Tuxera NTFS for MacOS Sierra Workaround (Toshiba license)

With the release of MacOS Sierra by Apple, you might have opted to update your Mac machine with that new OS especially if your gadget ecosystem revolves on the Apple-sphere of things. Upon completing the long wait of downloading the OS update and its installation, you may think at first that everything seems to work fine. Once you attached your NTFS hard drive thinking it will be a routine access to your files, you notice that it goes back to a "read-only" file explorer view even if you have Tuxera installed.

I got my copy of Tuxera from purchasing Toshiba's external USB3.0 hard drives that included the said software, specifically the Canvio Connect II. The drive is a sweet deal for the price + Tuxera, especially the fact that it doesn't care whether you use your Toshiba external drive or any other brand (boooo to WD and Seagate).

What I initially did and the error I got

The usual course of action to fix Tuxera after a major MacOS software update is to just reinstall it. So I have a copy of the ".dmg" installer of Tuxera somewhere within my directories and proceeded to run it. Once the installer was mounted and clicked on the installer icon, I suddenly got this error prompt about an "Error 1 while launching Tuxera NTFS...".

At first I thought that my installer was perhaps corrupted so I accessed the installer inside my Toshiba HDD, but that was an older variant (2014 I think). When I used that version and after the installer ran smoothly, as expected it didn't work on Sierra.

I initially sought help from Tuxera (via email support) but they told me to ask Toshiba for a solution/fix. Not seeing an email support from Toshiba US, I tried their Twitter account to no avail as well. This left me no choice but to MacGyver my way out of this predicament.

The Fix

This guide of mine is to fix your Tuxera installation on your MacOS Sierra if your license came from your Toshiba HDD.

Step 1a: Go to the support page of Toshiba and download the updated Tuxera for Mac installer

 http://support.toshiba.com/support/viewContentDetail?contentId=4008404

The installer published in this support website will only work if you own any of the following Toshiba external hard drives:

• Canvio Connect and Connect II (HDTC7 and HDTC8 series)
• Canvio Slim and Slim II (HDTD1 and HDTD2 series)
• Canvio AeroMobile (HDTQ112XCWF1)
• Canvio AeroCast (HDTU110XKWC1)

This installer of Tuxera (2015.2 version) will work on both El Capitan and Sierra.

Step 1b: Specify a different download destination for the Tuxera for Mac installer
When downloading the ".dmg" installer, don't just save it in your "Downloads" folder. I suggest you save it to your "Desktop". This is an important step as this is somewhat related to the error.

Step 2: Disable Gatekeeper
To disable Gatekeeper and "Allow apps from anywhere", follow the instructions from this website...

http://dispatchist.com/macos-sierra-gatekeeper-run-applications-anywhere/

Step 3: Run the installer
Once you have finished downloading the Tuxera installer and saved it elsewhere (your Desktop), mount and run the installer as normally as you would in previous versions.

Step 4: Keep your Toshiba external HDD at-hand
When you're already inside the installer and doing the usual clicking of the "Next" button, connect your Toshiba external HDD. This will enable the Tuxera installer to detect the hardware and activate the Toshiba-Tuxera license.

Step 5: Restart your Mac and enjoy
Yes you need to restart it so that it will properly load and use the NTFS driver


The reason behind the error

After much digging on why the said installer kept giving me that error was because of a particular feature that Apple included in the Sierra OS, which is something called the "Gatekeeper".

The purpose of the Gatekeeper was to provide another means of security to prevent users from using installers that may contain malicious workarounds/exploits. It also generates a random file path for the application to be installed wherein I'm not really sure why but it is also part of the security and application digital signing.

The Tuxera 2015.2 version was published for the El Capitan didn't have that Gatekeeper functionality. When you run the same installer in MacOS Sierra and the ".dmg" installer was saved inside the Downloads folder, this will screw-up the packaging of the Tuxera installer as it doesn't play ball with that Gatekeeper.

Error 80040154 when PST migration using GAMME and Outlook 2013

Hi guys! It's been a while since I posted something I encountered or stumbled upon that can help anyone... so here it goes.

Prelude...

I recently got a stint to migrate a client of mine to Google Apps for Work. Their old email set-up was relatively simple, and they asked me to migrate their old email data that was stored in their desktop-installed Outlook 2013 client. Although they're using a 64-bit Windows 7, I'm not quite sure if it was also a 64bit Office 2013 that was installed as they're the ones who did it. Once I exported their data with the "export to file/PST" function of Outlook 2013, I was about to make my move.

What I initially did...

I used one of their workstations (that already has Outlook 2013) and installed GAMME (ver. 5.0.25 to this writing) to be my migration staging area. I then followed and executed the necessary pre-requisites (API and json token permission and service certs). Once I was ready and prepared the userlist file and PST folder structure, I proceeded to start-estimate-migrate using the GAMME tool.

Everything went well initially and passed the testing and estimation. Once I reached the migration part, all the user accounts failed to migrate, with an "Error 80040154" kept showing up for each user.

What wrong?

Initially I thought it was the network but I was easily able to rule that out after some cable management and connected directly to our broadband modem/internet. I also checked if the Outlook 2013 was up-to-date, which apparently it was. I tried and looked for quite a long time across various support materials, forums and How-To manuals of Google for the GAMME tool but to no luck or even a mention of that particular error code.

It led me to conclude that the culprit might be the Outlook 2013 itself as I already had experience in the past that the migration tools Google provides only behaves correctly on legacy (or not a recent release) Microsoft products. Despite the GAMME website saying it supports Outlook 2013, it's not the first time I didn't believe in Google as they have a reputation on not properly maintaining any support/admin tools nor keeping their documentations up-to-date.

My Solution

I used a different workstation without the Outlook 2013 installation and then installed an Outlook 2007 (32bit) and downloaded the Office 2007 SP3 standalone patch since the GAMME tools requires Outlook 2007 SP2 at minimum. Once that's done, I installed again the GAMME tool and made the necessary set-up requirements... then it now works.

Hope I'm able to help anyone out there who might face (or currently in) this same dilemma. Cheers!