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DO NOT UPDATE TO 13.3 - Portable drives get ejected.

Z

zama36

macrumors member
Original poster
Mar 21, 2007
91
10
I'm having issues with my external drives being improperly ejected after upgrading to 13.3.
I've been in contact with Apple Support and they need more people to report it to get it to engineering. So please report it if you are experiencing it.

I have experienced this issue of portable disks being ejected under all of the following circumstances.
  • Updated 13.3 in normal mode.
  • Updated 13.3 in safe mode.
  • Reinstalled 13.3 in normal mode.
  • Reinstalled 13.3 in safe mode.
Only option now for me is to restore OS using a Time Machine backup to get back to 13.2. Hopefully it will work.
---- And that didn't happen, since it wipes the drive completely and I can't/don't trust the Time Machine backups from this past week so hopefully Apple Engineering will figure this out soon.
 
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zama36 said:
I'm having issues with my external drives being improperly ejected after upgrading to 13.3.
I've been in contact with Apple Support and they need more people to report it to get it to engineering. So please report it if you are experiencing it.

I have experienced this issue of portable disks being ejected under all of the following circumstances.
  • Updated 13.3 in normal mode.
  • Updated 13.3 in safe mode.
  • Reinstalled 13.3 in normal mode.
  • Reinstalled 13.3 in safe mode.
Only option now for me is to restore OS using a Time Machine backup to get back to 13.2. Hopefully it will work.
---- And that didn't happen, since it wipes the drive completely and I can't/don't trust the Time Machine backups from this past week so hopefully Apple Engineering will figure this out soon.
Click to expand...
Perhaps there are not so many people reporting it to Apple Support as not everyone is having this problem? I have no such problem with a couple of different portable drives.

Hope those concerned can quickly find a fix, but why not find out first whether it’s a general problem before making such a sensationalizing post title.
 
Unexpected ejections has been a macOS problem since Big Sur. There are MANY threads about this, including on Apple's own support forums. Some enclosures work fine, others don't. It is not a brand issue as some things from any given brand work fine, others don't. SSD-based drives seem to fare better than HDD-based drives but the former is not immune to the problem. Intel-based Macs are also not immune. From much research, RAID-based drives seem most likely to have problems with this issue, though some report their RAIDs work just fine too.

The typical story is that the same cable, enclosure, firmware and drive worked fine BEFORE a macOS upgrade and then starts doing this AFTER the upgrade. Apple fans will pop into every such thread trying to shift blame to anything other than Apple. However, those with an ability to step back to the prior version of macOS will typically report that the exact same setup works just fine again, almost clearly pointing to the ONE variable change- the macOS upgrade- being at fault.

I've tested this very problem like crazy and am about 9X% sure the problem is macOS bugs with port management. While it's easy enough to try a different cable, one should not be too moved towards thinking the problem is anywhere other than macOS. If in doubt, attach the exact same parts to an older Mac or PC and you are highly likely to find that the cable, enclosure and drive work perfectly fine.

Hopefully, Apple will decide to make the U in USB mean what it is supposed to mean again in some future macOS update. I miss "just works" Apple.
 
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My M2 Mac Mini is working fine, it updated to 13.3 when I got it last week. Been using a couple of external drives to move things over to it, not being seeing this issue.
 
Over the last year of owning my MBP 16'. I always leave my external drives connected via USB C directly to the laptop and then put my laptop to sleep overnight. Over the last year - I've had a few instances where I wake up to a "You didn't eject drive" warning. The drive would show in finder but for whatever reason overnight it disconnected and reconnected? It's happened maybe a handful of times over the last year - once recently - right before 13.3 came out.

It happened a LOT more frequently when using a USB C dock (Dell and Lenovo) so I end up not using those USB C docks anymore.

But overall, no problems. :p
 
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I run Ventura 13.3 on a base Mini M1, but I control "Eject/Mount" tasks with the Jettison app; no apparent issues so far.
 
zama36 said:
I'm having issues with my external drives being improperly ejected after upgrading to 13.3.
I've been in contact with Apple Support and they need more people to report it to get it to engineering. So please report it if you are experiencing it.

I have experienced this issue of portable disks being ejected under all of the following circumstances.
  • Updated 13.3 in normal mode.
  • Updated 13.3 in safe mode.
  • Reinstalled 13.3 in normal mode.
  • Reinstalled 13.3 in safe mode.
Only option now for me is to restore OS using a Time Machine backup to get back to 13.2. Hopefully it will work.
---- And that didn't happen, since it wipes the drive completely and I can't/don't trust the Time Machine backups from this past week so hopefully Apple Engineering will figure this out soon.
Click to expand...
what drives, and how many? SSD or hard disk? how old are they? and what mac??
 
Not totally related but I have got into the habit of never upgrading to a NN.M ... always wait for a NN.M.O (eg 13.3.1)
 
zama36 said:
I'm having issues with my external drives being improperly ejected after upgrading to 13.3.
I've been in contact with Apple Support and they need more people to report it to get it to engineering. So please report it if you are experiencing it.

I have experienced this issue of portable disks being ejected under all of the following circumstances.
  • Updated 13.3 in normal mode.
  • Updated 13.3 in safe mode.
  • Reinstalled 13.3 in normal mode.
  • Reinstalled 13.3 in safe mode.
Only option now for me is to restore OS using a Time Machine backup to get back to 13.2. Hopefully it will work.
---- And that didn't happen, since it wipes the drive completely and I can't/don't trust the Time Machine backups from this past week so hopefully Apple Engineering will figure this out soon.
Click to expand...
What drives do you have attached and how are they attached? I'm not having any issues with Samsung X5 that I use for Time Machine backups.
 
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Every once in a while when my M1 iMac goes into sleep mode it improperly ejects my external SSD, but its not an issue that's new to 13.3
 
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I haven't experienced any of the issues described by the OP, and I have both an external HDD (LaCie Time Machine drive) and external SSD (Samsung M.2 in an enclosure) connected to my MBP. I can't help but wonder if the OP's issue isn't with the OS itself but the drives being used...
 
dmccloud said:
I haven't experienced any of the issues described by the OP, and I have both an external HDD (LaCie Time Machine drive) and external SSD (Samsung M.2 in an enclosure) connected to my MBP. I can't help but wonder if the OP's issue isn't with the OS itself but the drives being used....
Click to expand...

...or a dock in between.
 
Happens to me. SanDisk extreme 4tb formatted to APFS shows in disk utility but won’t mount.
Mounts fine on iPad Pro.
Will mount fine after a reformat but then if it gets improperly ejected Ventura won’t read it. It’s all over the apple forums and is clearly a Ventura problem.
 
tlnargi said:
Happens to me. SanDisk extreme 4tb formatted to APFS shows in disk utility but won’t mount.
Mounts fine on iPad Pro.
Will mount fine after a reformat but then if it gets improperly ejected Ventura won’t read it. It’s all over the apple forums and is clearly a Ventura problem.
Click to expand...
but again... not for everyone.

and we still need more info from the OP...
 
fisherking said:
it would certainly help if the OP would fill in the details...
Click to expand...
Indeed. For example, what does "improperly ejected" mean? Some possibilities:
  • When I connect a drive, it briefly appears and then dismounts itself.
  • When I connect a drive, it works for several hours and then dismounts itself.
  • A drive works fine until I try to write to it, then it dismounts itself.
  • A drive works fine until I restart the computer, then it doesn't show up.
  • When I dismount a drive, it appears to dismount correctly then complains when I unplug it.
  • When I do something fairly esoteric, the drive dismounts itself.
Without further details it's really difficult to know what's going on (and when people reply with "I'm not having the problem" when they're only guessing as to what the problem is, that's another matter).
 
Nermal said:
Indeed. For example, what does "improperly ejected" mean? Some possibilities:
  • When I connect a drive, it briefly appears and then dismounts itself.
  • When I connect a drive, it works for several hours and then dismounts itself.
  • A drive works fine until I try to write to it, then it dismounts itself.
  • A drive works fine until I restart the computer, then it doesn't show up.
  • When I dismount a drive, it appears to dismount correctly then complains when I unplug it.
  • When I do something fairly esoteric, the drive dismounts itself.
Without further details it's really difficult to know what's going on (and when people reply with "I'm not having the problem" when they're only guessing as to what the problem is, that's another matter).
Click to expand...
i hear you; and again, we don't know which mac, how many drives, how old they are, how they're connected... but the OP did say this:

"I'm having issues with my external drives being improperly ejected after upgrading to 13.3."

and some of us have pointed out that we don't have that specific issue. anyway hope they return with more info....
 
HobeSoundDarryl said:
Unexpected ejections has been a macOS problem since Big Sur. There are MANY threads about this, including on Apple's own support forums. Some enclosures work fine, others don't. It is not a brand issue as some things from any given brand work fine, others don't. SSD-based drives seem to fare better than HDD-based drives but the former is not immune to the problem. Intel-based Macs are also not immune. From much research, RAID-based drives seem most likely to have problems with this issue, though some report their RAIDs work just fine too.

The typical story is that the same cable, enclosure, firmware and drive worked fine BEFORE a macOS upgrade and then starts doing this AFTER the upgrade. Apple fans will pop into every such thread trying to shift blame to anything other than Apple. However, those with an ability to step back to the prior version of macOS will typically report that the exact same setup works just fine again, almost clearly pointing to the ONE variable change- the macOS upgrade- being at fault.

I've tested this very problem like crazy and am about 9X% sure the problem is macOS bugs with port management. While it's easy enough to try a different cable, one should not be too moved towards thinking the problem is anywhere other than macOS. If in doubt, attach the exact same parts to an older Mac or PC and you are highly likely to find that the cable, enclosure and drive work perfectly fine.

Hopefully, Apple will decide to make the U in USB mean what it is supposed to mean again in some future macOS update. I miss "just works" Apple.
Click to expand...
This! I had this very same issue, and solved it by changing cables and inserting an extra powered usb-c hub. My working theory was that the power distribution to the usb-c ports was somehow not stable enough, hence the disconnects and the powered hub solution. And that did solve it for me!
 
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