UPDATE: OS X Lion users, according to this thread there is a new project called OSXFUSE that picks up where MacFuse left off. The project incorporates the source code below and already supports OS X Lion natively. The project is just getting started, but a beta binary release is promised in the next few days. You can find more information at the project homepage (not online yet) or find the source code on github.
So What Is The Story?
If you would like to be able to use MacFUSE on 64-bit Snow Leopard, you may have noticed a lot of mis-information on the net. In short, all of the latest official MacFUSE releases, including both 2.0.3 and the 2.1.7 beta are not compatible with 64-bit Snow Leopard. My understanding is that these releases will work with 64-bit Leopard, or with 32 bit Snow Leopard, but I cannot confirm this.
This article describes the current situation, and provides usable binary and source packages to download.
A company called Tuxera has made the necessary modifications to MacFUSE, and has published the source code as an un-official beta they call 2.1.9. As of write now, the best source of information for this build can be found at this MacFUSE Google Groups thread:
Unofficial MacFUSE 2.1.7 release for Mac OS X 10.6 (32/64-bit)
Just Give Me Something To Install!
If you trust me and would just like a working version of MacFUSE to install, you can download an image I compiled myself: macfuse-core-10.5-2.1.9.zip.
I Want To Compile It Myself
You can download the original source code directly from Tuxera or from my local mirror.
You will obviously need XCode installed to compile MacFUSE. Once you have downloaded the source, open a terminal and run the following commands:
Downloads $ cd macfuse-rebel-2.1.9
macfuse-rebel-2.1.9 $ cd core/
core $ ./macfuse_buildtool.sh -t smalldist
It generates a directory in the /tmp directory called “macfuse-core-10.5-2.1.9”. Inside this directory is a .pkg file called “MacFUSE Core.pkg”. Just double click this file to install, and MacFUSE will be installed. Then, once installed, you can install TrueCrypt or whatever Fuse implementation you need, and it should work fine.
The Standard Disclaimer
I make no claims about how stable this code is, and I have no idea about anything in the MacFUSE internals, so please report any problems you have with this version of the code to the MacFUSE Google Group.
Perfect!! Worked a treat!! Thanks!!
Needed this to get TrueCrypt to mount files on Lion 10.7 and it worked like a charm. Thank you very much!
I just upgraded to OS X Lion myself and haven’t had a change to test my package yet. I will try it out and report back.
Just installed the 64bit version on Lion, seems to work ok.
Only thing annoying is that it fills up the Console Log with debug output.
Can this be disabled or does that need a recompile?
I haven’t checked, but I believe it is compiled in. I will look into it.
I needed to install this to get NTFS-3G working after upgrading to Lion. (I keep my iTunes library on an NTFS drive so I can share it between Windows and OS X) Aside from an error when the volume mounts, everything seems to work great.
Thanks for releasing it, it’s very much appreciated.
Works nicely on OS X Lion french version. Thanks, I find back my developer environment. It will save me a lot of time.
Thank again.
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Unfortunately it didn’t work. First it said it could not validate my key. Huh? I’m using the free version unless I broke something. lol! and then I got something that said disk could not be mounted as it did not get a signal in 15 seconds. I hope the osx open source thing comes online soon. lol!
update. It sort of works. I still get the error saying it can’t validate my key which is odd as I use the free version. lol! How ever, it looks like it is mounted. I did not try writing anything to it yet. Thanks.
Hi Sarah, I’m not sure what program you were running. My package shouldn’t say anything about a key. All you should do is download the file called macfuse-core-10.5-2.1.9.zip, here: http://www.offthehill.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/macfuse-core-10.5-2.1.9.zip
Then, double click it. You should get a folder called “macfuse-core-10.5-2.1.9”, inside that folder is a program called “MacFUSE Core.pkg”, double click that and go through the install progress. Once that is done, you need to reboot your computer.
After that, you have FUSE installed, but you still need to install a filesystem. I don’t know what filesystem you are trying to use. I only have experience with Truecrypt.
Having installed Lion I’m now working my way through the Things That Don’t Work Anymore. Your pkg fixed my broken MacFuse & got Truecrypt working so easily I’m delighted.
Thanks man!
Thanks! This did the trick. Along with fuse-ext2, I can mount now mount ext3 partitions in 64-bit Snow Leopard.
Thanks!! It really works!
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Yeap. it works!
thanks.
I have 2011 MBP 13?, OS X Lion, TrueCrypt 7.0a, MacFUSE 2.1.9, and NTFS-3G (free edition) all installed. When creating a volume with TrueCrypt, the only filesystem options are None, FAT, and Mac OS Extended. TrueCrypt runs fine, but I need NTFS for volume filesystem to store files larger than 2GB (VM, disk image, memory dump, etc). How does a poor anon like myself get TrueCrypt to utilize NTFS?
Using your download, all seems to work but I didn’t get a preference pane? Should I have?
Works for me on Lion
Really pleased!
I have a preference pane, but I installed the package a long time ago. I don’t remember if the preference pane is from the original install, or if I found the pane in the built binary. If you see a file that is “MacFUSE.pref” or something like that, you can click it and OS X will automatically install it.
Brilliant!! It worked for me on MBP13 with OS X Lion. I was earlier using NTFS-3G with Leopard and when I upgraded to Lion it stopped working.
So glad I found your website….Thank you!
Hi, I just installed it, restarted and… IT WORKS!!! Thank you very very much for your effort.
Internet is fantastic!!!
By the way: Do you have also an solution to make work Freehand MX on Lion?
I don’t believe so, but I have to ask…
Other than “Use Illustrator”, no, sorry I don’t have any suggestions!
Thank you! This works! I only just now discovered that I couldn’t mount my NTSF drives after upgrading to Lion the other week. Sure glad I found your solution. I have two external NTSF drives with all my media for my television on them. I plugged them into the mac and discovered MacFuse no longer worked and I couldn’t access my hd.
I am still getting the following error message after I mount the drive but it does mount and I can access everything. I do need to click “OK” for the message to go away.
NTFS-3G could not mount /dev/disk1s2
at /Volumes/Old MBP 320gb because the following problem occurred:
Did not receive a signal within 15.000000 seconds. Exiting..
I also receive the “Did not receive a signal within 15.000000 seconds” message, but it’s working on Mac OSX Lion.
Worked perfectly! Thank you sooooo much!!!
@Gonçalo Rodrigues
Disable NTFS3G in System Preferences, and reinstall a newer version, you can download it from there http://sourceforge.net/projects/catacombae/
@Brice that worked, thanks! (after updating MacFUSE I was also getting the “Did not receive a signal within 15.000000 seconds” message. No more.) So, summary:
1. http://www.offthehill.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/macfuse-core-10.5-2.1.9.zip
2. http://sourceforge.net/projects/catacombae/
3. everything perfectly ok
@Brice, Gonçalo Rodrigues, Mike S.
using ntfs-3g ver 2010.10.2 on the macfuse install from this page (macfuse-core-10.5-2.1.9.zip) on a lion system…
When I mount an NTFS volume I’m still getting “NTFS-3G could not mount /dev/disk1s1 at /Volumes/ because the following problem occurred: Did not receive a signal within 15.000000 seconds. Exiting…”
However the volume does then mount, but write throughput is ridiculously slow.
Also curiously, the MacFUSE pref pane forces system preferences to run in 32-bit.
There is a thread that addresses the timeout issue here:
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3191198?start=60&tstart=0
I haven’t had time to implement the proposed solution— looks like it’s mostly hunting down and destroying NTFS 3G & MacFuse and re-installing with more current versions.
awesome find, thanks a lot for this solution!
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THANK YOU
AWESOME
RIGHT ON
YOU ROCK
Thanks so much.
Works fine on 10.7.1 and I’m now able to mount remote disks in the Finder using SFTP in Transmit once again.
For those without the MacFUSE preference pane showing in System Preferences, download this version of MacFUSE.
Mount the disk image and right-click on the MacFUSE.pkg. Select Show Package Contents and click the Contents folder. Double-click the Archive.pax.gz file which creates a folder named Library containing a PreferencePanes folder. Here you’ll see the MacFUSE.prefPane file. Double-click it to install the preference pane.
Your version works perfect!! Thank you so much!
Glad it worked!
works with http://sourceforge.net/projects/fuse-ext2/ to read ext3 file system from Ubuntu.
Thanks very much
I installed MacFuse version 2.1.15, which was the latest and was supposed to work with Lion. It does not work and installed in Preferences as a 32-bit app. I am unable to uninstall it. It does not show in the applications folder. Can you help?
Thank you so much! Works great! Can you contribute your binary to google code macfuse group?
I reaally appreciate your sharing this. Thanks again.
I was getting this error:
NTFS-3G could not mount /dev/rdisk0s3 at /Volumes/BOOTCAMP because the following problem occurred:
/Library/Filesystems/fusefs.fs/Support/fusefs.kext failed to load – (libkern/kext) link error error; check the system/kernel logs for errors or try kextutil(8). the MacFUSE file system is not available (71)
And your version fixed it.
Thank you! I was getting the same error msg as the commenter above me, and have been similarly helped by your version. You make the world a better place.
Josh – you are the man. Thank you so much, I’ve been looking for a solution like this – there’s too much outdated misinfo out there. Worked like a charm!
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Thank you so much for this! Work like a treat
Hi Pardsbane,
I recently bought a 320 GB portable drive (Seagate Expansion) hoping to use it with my MacBook Pro (OS X version 10.6.8) but faced problems using it (even after trying to installing it) as it can’t seem to read nor write.
It seem to have affected my Time Machine as it doesn’t seem to do the back up with my 500 GB portable drive (also Seagate).
I came across your site and wondering if you could help me out like you had done for many others.
Thanks.
Hi, I don’t know how much help I can be. My best suggestion (assuming you have no data on the drive) is that you reformat the 320gb disk by plugging it into your MacBook and starting the ‘Disk Utility’ application. Make sure your 500 gb disk is not plugged in. Find the 320 gb disk on the left column and click on it, then click the ‘Erase’ tab. For format, choose ‘Mac OS Journaled’, then click ‘Erase…’. See if that helps.
As for the 500 gb disk and Time Machine, I’m not sure what to do about that, since I don’t use Time Machine much. If you can afford to, you might try erasing the 500 gb disk to and restarting Time Machine on that drive.
It worked. Thanks a lot. I would love to know how you compiled it.
Solved my problems! THANKS !
Thank you. Just installed your file in Mountain Lion 10.8.2 plus the latest NTFS-3G. Everything is working well, but with the 15 sec. error. Not perfect but working when the official version failed. Write throughput is fine.
I tip my hat for you, sir. Also, pardon my ‘French’. Not my language.