asked to restart because the system needed an update. I clicked on it and rebooted.

After all those steps, it booted and I have a working Mac again. I emailed Apple Enterprise Support about this, and they asked if I used Wifi or if I had "taken" this up with Belkin. I kindy responded that I purchased this adaptor from Apple.

[bradtchapman]

Adding to the pile. I used Internet Sharing (Wi-Fi > Ethernet) and Wireshark on another Mac to monitor Internet Recovery's loading performance with several different adapter combos. I've been able to repeat this over and over again.

The problem is as bad as everyone says: when you use third-party gigabit-class USB-C Ethernet adapters (Belkin, Dell, etc...) they all exhibit an absurdly high amount of dropped packets. Retries, retransmits, dupes, etc... black lines everywhere in the Wireshark console. Eventually the traffic slows down to a point where nothing is transmitted for several minutes. When you use the first party USB-A Ethernet adapter, it's stable but slow. When you use Thunderbolt, it's fast as lightning (no pun intended).

I'm not an expert at Ethernet protocols or low-level drivers, but If I had to take a guess, Apple's firmware code probably includes only basic USB driver support and was never fully tested with the gigabit-class USB devices, only with Apple's 100Mbit USB adapter. Something happens under high speed loads with USB-C that causes the code to freak out, crash a buffer, and stop transmitting.

Thunderbolt has a dedicated controller and is unaffected by these issues. USB has no controller and has always offloaded the processing to the CPU, which requires more robust drivers. Space is a valuable commodity in firmware, so all code has to be hyper-optimized and compact. It's likely that Apple didn't bother with this because HW/SWE prioritized Wi-Fi performance over Ethernet. It's too bad that Apple never tests this stuff in real world dirty environments.

[VMancini]

Hello everyone,

Same problem here. I have a macbook 12 with retina display. Accidentally I have erased SSD and had the problem with the folder with question mark at booting.

1) Tried the internet recovery with Wifi = Fail
2) Tried to change DNS to 8.8.4.4 and 8.8.8.8 (Google) = Fail
3) Tried to create a bootable usb with Catalina = Fail (Prohibity simbol)
4) Tried to create a bootable usb with High Sierra = Fail (Prohibity simbol)
5) Purchased an adaptor USB-C / Ethernet = Fail

I have already sold my Macbook, i'm only reseting to ship it. I don't want to buy 2 more adapters to solve this. Any solution for that? I'm really disappointed with this...

Thanks

[obi-k]

Honestly, if you don't have other tools to fix this, drop it off with Apple and have them re-install the macOS for you.

[stevenjklein]

I think @bradtchapman hit the nail on the head. A Thunderbolt 3-to-Ethernet adapter would almost certainly work, if only one existed. So far as I can tell, no such device exists.  (Well, there are Thunderbolt Ethernet adapters for 10GB ethernet, but those are typically $200 or more.)

(If you search Amazon or eBay, you'll see lots of listings for Thunderbolt Ethernet adapters, but careful reading shows that every single one is really just a USB device, and they're using "Thunderbolt" to mean "USB-C.")

So I think the best solution is still the combination of the Apple Thunderbolt to Gigabit Ethernet Adapter (which has a Thunderbolt 2 port) with the Apple Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) to Thunderbolt 2 Adapter as pictured by @rsterner above.

The latter is available from Apple (the above link goes to Apple's online store).  The former is discontinued, but readily available (used, usually) from both Amazon and eBay.

[bradtchapman]

Yep,  The double dongle is the only realistic option for these Intel Macs.  

Internet Recovery is very convenient as a restore of last resort, but I'm glad we don't have to do this anymore on Apple Silicon Macs.

Internet Recovery was introduced in 2011.  I wonder when Apple will turn it off...