HK download never finishes on Mac Studio

[kfreeb]

I have a new Mac Studio M3 Ultra, running Sequoia.
I can rip 1080p blu-rays just fine, but most 4K discs time out during the HK download. It seems the drive just stops spinning at this point) I have had one 4K disc get past the HK download phase, (after a long wait.)

I’m using ASUS an LG 4K drives.

I have two other older Macs that are running the older Mojave OS, using the same external drive, Make MKV has no issues ripping the same 4K disc’s, on these Macs, (they never hang downloading the HK file.

Anyone know if there is an issue ripping 4K discs on the Mac Studio M3 Ultra?

[dcoke22]

I have an older Mac Studio, not an M3 Ultra, and it downloads HKs just fine. I'm running Tahoe (macOS 26) on it, not Sequoia (macOS 15). I have other Apple Silicon Macs on Sequoia that work fine as well.

The downloaded HKs end up in the _private_data.tar file in whatever folder is configured in MakeMKV's preferences as the MakeMKV data directory. By default it is ~/Library/MakeMKV. Does MakeMKV have permissions to write to that folder?

[kfreeb]

Yes, it does, like I said I can rip Blu-rays, no issue, so MKV has full right permission. It doesn’t matter what drive I try to rip to, being these are external drives, 4K just will not allow the HK file to finish downloading.
That being said, I did have one 4K disc after a long wait finish the HK download and then begin ripping to the drive that I had selected. I just don’t understand what’s causing the difference between ripping Blu-rays, which work and 4K’s, which do not due to the HK file not downloading or completing the download.

[kfreeb]

One additional note, the drive is connected via USB–C cable, plugged into a thunderbolt 5 port.

[kfreeb]

.

[kfreeb]

Now that I think about it, when I do launch make MKV, I do get a warning that asks “make MKV“ would like to access files in your removable volume. I don’t see any way to make that warning go away in privacy & security settings.
I’ve already set the location for MKV to write its own files as well as where to write the rip file. But every time I launch MKV, it always pops up with the warning about writing to a external volume. And now I found that it also pops up, if I write to the internal storage volume as well in the movie folder.

[dcoke22]

Yes, it does, like I said I can rip Blu-rays, no issue, so MKV has full right permission. It doesn’t matter what drive I try to rip to, being these are external drives, 4K just will not allow the HK file to finish downloading.
That being said, I did have one 4K disc after a long wait finish the HK download and then begin ripping to the drive that I had selected. I just don’t understand what’s causing the difference between ripping Blu-rays, which work and 4K’s, which do not due to the HK file not downloading or completing the download.

With the exception of regular blu-rays that use AACS v82 encryption, MakeMKV does not need to download HKs to decrypt and rip regular blu-rays.

Pretty much every 4K UHD requires a hashed key to decrypt.

[kfreeb]

So then, why doesn’t it finish? Downloading the HK file then?

[dcoke22]

I have no idea.

Often people have an ISP or firewall that is blocking the connection to the HK server, which is usually in Russia. But you said you have other Macs that work and I have presumed they're on the same network as your new Mac Studio so that's likely not the problem.

Your optical drives obviously work.

All of this points to something specific to the Mac Studio. MacOS Sequoia made running apps that aren't notarized, like MakeMKV, harder than in previous versions of macOS. I don't know if this is the source of your difficulties, but it is the first thing that comes to mind.

[kfreeb]

Fixed my issue. I’ll try an remember what I ended up doing.
This only applies to Sequoia and newer. Not able to test on older OS’s.

Open terminal, copy & past this code into terminal, hit return, this stops Apple security software from preventing non-Apple apps from functioning in Sequoia OS & newer, (allowing MakeMKV to download the HK file, (rapidly.)

codesign --force --deep --sign - /Applications/MakeMKV.app

Once this code is run in terminal, launch MakeMKV. If you are asked to allow MakeMKV to launch, it should only happen once, from then on, launching MakeMKV will launch without Apple security software interfering, (some do ask some don’t, the first time you launch MakeMKV.)

One other thing, when you start a rip again, Apple security software gets in the way again, asking if you want to allow MakeMKV to write to a removable drive. I got rid of this by opening the Privacy & Security preferences/Full Disk Access/ click the plus symbol to add an app and locate MakeMKV and added it to the list. Turn it on.
While there check to see if there is an additional listing of MakeMKV in Privacy & Security that has the icon of terminal on it, (instead of the blue disc icon associated with MakeMKV.) If there is one with the icon of terminal present, deleted it.
Now open Files and Folders and check to see if there is an MakeMKV icon present, (blue disc icon.) if so, click on it and see if it just says Full Disk Access, if so leave Files and Folders and go back to Full Disk Access, open MakeMKV (blue icon, turn off Full Disk Access.) Return to Files and Folders, open the blue MakeMKV icon, and it should now have two settings, (instead of Full Access) showing desktop and remote volumes, with them checked Green. This gets rid of the request by the security software to allow access to remote volumes when you start a rip.

[Cuddy2977]

Cheers for that: I’ve just had the warning about failed HK downloading crop up.