I have developed a Driverkit extension which matches for iPadOS which is bundled within my app. My driver contains two different personalities - one with provider as USBDriverKit (USB3) and the other as PCIDriverKit (USB4). When enabled, the driver matches/loads, initiates the class with the right personality based on whether the device it matches is operating in USB3/USB4 and works as intended. Recently, we have come across an issue when operating in USB4 and below are the steps to reproduce. Platform: iPadOS 17 (Issue not observed following the same steps in iPadOS 18 and higher, though cannot be full sure as I have tested only in some versions of 18, 26 and 27). Tested in iPad having a USB-4 compatible port. Steps to reproduce: Install the app. This provides an option to enable the driver which comes with it from the app's system settings. Enable the driver from settings. Connect a device which is compatible with the driver in USB4 so that the specific personality can be loaded. Verify the same. With the driver still loaded, uninstall the application. On uninstallation, ideally, Apple's inbox IONVMeController should match on the re-enumeration and get loaded without a re-plug being required. However, this is not the case as the port becomes unresponsive. Even after a re-plug of the device, it still does not get detected by the iPad itself. This is specifically when I try to connect the device in USB 4 as this specific driver personality matches only in this case. If I try the same steps as above or try to connect the same device in USB3 after this issue has occured, the device gets detected and works as intended. To make the port to be usable again in USB4, a restart of the iPad has to be performed. Has this been observed before with PCIDriverKit or DriverKit in general? Is this some kind of a known limitation in iPadOS 17 in particular or does this have something to do with the iPad model too? Is there any workaround that can be followed to prevent this from happening?

I have requested an entitlement for my DriverKit based driver, but the status is still in "Submitted" phase. I have also tried contacting Apple Support by phone/mail but to no avail [Case ID: 20000143721904]. Below are the details of my request. Is there any way to know the turnaround time or to expedite the process as this entitlement is necessary for the distribution of our app? Also, what is the preferrable way to follow up in such cases? Entitlement: com.apple.developer.driverkit.transport.pci - DriverKit PCI (PrimaryMatch) Team: 8S33FS7Q5Q Request Id - NZYWRD96U3 Requested At - August 13, 2026 Type - Team Status - Submitted Thank you, Abishek.

We have an app which uses a DriverKit-based driver to communicate with an external device. In multiple iPadOS versions, users have been facing this issue where the option/toggle to enable/disable the Driver is not appearing in the App Settings. As a result, users have to uninstall/install the app to get the option again. Ideally, the option should always appear in the App Settings so that users can freely toggle it according to their needs. Due to this, the external devices connected to the iPad will not be detected. I have not seen this happen during development or in any of the iPad(s) that I have tested the app on. Has anyone seen this happen with their apps and if so, what is the issue/workaround? Is this a known bug only in some specific versions of iPadOS? Also, I have raised a feedback for the same here but there has been no reply. Thanks, Abishek.

I am currently in the process of developing a DEXT for a USB based external mass storage device using the USBDriverKit framework. IOUSBHostInterface is used as the provider to communicate with the interface's endpoints and I am successful in it. As per the IOUSBHostInterface documentation, To use a host interface object, call Open to create a new session between the interface and your driver. After successfully opening your session, you can request information from the interface and set up pipes to communicate with the interface's endpoints. Remember to close the session you opened in the Stop method of your driver. However, calling Open gains exclusive access to the USB interface and does not allow other services to access the interface. Also, to let go of the exclusive access, Close method can be called but in the Stop method which is called only once during the lifecycle of the extension (when the DEXT is unloaded). As a result of this, Apple's mass storage related KEXTs (media and partition related specifically) do not match the interface and so the filesystem of the drive in question does not get mounted whenever the DEXT has matched the interface. Is this exclusive access a limitation of USBDriverkit or is there any way to get around this issue in this case?

I have developed a kernel extension (KEXT) for driving SCSI devices and I am able to successfully use it to send commands to the underlying device. The driver class overrides the newUserClient method which gets called whenever IOServiceOpen is called from the user space so that apps can make use of the driver. Is there any way to restrict access to this kernel extension such that only my app would be able to open a user client to access the driver and communicate with it using IOConnectCallMethod?