MBP 14 (Ventura): USB Flash drive keeps unmounting

[rickeames]

I have a flash drive that I have formatted for MS-DOS. I have a few files I start copying to the flash drive and after about half way, the Mac will tell me that I should have ejected it before pulling it out of the system, and the write fails.

Obviously, I did NOT pull out the drive. It's sitting there, inside of the Apple dongle plugged into the Mac. I've tried with another hub, same issue.

What should I be looking at next?

 

[Fishrrman]

Is this the only drive that is giving you problems?

If so, it might be the drive, or just a weak connection.

You said "Apple dongle".
Which one are you referring to?

You might try a different dongle, such as this:

Cable Matters USB C to USB Adapter 6 Inches (USB to USB C Adapter, USB-C to USB 3.0 Adapter, USB C OTG) in Black

Cable Matters USB C to USB Adapter 6 Inches (USB to USB C Adapter, USB-C to USB 3.0 Adapter, USB C OTG) in Black

www.amazon.com

Sometimes, that's all it takes...

 

[Bazza1]

I've recently moved to Ventura with the purchase of a Mini. I have a USB hub, which includes access to my Time Machine drive as well as two printers and a camera. No issues with accessing any of those at all.
Plugged in a Lexar USB drive (with stuff already on it) and Ventura alternates between not seeing it at all, or seeing it and then, randomly, dismounts it with the oft-reported 'ejected without...' nonsense. I've also tried plugging it directly into the Mini with the same results.

I'd blame the drive itself, except I can plug it into my 'old' 2017 Mac Air, and its seen and works with no issues whatsoever.

This seems to be an ongoing issue with MacOS (if a search on this and other forums are anything to go by), though a Google search suggests its gotten worse with Ventura. Most sites currently like to initially blame the hardware (the hubs, the USB drive) rather than, say, the MacOS - but this is just nuts. No certainty as to what USB drive brand has the best chance of working, either. Sloppy work somewhere down the line, Apple.

 

[Fishrrman]

"Plugged in a Lexar USB drive (with stuff already on it) and Ventura alternates between not seeing it at all, or seeing it and then, randomly, dismounts it with the oft-reported 'ejected without...' nonsense. I've also tried plugging it directly into the Mini with the same results."

Plug it directly into the Mini
then
DISCONNECT the hub (temporarily).

Does the drive still dismount randomly?
If so...
Perhaps you might replace that particular drive with another one.
No promises.

 

[Bazza1]

"Plugged in a Lexar USB drive (with stuff already on it) and Ventura alternates between not seeing it at all, or seeing it and then, randomly, dismounts it with the oft-reported 'ejected without...' nonsense. I've also tried plugging it directly into the Mini with the same results."

Plug it directly into the Mini
then
DISCONNECT the hub (temporarily).

Does the drive still dismount randomly?
If so...
Perhaps you might replace that particular drive with another one.
No promises.

Been there. Done that. Same result.

Frustrating when drive works on other Macs, and moving around plugs to printers and camera suggest its not the plug on the hub's fault. either. Everything else seen.

Ya pays ya money and take ya chances as to what the OS wants to work with? Great. Wonder if Apple gets a share of all the USB drives sales profits....🙄

 

[brerlappin]

Be sure to check this setting.… https://appleinsider.com/inside/mac...age-thunderbolt-usb-security-in-macos-ventura

 

[Bazza1]

Be sure to check this setting.… https://appleinsider.com/inside/mac...age-thunderbolt-usb-security-in-macos-ventura

Thanks for that. Read and noted.

That said, as per their instructions in Security, my MacOS (updated to 13.2.1 during initial boot 5 days ago) does not have 'Allow accessories to connect' option.

In my case (as noted above) this morning I connected the drive to the older Air (running Monterey) which still 'saw' the USB drive. Insofar as all the material on it was a backup of existing material, I decided to try Disk Utility > Erase (and reformat - same as before, to Ex-FAT), which completed without issue.
That done, I moved the drive back to the hub connected to the Mini. The drive was immediately seen - and I left things as they were for over an hour, just in case the OS decided to unmount it on it's own again. That didn't happen, so I then copied the original material over to the drive. This took a while.

An hour since all that completed, and the drive is still 'seen' and I have full access to the stuff on it.

Fortunately, the drive didn't have original material on it (and I still had a Mac that could access it and rescue material if that was the case), but folks might well be hooped if that's not the case for them (or its not stored in the cloud).

Apple needs to figure this out. Its clearly been a recurring issue for awhile.