GTrusted

I was excited to try out the OWC Type-C Dock with the new Apple MacBook (Early 2016) but ended up spending a lot of time scratching my head trying to figure out what was going wrong.

Here's the setup I started with.  Since I didn't have the USB Type-C to USB Type-C cable that came with the OWC Type-C Dock with me, I decided to use the only USB Type-C to USB Type-C cable I could find at Best Buy, the j5create JUCX03 USB 3.1 Type-C to Type-C Cable, to connect between the OWC Type-C Dock and the Apple MacBook (Early 2016).

On the OWC Type-C Dock side, I connected the j5create cable to the USB Type-C port that had the computer symbol on top of it.

I also attached an Insignia 6 ft HDMI cable between the HDMI port of the OWC Type-C Dock to a LG TV.  

To my surprise, nothing worked.  I mean literally nothing- no USB connections, no charging to the MacBook, and no display.

Expecting at least something to work, I checked System Information on the Apple MacBook (Early 2016) to see what was going on.  No USB or Display enumeration was found whatsoever.

Going into debug mode, I first looked to see if the j5create JUCX03 USB 3.1 Type-C to Type-C Cable was functional.  I connected the  j5create JUCX03 USB 3.1 Type-C to Type-C Cable between the same MacBook and the Samsung Portable SSD T3.

I could see the Samsung Portable SSD T3 enumerating correctly as a USB 3.1 Gen 1 device in the Mac's System Information so the cable seemed to be working at least for situations that didn't involved USB Power Delivery (the Samsung Portable SSD T3 doesn't use USB Power Delivery to function).

I then tried another cable that I had on me, the Apple USB-C Charge Cable (2m).  

We saw better results here where USB 2.0 enumeration was happening (which was expected since the Apple USB-C Charge Cable (2m) only supports USB 2.0) and the OWC Type-C Dock seemed to be charging the Apple MacBook (Early 2016).   The external display was not working as expected given DisplayPort is not supported by the Apple USB-C Charge Cable (2m).

I next tried performing a Mac OS X Update from 10.11.5 to 10.11.6.

I checked the OWC website but didn't any firmware updates released on the OWC Type-C Dock.

However, there was still no USB and display enumeration with the Apple MacBook (Early 2016), OWC Type-C Dock, and j5create JUCX03 USB 3.1 Type-C to Type-C Cable with Mac OS X 10.11.6.

Next, I stopped using the j5create JUCX03 USB 3.1 Type-C to Type-C Cable and switched to the USB Type-C to USB Type-C cable that came with the OWC Type-C Dock as well as another cable that I knew for certain had an e-marker.  This time I could see proper USB 3.1 enumeration and charging but still no external display.

Suspecting the j5create JUCX03 USB 3.1 Type-C to Type-C Cable, I then tried the cable between the Apple MacBook (Early 2016) and the LG 27 inch Class Ultra HD IPS 4K 27UD88-W Monitor and had no problems (click here to see the review).

Next when I tried the j5create JUCX03 USB 3.1 Type-C to Type-C Cable with the OWC Type-C Dock and but switching to the earlier Apple MacBook (Early 2015), everything seemed to be properly working (click here to see the review).

After trying the OWC Type-C Dock and the Apple MacBook (Early 2016) with other USB-IF certified Type-C cables, there definitely seemed to be a problem with the JUCX03 specifically and furthermore there is some confusion with the variants of the JUCX03 and if they are actually USB-IF certified.  Click here for a more detailed technical analysis of how the JUCX03 has problems with the OWC Type-C Dock and Apple MacBook (Early 2016).