Remember one of these? This was my first foray in to using Pro Tools at home - I had Pro Tools 7LE with a DVTK, MBox2 running on Windows XP. My wife inherited this interface a long time ago, and it's given unfaltering service on her Windows machine, along with a nice pair of Genelecs (perks of being married to a sound engineer!)

Wrong Place, Wrong Time

When it comes to a Bank Holiday weekend, I generally make sure I have all the kit I'd need to continue with a project, with me back at home.  

Due to a variety of circumstances falling at once, I found myself without my trusty MOTU Ultralite Hybrid Mk3 and Grado Headphones, when the latest and final episode of "Plebs" season 3 landed in my inbox late Friday night, and needed to be sorted and forwarded to the foley stage by Saturday morning.

So, I looked in to using my wife's MBox2 and Genelecs with my Pro Tools 12.4HD on my MacBook Pro.

It's A Trap!

If you put MBox2 Yosemite Drivers into your favourite search engine, the first result will direct you to Avid's website -

• 10.3.9 (Oct 10, 2014)

  • Fixed: Unplugging the Mbox 2 while streaming audio from iTunes could disable allUSB ports until restarting the computer

  • Fixed: Core Audio stops working when changing client apps of iTunes Stations

  • Support for Pro Tools 10.3.3 – 11.x

  • Support for Mac OS X 10.8 (Mountain Lion)

  • Support for Mac OS X 10.9-10.9.4 (Mavericks) - note that uninstalling requires manually deleting files

  • Pro Tools 10 supported with 10.8 (Mountain Lion) only

  • Mac OS X 10.9, 10.9.2 and 10.9.3 requires Pro Tools 11.0.3 - 11.2

  • Mac OS X 10.9.4 requires Pro Tools 11.2.1

  • Mac OS X 10.10 Yosemite not supported

  • Tested with Avid-qualified Apple computers

  • Core 2 Duo Macs not supported - known issue

The more experienced among us (myself included) would read "Yosemite not supported" and come to the conclusion that "not supported" is not the same as "will not work" usually, and install 10.3.9 regardless.

Needless to say, this time, it really did mean "will not work".

Uninstalling Requires Manually Deleting Files

A quick trawl round the DUC found that I'm not the first one to fall in to this trap. I thought I'd share with the Pro Tools Expert community how I got round it, and got a working MBox2 again.

Step 1 - Find the following files and delete them -

• /System/library/extensions/DigidesignMbox2.kext
• /System/library/extensions/DigidesignMbox2Boot.kext

• /Library/Audio/MIDI Drivers/DigidesignMbox2MIDI.plugin

• /Library/Startupitems/Digidesign Mbox2
• /Library/Startupitems/DigidesignLoader

Then open your System Preferences panel, right click on the MBox2 icon, and select 'Remove "Digidesign MBox 2" Preference Pane'

Your Mac will most likely ask you for your password at every stage.

Empty The Trash And Reboot

You then need to empty your trash and reboot your system. Personally I would also unplug your MBox2, if you still have it plugged in.

Once you've done these stages, you're free to download and install the 10.3.3 driver, which seems to work perfectly with Pro Tools 12.4HD on OS-X Yosemite.

Enjoy!