Mac OSX Sonoma
Smart Card Reader Issues Tracker for Sonoma
Quick fix
A short fix for Mac Sonoma, more details below in the section 'Overview'.
Execute the following steps:
Open a Mac Terminal
Execute command: sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.security.smartcard useIFDCCID -bool yes
Unplug smart card reader from USB port
Restart Mac
Plug smart card reader back in USB port
The fix has been applied and you should be able to sign a document or authenticate
Overview
Starting from OSX Sonoma, smart card readers for Mac can fail for the following use cases:
detect card reader
execute transaction (digital signature or authentication)
The general end-user experience is that the smart card communication fails (card reader disseappears or the transaction fails).
A very great shout-out to Ludovic Rousseau who initially did a follow-up on impact of smart card readers in Sonoma:
Reported Bug to Mac OSX:
OSX Forum
Solution
The initial solution prior to 11/2023 was very elaborate, but was made easy by applying a single command in a MAC OSX terminal:
What does the command execute/change?
The command switches the MAC OSX implementation of the CCID drivers to the legacy version (the version working prior to Sonoma).
As MAC OSX defaults using a custom CCID implementation, which still have some issues, switching to the old version is a temporary stolution.
How to roll-back to MAC OSX CCID implementation?
Form a specific moment (not at the time of writing), switching back to the default CCID implementation can be done using the following commands (in a terminal):
Check if the built-in Apple CCID driver is active
If the former command results in:
This means that the built-in Apple driver is active.
The result is 1 so the "external" (non-Apple) CCID driver is enabled.
Returning back to default, execute:
After executing a driver switch, we have noticed that a restart is mandatory!
You need to unplug your smart card reader from the USB port, and plug it back in after restarting
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