Late 2012>Has anyone else get USB peripheral problems after Sierra "upgrade"?

[Wie Gehts]

As soon as I went to Sierra from Mavericks using USB external devices, in my case it's been hubs external hdd's, my DSLR, printers, etc got totally borked. Mavericks, no problems.... well maybe the odd ext hdd disconnect... but everything worked. Now its all a s**t show.

I've managed a stable situation using DAW apps (Logic, etc) by having 2 bare drives for samples in a OWC USB dock, 2 audio plugin dongles in the usb ports of one of my monitors, a keyboard controller , 2 other midi controllers and my keyboard/mouse into a USB 2.0 hub and finally an audio interface.

If I try and connect ANYTHING else USB to this config, it either doesn't mount, won't boot/freeze/crash, or if it does boot, play havoc with my system and software applications.

I may get an external hdd, camera or printer to work only after I disconnect everything else and boot up for that situation.

Now before you say I'm having conflict with another device, some devices won't play nice or work even with just that one particular peripheral connected, besides, of course, a keyboard and mouse which is a must.

I've just had just a simple hub connected and it eff's up the machine. I can't even go back to Mavericks because the bloody 'Sierra-ized' computer won't let me boot from my clone...I just get a screen with gobbledygook written on it when it tries to boot.

I even tried removing it form its case and used it a bare drive, and still won't boot.

After I installed Sierra, I couldn't even Mac format new external drives I bought. I had to do some research and use my PC laptop windows disk manager, go into windows command terminal, then delete some 'diskpart1' crap. Only the I was able to format the disks to Mac on my mini.

NONE OF THESE THINGS HAPPENED WHEN I HAD MOUNTAIN LION OR MAVERICKS!

I've done PRAMS and SMC's.. useless

I looked into this and it seems this has been an issue with Apple not playing nice with the USB protocol since EL Capitan/Yosemite

 

[DeltaMac]

Have you tried a simple reinstall of Sierra?

 

[Boyd01]

Very strange. I have a 2012 quad mini on Sierra that I use for video and audio editing. Tons of USB peripherals, hard drives, keyboard, mouse, audio interface, control surface. The whole system boots from an external USB 1TB Samsung T3 SSD. No problems at all. Also setup a base 2012 Mini for my daughter's family with Sierra. No problems there either, it also boots from an external USB Samsung T3 SSD.

No idea what could be wrong in your case, but I suspect it is specific to your hardware/software.

 

[Fishrrman]

Try disconnecting ALL hubs and docks.
Can you boot from a cloned backup that way?

 

[RyanXM]

What the configuration of the Mac mini? Are you running an internal HDD or SSD? I've seen where an OS upgrade can fry the internal HDD because of the intensity of the writes that are happening during the upgrade. If you are using an original HDD from 2012-2013, the drive might be on the way out and its causing random OS issues.

SMART Utility - https://www.volitans-software.com/apps/smart-utility/ - or DriveDX - https://binaryfruit.com - will be able to tell you if the internal drive is in good condition.

 

[Boyd01]

If you are using an original HDD from 2012-2013, the drive might be on the way out

That's a good point. I setup the original internal 500gb hard disk on my daughter's 2012 mini as a time machine backup for the 500 gb external SSD boot drive. They were getting random crashes and errors when time machine was backing up, so apparently the original hard drive has problems. But that internal drive worked fine on Mountain Lion for over two years before I installed the external SSD.

 

[Wie Gehts]

Disk Warrior see's no problem. Mac hardware diagnostic found nothing. This EtreCheck I just tried found nothing.
Googling this issue tells me I'm not alone. There is a developer thread at Apple discussions on about this.

Yes, I've tried disconnecting everything and had once tried simply plugging in a new hub I bought to test. Nothing connected to the hub. Just the hub itself. It still screwed with my system.

This is what drives me nuts. I do have 2 WD bare drives in a 2 slot OWC dock that's working. I have my 3 midi controllers going thru a usb 2 hub that is working. I have a usb2 audio interface that is working. I have a FW SSD I use for recording audio on, it is working. This whole config is working.
BUT, add another usb device....ti won't work.
Well... my DSLR will connect, but because the only way it seems will is on a usb port on one of my dell monitors.... not from the usb hub my other peripherals are connected.

I did a migration form Mavericks to Sierra rather than a clean install. I USED to do fresh new clean installs when the amount of software I had was much less. But now, it would take weeks to re-install everything from scratch. My mind boggles over the idea of it. lol

I'd buy another late 2012 mini but to match my system it'd cost more than I paid new. I'll probably just have to suffer through this with my DAW and eventually upgrade to a brand new mac in the somewhat near future.

Here's pic of what happens when I try and boot from my mavericks clone:

 

[Boyd01]

Do you still have a bootable clone of your machine with Mavericks? I always keep a copy of the current OS when I upgrade. If you boot from a Mavericks clone and still have the problem, that would imply something is wrong with the hardware.

 

[DeltaMac]

Did you

Try a reinstall of Sierra

?
Boot to your bootable Sierra installer. (If you don't have a bootable installer - make one. Pretty simple to do, and a good tool to have.)
Choose "Reinstall macOS" from the menu. That will simply do a reload of your Sierra system, and might just help with your USB connection difficulties, as a reinstall can weed out faulty kexts/extensions in your system. Worth a try, and may fix your issues.

 

[Wie Gehts]

Do you still have a bootable clone of your machine with Mavericks? I always keep a copy of the current OS when I upgrade. If you boot from a Mavericks clone and still have the problem, that would imply something is wrong with the hardware.

Yes. I've said so. The above pic is what happens when I try to boot my Mavericks clone onto the now Sierra OS Mini.
Before I installed Sierra I made the Mavericks clone. Then right after migrating to Sierra, I made a clone of that as well. I haven't tried hooking up the Sierra clone to see what happens with that as its kinda redundant but maybe later I will give it a try.
[doublepost=1520539785][/doublepost]

Did you

?
Boot to your bootable Sierra installer. (If you don't have a bootable installer - make one. Pretty simple to do, and a good tool to have.)
Choose "Reinstall macOS" from the menu. That will simply do a reload of your Sierra system, and might just help with your USB connection difficulties, as a reinstall can weed out faulty kexts/extensions in your system. Worth a try, and may fix your issues.

Ok... I should have 2 ways to re-install Sierra. One is from the Sierra clone of my system I made with SuperDuper right after I installed it. The other would be from the actual Sierra installer, which I'm pretty sure I saved IIRC. (I learned the habit of d/l'ing the OSX's and saving them).

However, I doubt the clone I made would be of any use since it'd contain any errors inflicted. However, I should be able to do a 'good' migration install with the Sierra installer I saved from the App Store, correct?

 

[ActionableMango]

If it would take you weeks to get everything reinstalled and reconfigured, this tells me that you have a massive amount of software, settings, tweaks, dependencies, and potentially years of cruft. It also sounds like you are using professional equipment which probably involves a lot of custom kernel extensions. And this isn't just a 1-version upgrade, you are jumping up three versions of operating systems ahead. Also, the particular jump you are doing goes from a pre-SIP environment to a SIP-protected environment. And on top of all that, you also have the new KEXT-signing certificate requirement thrown in.

Let's face it, this scenario is practically the poster child for a clean install. Most likely the automated Migration Assistant process couldn't manage all that and it screwed things up.

I'd do a clean install and add everything back one at a time. If there is an incompatibility with hardware or software you will see which addition does it and so you can manage it.

 

[DeltaMac]

...
Ok... I should have 2 ways to re-install Sierra. One is from the Sierra clone of my system I made with SuperDuper right after I installed it. The other would be from the actual Sierra installer, which I'm pretty sure I saved IIRC. (I learned the habit of d/l'ing the OSX's and saving them).

However, I doubt the clone I made would be of any use since it'd contain any errors inflicted. However, I should be able to do a 'good' migration install with the Sierra installer I saved from the App Store, correct?

If you saved the installer app, you can easily use that to create a bootable drive, or a partition on an external drive. There's steps to make that bootable drive in the terminal. Apple has a tech article describing how to do just that.
Or, if you don't care to use the terminal, there are several apps that make the task easy, such as DiskmakerX, or Boot Buddy, or Install Disk Creator. I have used all 3 recently for creating bootable installers.

And, if you choose "Reinstall macOS" after booting to that installer, it simply reloads the system software, without disturbing your other apps, files and settings. It doesn't erase your drive, unless you choose to do that first. So, it either fixes your issue (because the system simply needs a maintenance install, and usually takes less than 30 minutes for that --- or, there will be no change, and you would need to go to a solution that's a bit more involved. Might help - won't hurt.

 

[RyanXM]

Are all of your USB Hubs Powered or Bus-Powered?

 

[Wie Gehts]

Are all of your USB Hubs Powered or Bus-Powered?

Lol, yeah, I came across that in my research of this problem. I bought and returned 2 USB 3 hubs before 'settling' on a 2.0 hub that could either be both powered or usb powered. Didn't make any difference to the problem at hand though sadly.
[doublepost=1520553945][/doublepost]

If you saved the installer app, you can easily use that to create a bootable drive, or a partition on an external drive. There's steps to make that bootable drive in the terminal. Apple has a tech article describing how to do just that.
Or, if you don't care to use the terminal, there are several apps that make the task easy, such as DiskmakerX, or Boot Buddy, or Install Disk Creator. I have used all 3 recently for creating bootable installers.

And, if you choose "Reinstall macOS" after booting to that installer, it simply reloads the system software, without disturbing your other apps, files and settings. It doesn't erase your drive, unless you choose to do that first. So, it either fixes your issue (because the system simply needs a maintenance install, and usually takes less than 30 minutes for that --- or, there will be no change, and you would need to go to a solution that's a bit more involved. Might help - won't hurt.

Thanks. Good to know info.

 

[DeltaMac]

Thanks. Good to know info.

My suggestion was not just to offer some info, but to suggest a reasonably quick and painless method that might work to fix your problem (assuming you have not yet tried that simple macOS reload. )

 

[Wie Gehts]

If it would take you weeks to get everything reinstalled and reconfigured, this tells me that you have a massive amount of software, settings, tweaks, dependencies, and potentially years of cruft. It also sounds like you are using professional equipment which probably involves a lot of custom kernel extensions. And this isn't just a 1-version upgrade, you are jumping up three versions of operating systems ahead. Also, the particular jump you are doing goes from a pre-SIP environment to a SIP-protected environment. And on top of all that, you also have the new KEXT-signing certificate requirement thrown in.

Let's face it, this scenario is practically the poster child for a clean install. Most likely the automated Migration Assistant process couldn't manage all that and it screwed things up.

I'd do a clean install and add everything back one at a time. If there is an incompatibility with hardware or software you will see which addition does it and so you can manage it.

While thats a bit of hyperbole, lol, it'd probably take at least several full 8 hour days of organizing what I'd need to have to do and then going down the list making and making sure all licenses and hardware configurations. etc etc are all redone correctly.

I think you're right here and that I'm just postponing the inevitable clean install. I had figured that these migration wizards would've surely become extremely dependable by now.... well that and not wanting the headache of a clean install.

I never would've upgraded the OS had not Apple made it mandatory to move from Mavericks in order to keep up with further Logic upgrades.
This issue of simply plugging in an ext hdd so I can follow along some instructional video would cause some software to go nuts and not work right and/or crash believe it or not.

Thanks everyone for all your input.
[doublepost=1520558069][/doublepost]

My suggestion was not just to offer some info, but to suggest a reasonably quick and painless method that might work to fix your problem (assuming you have not yet tried that simple macOS reload. )

Absolutely. But just so I understand this right. One can create a bootable partition or drive, using just the actual OS installer, with those apps you mentioned?

I suppose I can use that as a test then. Boot my mini up from the Sierra installer I saved, then try booting my Mavericks clone. So theoretically, my mini will then be loaded with a totally pristine copy of Sierra .... no migration baloney.... and not get those errors in the pic I posted trying to boot up my Mavericks clone.

I would really like to be able to use Mavericks either from an external hdd or create a partition in the internal drive so I can use my photoshop and lightroom which won't work right on Sierra. I'm talking about the last licensed versions and not the CC ones.

 

[DeltaMac]

...
Absolutely. But just so I understand this right. One can create a bootable partition or drive, using just the actual OS installer, with those apps you mentioned?

That is the purpose of those apps that I listed: to create a bootable installer for macOS.
You need the downloaded macOS installer app, and you also need media of some kind that has enough space to make the bootable partition. An 8GB USB flash drive is still the ideal size for that. I will usually buy a new flash drive for that, particularly if I am making a fresh bootable installer for a friend. I now am finding that 8GB are quickly going out of style - hard to find. I have probably have more than 20 flash drives that I keep, and have a couple of hard drives where I have older versions of OS X installer apps stored, making it a quick process to create a bootable installer for my own use (and a neat & reliable way to include a system installer when I clean up a used Mac to sell.

 

[Wie Gehts]

That is the purpose of those apps that I listed: to create a bootable installer for macOS.
You need the downloaded macOS installer app, and you also need media of some kind that has enough space to make the bootable partition. An 8GB USB flash drive is still the ideal size for that. I will usually buy a new flash drive for that, particularly if I am making a fresh bootable installer for a friend. I now am finding that 8GB are quickly going out of style - hard to find. I have probably have more than 20 flash drives that I keep, and have a couple of hard drives where I have older versions of OS X installer apps stored, making it a quick process to create a bootable installer for my own use (and a neat & reliable way to include a system installer when I clean up a used Mac to sell.

Oh good. I'll give it a go. Thanks!

I just thought of something. Would starting up in safe mode basically accomplish the same thing in terms of me testing?

 

[Wie Gehts]

After a few errors first formatting a new USB stick and then a few errors getting DiskmakerX to create a bootable system, I got it to do that.
But how come its not booting?
All I get is the MacOS Utilities window come up. I thought this thing is supposed boot the computer up?

 

[RyanXM]

You are booted into the "Recovery OS". From there, you can re-install macOS as well as format the drive, etc. You can also use Safari to check and see if you have an issue related to the OS that is causing networking related issues. The USB Installer/Recovery OS, is just that, a recovery partition. It isn't a full working OS.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201314

 

[Wie Gehts]

You are booted into the "Recovery OS". From there, you can re-install macOS as well as format the drive, etc. You can also use Safari to check and see if you have an issue related to the OS that is causing networking related issues. The USB Installer/Recovery OS, is just that, a recovery partition. It isn't a full working OS.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201314

I understand. Not sure I made clear. I was to understand using an app like DiskmakerX creates a bootable system from an OS X installer. I did that and it's not booting....I just get the Mac Utilities window from it.
This is separate from my actual recovery volume, which is what you apparently are talking about.


Edit. Hang on maybe I do have it wrong. Can you run an installer from a drive thats not the system? If not, then I understand the purpose of Diskmaker.

Let me test this... I'll try and see if the Sierra installer I copied to an external drive will want to run

Wait, lol, that won't work either because I can't install onto the internal drive my system is booted up on. DOH!

 

[DeltaMac]

DiskmakerX sole function is to create a bootable installer. DmX uses the downloadable installer app to do that.
When you boot to that media, you boot to the installer --- which gives you the menu screen with those various choices, but the MAIN purpose is to reinstall the system.
That bootable system would be a sub-set of the full system. No Finder, no other apps. It's not a full system, just the means to have access to some system utilities, and the system installer itself.

If you simply run the installer app, the FIRST thing that happens is that the installer app copies the installer files to a special folder, then the app restarts your Mac, finishes up the installation, restarts again, finishes whatever else needs finishing, and you are back with the system that you just installed.
And, of course, that installs to the system that you are booted up on. It just has some natural limitations because the app has to run first (and won't run if you are trying to "update" a system that is newer than the installer app. It won't allow that.
But, if you are booted to a bootable installer, you can install, even if the destination system is newer (within practical limits, of course)
The bootable installer gives you more flexibility to install than the downloadable installer app.

final thoughts: The bootable installer boots to a system. But, it is just not the full system that you get when you choose to reinstall to your destination. The installer boots to a system that it uses for the install and utilities, but not a system that YOU can use for anything else.

 

[Fishrrman]

OP wrote:
"Not sure I made clear. I was to understand using an app like DiskmakerX creates a bootable system from an OS X installer. I did that and it's not booting....I just get the Mac Utilities window from it."

What you wrote above is clear.
The bootable USB flashdrive installer is DOING WHAT IT'S SUPPOSED TO DO.
It's booting up to the OS X Utilities and installer.
That's "all you get" when you create one with DiskMaker or Boot Buddy.

Now tell us what you want to do?

Do you want to:
1. Update the old OS on your internal drive? ("update over" the existing OS)
2. Erase the internal and install a brand-new "clean copy" of Low Sierra?
3. Install somewhere else?
4. Do something else?

 

[Wie Gehts]

Thanks guys.

I originally divided my system HD is 2 partitions....the system and another to store files on.

As a nod to the 'dept of redundancy'. I've also created bootable installers using Boot Buddy, DiskmakerX and Disk Creator, lol.

I've just made a new clone of my system of course. What I intend to do now, is do a test install of a fresh, clean Sierra onto the 2nd partition of the Mini's drive.

So, theoretically, if the cause of all my issues was a botched migration assistant messing up my computer, I should therefore be able to boot from my Mavericks clone and not get that screen that I posted a pic of in my earlier post.

Another test would be plugging in my hub, all my midi peripherals, audio interface, and a printer and they should all be functional and without causing weird issues like I've been experiencing.

For example, if I connected another ext hdd, my keyboards/mouse wouldn't work and/or my audio interface wouldn't connect and work

 

[Wie Gehts]

Been messing around with this all day. I wound up running 2 different memory test apps. Now I have bad memory. I test each rail. Thankful only one was bad. So that's got to be the problem why Mavericks clone won't boot! But Noooooooooo. Still won't. Still get what the pic shows.

I wonder if creating the clone got messed up if the memory was bad. SuperDuper finished the clone OK. I dunno.

Bad news.... half my memory goes t*ts up just as ram prices are up 300%. I was shocked when I looked it up.

On the good side, my USB might be working better on the Sierra partition I installed.

When the new install wizard came to the part about detecting my keyboard... how in gods name can it not detect my APPLE extended keyboard. It works yeah, but why can't it detect it. It's an APPLE keyboard.

I really want to be able to boot up Mavericks as I can't use Photoshop CS6 or Lightroom 6 on Sierra. That's all I really need it for so I'm thinking I'll have to d/l the Mavericks installer (although I probably saved it somewhere maybe). Don't need it for all my audio recording.

Ah, I'll try booting up the Sierra clone I made yesterday on an external drive and see if that works. If so, maybe the Mav's clone IS bad.