Mysterious "Update" volume keeps appearing on my Desktop on M1 Mac Mini

[henrus]

I'm not 100% certain this is M1 Mac related or even Big Sur related, but I can't find anything online to corroborate this. But for the past several weeks, a mysterious volume keeps popping up on my Desktop called "Update." The contents of which are:

➜ Update ls -la
total 528
drwxr-xr-x 10 root wheel 320 Jan 15 19:17 .
drwxr-xr-x 10 root wheel 320 Jan 20 17:27 ..
d--x--x--x 8 root wheel 256 Jan 15 19:17 .DocumentRevisions-V100
d-wx--x--t 3 root wheel 96 Jan 15 19:17 .TemporaryItems
d-wx--x--t 3 root wheel 96 Jan 15 08:33 .Trashes
drwx------ 7 root wheel 224 Jan 15 19:27 .fseventsd
drwx--x--x 2 root wheel 64 Dec 18 19:30 Controller
drwxr-xr-x 2 root wheel 64 Dec 18 19:30 Firmware
-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 592 Dec 19 01:49 last_update_result.plist
-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 219529 Dec 21 11:57 restore.log

What's strange is that all of the directories seem to be empty, though for some odd reason, I can't read any of the first 3 directories, even as root. Anyone else run into this or know what this could be? The contents of the .plist file is:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
<key>BootUUID</key>
<string>6242BB94-F183-4489-BF54-76303A459B01</string>
<key>OriginalBootManifestHash</key>
<data>
oN7w3QdjGRLzFkTmXI0kofKDlIp9Ke20fPuoGryXMW6Ygj1B9hIY8tvPtBAo6De3
</data>
<key>SourceOS</key>
<string>20B29</string>
<key>TargetBootManifestHash</key>
<data>
cffVm8gzi8TDekXcupc9amQO/2d+PhfwxIicNmwTrflkZavy5JSTRkCH7n1yAwkD
</data>
<key>TargetOS</key>
<string>20C69</string>
</dict>
</plist>

The restore.log file is long so I've attached it instead. Going through it, it does seem like an OS thing, but I can't understand why it keeps mounting and coming back after I reboot or unmount it (though not right away). I'm on the latest Big Sur 11.1. Any help would be appreciated.

 

[alpez]

Yes, on my iMac too !

Did you partition your ssd ?

/A

 

[henrus]

Yes, on my iMac too !

Did you partition your ssd ?

/A

Nope

 

[claycjones]

I have experienced the same thing on my Mac Mini. It began recently. I dismounted the volume once, but it reappeared after I rebooted the Mac. I have made no changes to the internal SSD. It began after I upgraded to Big Sur and then downgraded back to Catalina (because it broke too many of my critical apps). However, I'm not certain if that is cause or coincidence.

I fired up Disk Utility and determined that it appears to be a partition on the Mac Mini SSD. However, I did not create it. When I tried to have Disk Utility perform First Aid on the volume, it gave me the following message"

"Verifying the startup volume will cause this computer to stop responding. This may last for several minutes or hours. To avoid this, you can run First Aid while in Recovery."

i backed out of First Aid after seeing the message.

Has anyone out there got any ideas what is causing this?

 

[alpez]

Hi

I think its a readonly copy of a Catalina or BigSur Update, Just leave it, I got 3 "Update" and some "xx-data"

This iMac has 10.11 - 11.1 installed and bootable

Just dont delete them "Update" and "?-data" you probably have to reinstall the os

I just let them be ... think it's an bug in the APFS that causes this...

/A

 

[Paulejonesy]

Chiming in with a me too. M1 Mac, 11.1 (20C69). Doesn't appear in disk utility, or in diskutil, but is exactly the same size as the Apple_APFS_Recovery volume listed.


diskutil list


/dev/disk0 (internal):


#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUID_partition_scheme 500.3 GB disk0
1: Apple_APFS_ISC ⁨⁩ 524.3 MB disk0s1
2: Apple_APFS ⁨Container disk3⁩ 494.4 GB disk0s2
3: Apple_APFS_Recovery ⁨⁩ 5.4 GB disk0s3


/dev/disk3 (synthesized):
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: APFS Container Scheme - +494.4 GB disk3
Physical Store disk0s2
1: APFS Volume ⁨Macintosh HD⁩ 15.1 GB disk3s1
2: APFS Snapshot ⁨com.apple.os.update-...⁩ 15.1 GB disk3s1s1
3: APFS Volume ⁨Preboot⁩ 297.4 MB disk3s2
4: APFS Volume ⁨Recovery⁩ 962.3 MB disk3s3
5: APFS Volume ⁨Data⁩ 397.7 GB disk3s5
6: APFS Volume ⁨VM⁩ 3.2 GB disk3s6

 

[Paulejonesy]

Tracked this down to the Mountain disk ejector app. Have contacted the developer, but it think it's been abandoned. No reply in a while now.

 

[haralds]

It's a standard feature and should be hidden. Do not try to remove it!
On my Mac Pro it looks like one of the latest update blessed all of my APFS disks with this volume, even those without macOS installed. They will show up as Update, Update 1, Update 2, etc.
I hide them all with: "sudo Setfile -a V /Volumes/Update;killall Finder"

No point in fighting this.

 

[jdb8167]

Tracked this down to the Mountain disk ejector app. Have contacted the developer, but it think it's been abandoned. No reply in a while now.

That app seems to have caused kernel panics on previous versions of Big Sur. I would consider whether or not using really old abandonware is a good idea.

 

[EmphaticallyFrank]

It's a standard feature and should be hidden. Do not try to remove it!
On my Mac Pro it looks like one of the latest update blessed all of my APFS disks with this volume, even those without macOS installed. They will show up as Update, Update 1, Update 2, etc.
I hide them all with: "sudo Setfile -a V /Volumes/Update;killall Finder"

No point in fighting this.

Is there an alternative to Setfile that doesn't require installing developer tools?

 

[rdxny]

Tracked this down to the Mountain disk ejector app. Have contacted the developer, but it think it's been abandoned. No reply in a while now.

Same issue, darn "Update" volume kept coming back. I wiped the drive, reinstalled from Time Machine backup, and then clean reinstall of all apps, and it still came back. Apple support couldn't figure it out. Then I found this post, and viola, I did have the " Mountain app" installed. Removed, problem solved! Thank you! Thank You!

 

[haralds]

You can also hide this with

chflags hidden /Volumes/Update

If there is more than one one your system, you might have to name it:

chflags hidden /Volumes/Update\ 1

Or \ 2 or \ 3 ...

 

[rdxny]

You can also hide this with

chflags hidden /Volumes/Update

If there is more than one one your system, you might have to name it:

chflags hidden /Volumes/Update\ 1

Or \ 2 or \ 3 ...

maybe,, thanks.. I had tried a version of that but got errors, It wouldn't access that volume. The Mountain.app delete worked, that was the source of the problem.

 

[Kelmon]

Just to say that this was the same issue that I was having on a M2 MacBook Air, that was driving me nuts. Thanks very much for tracking down the issue to Mountain. I'll be sad to see that app go.