Proxmark3 easy on a mac

Support
1

Hi,
I just got a Proxmark3 easy (Ali) and I am getting some issues. I followed an installation guide and I managed to flash the device and install the client using a Mac. However, when I run pm3 from the terminal, the client starts, it reads some info from the device:
MCU… AT91SAM7S512 Rev A
Memory… 512 KB ( 68% used )
Target… PM3 GENERIC

Client.... Iceman/master/v4.20469 2025-06-16 16:18:01
Bootrom... Iceman/master/v4.20469-suspect 2025-06-16 16:18:01 72b1b17a3
OS........ Iceman/master/v4.20469-suspect 2025-06-16 16:18:01 72b1b17a3

and then the following prompt appears:
[usb] pm3 →

However, I can’t write anything there, no matter what I press on the keyboard.
Thanks in advance for any help

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Proxmark3 easy on Mac M2
2

Which one?

Is there a flashing cursor or nothing?

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3

Hi,
This is the guide I followed:

No flashing cursor. There is a cursor but it is not flashing at all (it is like a gray rectangle)

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4

image
image1068×748 144 KB

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5

That seems so odd. What if you run the client and then type in a command like lf search and press enter… does it respond with anything? I’m trying to figure out if this is a terminal echo issue or some other input problem.

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6

It just doesn´t respond. The only thing I can do is CONTROL + C to go back to the terminal.

7

See if you can pull a more recent version, compile, and flash all?

8

I think I know your problem.

First of all congrats it looks like you em did everything perfect to this point.

How are you running it to get to that screen. Walk me through the steps.

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9

Whoa… i’ve got this exact same problem!

In terminal, I run “pm3” and get the following after doing the installs

I type commands but cant get anything to show up. I thought maybe this is just an error with letters being displayed, but even after entering valid commands, nothing happens.

I’ve got to ^c to exit

Screenshot 2025-07-08 at 12.59.08 AM
Screenshot 2025-07-08 at 12.59.08 AM1404×878 169 KB

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10

Okay can you go into the folder that you have the pm3 client in.

For instance I would have to open terminal and then run

Cd ~/GitHub/pm3/

Once in the pm3 folder run

./pm3

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11

What happens if you run ~/GitHub/pm3/pm3 from outside of that directory?

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12

No change, still cant type anything… any other ideas?

Screenshot 2025-07-08 at 1.35.35 AM
Screenshot 2025-07-08 at 1.35.35 AM1286×930 203 KB

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13

That’s probably the wrong directory, you want wherever you pulled the GitHub down to, /usr/local/bin will be where make install created a copy of the executable

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14

No I know what’s going on here.

It’s nothing you did wrong it’s a stupid issue with terminal.

I can’t explain it right now because I’m in bed but I ran into this about 6 months ago.

You could try hitting CMD+R to reset the terminal settings but this didn’t work for me.

Do me a favor (and yourself). Install iterm2. It’s a terminal replacement. Run the same commands and let me know your results

iTerm2 - macOS Terminal Replacement iTerm2 - macOS Terminal Replacement

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15

Screenshot 2025-07-08 at 1.57.17 AM
Screenshot 2025-07-08 at 1.57.17 AM1986×1016 179 KB

got it to work… chatgpt to the rescue!

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16

That’s it! Readline support!

I ran into this late last year but I never was going to find the issue on my phone or the command.

My solution was to use a terminal with the support baked in.

I still recommend using iterm. It’s a great terminal replacement.

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17

the question now is what kid of line-handling software does your Mac have installed…

I know we also allow for the Linenoise lib instead. See the following section from the maintainer.md document. (proxmark3/doc/md/Development/Maintainers.md at master · RfidResearchGroup/proxmark3 · GitHub)

By default, the client is using Readline, but this can be disabled:

  • make client SKIPREADLINE=1 to skip system Readline lib even if libreadline is present

When Readline is disabled, it is possible to use Linenoise instead. Note that Linenoise-ng contains ConvertUTF.cpp which is under a redistribution-only license, therefore think twice before including it in a release. To get Linenoise-ng, see client/deps/get_linenoise.sh.

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18

Great. Can someone guide me on how to implement that change when using the Homebrew installation process?:

brew install --with-generic proxmark3

19

should be

brew install proxmark3 --with-generic --without-readline

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20

Thank you. Is it ok to do it over the previous installation? or should I somehow delete or clean the previous one?