I won’t upgrade to a newer Mac operating system unless I really have to. If it ain’t broke, why fix it? But I recently updated a Mac computer from OS 10.10 to 10.11, (yes, 1-1/2 years behind the times), because some new applications now require OS 10.11. After I updated, several popular Photoshop plugins – those from Topaz and Nik (Google) – started acting up.
The reason why these plugins were acting weirdly is because Mac’s newer operating systems, starting with OS 10.11, have Apple’s System Integrity Protection (SIP). This security feature does what its name says by not allowing non-Apple files in certain directories.
Topaz and Nik plugins had installed files into the hidden /usr/lib/ directory which is now blocked by SIP. When you update to OS 10.11, or newer, all non-Apple files will be removed from directories protected by SIP. Removed files are placed in Library > SystemMigration > History > Migration > QuarantineRoot.
Topaz updated its installers so that its plugins no longer place files in /usr/lib/ but rather into /usr/local/ which is allowed by SIP. Reinstalling Topaz plugins fixes the problem.
But Google’s Nik Collection was discontinued a year ago and will not be updated.**
The Nik Collection (on Mac) had four files in /usr/lib/ that were removed by OS 10.11: ColorEfexPro4FC.dylib, HDREfexPro2FC.dylib, SilverEfexPro2FC.dylib and Viveza2FC.dylib. (For some unknown reason, these files existed on my desktop but not on my laptop. After updating the laptop from OS 10.10 to OS 10.11, all the Nik plugins kept working.)
To get the Nik plugins back in working order, these four files have to be manually put back in place.
To do this, you have to disable SIP, copy the four Nik files into /usr/lib/ and then re-enable SIP. To disable/re-enable SIP, you must boot your Mac into Recovery Mode and use Terminal. It’s quite easy and takes only a few minutes.
But note that the Google Nik Collection, and all other 32-bit applications, will stop functioning if you update to macOS 10.15 in late 2019. This new OS will run only 64-bit applications.
Also if you still use (obsolete) Lightscribe – hey, don’t laugh, it’s a neat feature that can come in handy – it can still work under OS 10.11. Manually copy the Lightscribe drivers back into /usr/lib/ and your Lightscribe optical drive will keep on working.
Apple’s SIP also kills a few third-party mouse drivers, e.g. Microsoft mice, and also some third-party keyboard drivers.
** Edit October 25, 2017: DxO announced that it has bought the Nik Collection from Google and that there will be a new edition in mid-2018 that will fix the install issue as well as a few other things, too.
