I'm trying to connect to my Sparkfun Redboard (Arduino UNO compatible) on Mac OS X 10.12.3 (Sierra). The board comes with a USB mini to USB A FTDI cable. The board lights up and gets power over USB, but I don't see the right USB serial port in the Arduino IDE (I only see the Bluetooth port). 

I've installed the [VCP FTDI drivers][2] v2.3 to no avail. When that didn't work, I also installed the CH340 CH341 drivers (but I doubt I need those). Rebooting the computer didn't help either. 

I can only load the FTDI VCP v2.3 drivers using an explicit command `sudo kextload /Library/Extensions/FTDIUSBSerialDriver.kext/`. When I run `kextstat | grep FTDI`, I get:

     155    0 0xffffff7f83892000 0x7000     0x7000     com.FTDI.driver.FTDIUSBSerialDriver (2.3) ECC3AF36-431D-370D-86F2-5237785E9CF8 <127 41 5 4 3 1>

But it still doesn't show up in the Arduino IDE.

I've heard that Apple's own USB FTDI drivers (AppleUSBFTDI) could [cause problems][3], but it seems these are never loaded. If I try to unload the Apple FTDI driver (`sudo kextunload –b com.apple.driver.AppleUSBFTDI`), I get the following:

    (kernel) Kext com.apple.driver.AppleUSBFTDI not found for unload request.
Failed to unload com.apple.driver.AppleUSBFTDI - (libkern/kext) not found.

Any tips are welcome. Thanks!


  [1]: https://i.sstatic.net/SNdab.png
  [2]: http://www.ftdichip.com/Drivers/VCP.htm
  [3]: https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/how-to-install-ftdi-drivers/mac