Leaving usb thumb drive inserted in iMac while Starting causes duplicate entries in Finder

[fabrum]

Can someone explain to me why leaving usb thumb drive inserted in iMac while Starting causes duplicate entries in Finder Locations?

There will be the usual Thumb Drive name with an arrow to Eject in the Sidebar Finder Locations however another entry with only the name will appear just below it. Why does this happen? Even after ejecting the thumb drive then the other name with no arrow beside it will remain.

However if I remove the thumb drive and restart the computer then both names will disappear and if then I insert the Thumb Drive then only one entry will appear with the little arrow beside it.

thanks

 

[DeltaMac]

If you have the thumb drive inserted, and both names appear in Locations - select each name, and then Get Info (command-i) on both items. Are both information windows the same?

 

[fabrum]

Sorry for the late reply; I've been swamped lately. When I select each name (which is the same) then only one will show information from Get Info. The other does not respond. When I eject the one which will respond then the Finder window closes and when I reopen it then click on it then Finder will say it cannot be opened because the original item can't be found (even though the USB thumb drive is still in the slot).

 

[fabrum]

bump!

 

[DeltaMac]

Is your issue with only that one thumb drive? Other thumb drives work OK through a reboot?

 

[fabrum]

I can't recall at the moment whether other USB thumb drives experience the same issue. However I have a Samsung T7 500GB external hard drive SSD and that one is fine always (and connected almost always). The problematic USB thumb drive is Samsung too by the way. (128 GB and almost full).

 

[PowerPCFan]

Is the second drive that has the same name an alias? If it has an arrow in the upper right corner of the desktop icon it is. For me this sometimes happens but it all works fine if I eject the second "fake drive".

-PowerPCFan

 

[fabrum]

Is the second drive that has the same name an alias? If it has an arrow in the upper right corner of the desktop icon it is. For me this sometimes happens but it all works fine if I eject the second "fake drive".

-PowerPCFan

Hi, No it does not appear to be an alias. The drive icon that appears on the desktop does not display any arrow in the upper right corner of the icon.

 

[Fishrrman]

Take a screenshot and post it, so we can see what YOU see...

 

[arpanet]

I'm going to take a guess that an unmount of the drive failed and left the mount point in /Volumes, call it /Volumes/MyUSB. A subsequent mount will make a second mount point /Volumes/MyUSB 1 and the finder is just confused.

Unmount the drive then use terminal or Finder to go to /Volumes and check for the leftover mount point. Delete it and see if things go back to normal.

 

[fisherking]

is the thumb drive formatted for mac? check that, and if need be, copy everything off of it, wipe it, and format it (in disk utility) for mac.

 

[PowerPCFan]

Hi, No it does not appear to be an alias. The drive icon that appears on the desktop does not display any arrow in the upper right corner of the icon.

I actually meant lower left corner in my original post, but I made a typo. I'm still guessing it's not an alias, even though I made the typo. Sorry for the confusion. Hopefully this stops soon. Have a nice day

 

[fabrum]

I'm going to take a guess that an unmount of the drive failed and left the mount point in /Volumes, call it /Volumes/MyUSB. A subsequent mount will make a second mount point /Volumes/MyUSB 1 and the finder is just confused.

Unmount the drive then use terminal or Finder to go to /Volumes and check for the leftover mount point. Delete it and see if things go back to normal.

Thanks for the tip! I checked there just now and everything appears to be normal. I will remember to check that when this occurs again. I wish that I could discover what causes Finder to become confused however I guess for now that Best Practice is to remove the usb drive physically from the slot when I eject it or shutoff the computer.

Strange though that my Samsung T7 drive does not display the same behavior.

 

[fabrum]

I actually meant lower left corner in my original post, but I made a typo. I'm still guessing it's not an alias, even though I made the typo. Sorry for the confusion. Hopefully this stops soon. Have a nice day

I supposed that's what you meant There is no arrow of any kind displayed on the desktop icon though. Thanks so much for your suggestion!

 

[fabrum]

is the thumb drive formatted for mac? check that, and if need be, copy everything off of it, wipe it, and format it (in disk utility) for mac.

The samsung usb thumb drive is formated for ExFAT because I wanted it to be interoperable with Windows computers! It's data is almost all video files if that makes any difference.

Incidentally, though, the Samsung T7 drive is formatted for APFS. Perhaps there is something related to the filesystem choice that accounts for the difference.

 

[fisherking]

The samsung usb thumb drive is formated for ExFAT because I wanted it to be interoperable with Windows computers! It's data is almost all video files if that makes any difference.

Incidentally, though, the Samsung T7 drive is formatted for APFS. Perhaps there is something related to the filesystem choice that accounts for the difference.

hmmm. if you're up for it, copy all the files to your mac. wipe the drive, format it APFS (or mac os extended). copy the files back. see how that works... would at least tell you if exFAT is the issue. just an idea!