I've a CalDigit TS3+ dock station with a DisplayPort external 1080p monitor, 100 baseT Ethernet, Apple USB extended keyboard (yes, wired USB keyboard) and Logitech UniFi receiver (for MX Master 2S) connected on it. It runs fine after upgrading to firmware ver 44.1, until system update 10.15.6.
This work station is set in my office and I'd take my MacBook Pro (personal property) home every day. So every morning I wake up my laptop and plug one single cable to it, then I can bring everything to work.
After updated to 10.15.6, USB 3.0 bus on CalDigits TS3+ are slow in response whenever plugging in. It would take about 5~10 seconds before the external keyboard/mouse set be responsive, and the situation is getting worse.
Since two weeks ago, the USB 3.0 bus on TS3+ stopped working completely when plug in TS3+ thunderbolt 3 cable. The hardware report from "About this Mac" shows that both USB 3.0 bus on TS3+ are not detected at all. But other peripherals, including DisplayPort display and Ethernet, they all work normally. And if I plug all my USB peripherals (keyboard, UniFi, iPhone, flash drive) directly onto MacBook Pro type-C ports, they will work normally, too. This situation can only be fixed by system reboot.
Furthermore: if I disconnect TS3+ from MacBook Pro when TS3+ USB bus going down, I'd get Kernel Panic after 10 seconds. And, this is very weird: there is no system crash log after rebooting from Kernel Panic. The system crash log in "Report to Apple" dialog is plain blank, and I could find nothing related to these KP events in Console.app. It's almost like "pull the power plug abruptly" on a desktop computer.
This situation does not happen every time but the rate is quite high, about 40% or so. And it needs not to have the laptop sleep overnight; sometimes I unplug my MacBook Pro for a meeting and reconnect after returning to my desk, and it will also trigger the problem.
I've tried to do NVRAM/SMC reset and, as expected, not working at all.
Can anyone give me advice ? I'd also considering replace the dock to a different model, but I'm not sure whether it's the problem of macOS or dock.
Best Answer
This may not be applicable however the bundled support and drivers for the TS3+ available at https://downloads.caldigit.com/ contain a kext called
CalDigitThunderboltStationChargingSupport.kextfound under/Library/Extensions/This seemed to be the root cause of all my issues once this was removed I was able to restart & shutdown without issue for the past 4 weeks without issue.
the documented removal process can be found at https://archive.caldigit.com/KB/index.asp?KBID=142&viewlocale=1
If you have installed this it may be the cause of your issues.
I have held off responding until I had a significant amount of time without the issue re-occouring before commenting.