The disk wasnt ejected because one or more programs may be using it.

[zastopur]

Hi everyone!


MacBook Air m1 8/256
Sequoia 15.1
External nvme ssd Kingston NV2 [SNV2S/1000G], APFS
Ugreen 40gbps ssd enclosure
Connecting directly to the laptop by included with the enclosure cable


This issue was present before on Sonoma or Ventura, but appeared like 2-3 times within 6 months. It didn’t bother me at all. After I updated to Sequoia I basically haven’t been able to eject my drive without this error.

Im trying to eject from finder sidebar, from locations, from desktop - nothing.

I force quit all applications - nothing.


Spotlight index
At first an error with spotlight index caused this, but it fixed itself somewhere in the process of rebuilding the index after i reinstalled Sequoia from recovery. [I left my macbook to do all its post-update things for 10 hours, it rebuild the index and synchronized everything].


QuickLook
The same error, now caused by quicklook processes. Found a solution:
1. «lsof | grep /Volumes/drive1».

• If it says something about quicklook, I do «killall -9 QuickLookSatellite» or «/usr/bin/killall -KILL QuickLookUIService»

Finder
At this point ive already spent hours dealing with this problem. Found the solution - «killall -KILL Finder». It helped.


Restating
Restarting the Macboook without ejecting the drive. When I log in and quickly open finder to eject from sidebar I get the error, but then the drive successfully ejects.


Today
Today was different because nothing from above helped.

Ive also tried:
1. «diskutil unmount /Volumes/drive1»

• terminal says «Volume drive1 on disk5s1 failed to unmount»

2. Disk utility mount / unmount button is non-intractable with «Physical disk», intractable with «Container» and «Volume». Im pressing unmount on both: Failed to unmount “drive1” because it is currently in use.


Some more info

• Disk Utility First Aid didnt find any issues
• There are no other drives connected
• Drivedx doesnt show any issues with the drive - everything is 100% except from temperature, but temperature is still ok. There are no error logs.
• when i reconnect the drive after ejecting it, i wait and try to eject it again. sometimes the drive ejects successfully the second time, sometimes it doesn’t. most of the time this error appears when the drive has been connected for 10-30-60min or more.
• before this issue appeared my drive was disconnecting after macbook went to sleep. i guess the laptop just stops giving it power. but now even after leaving it sleep for a couple of hours the drive didnt disconnect. no idea if this has anything to do with the issue.
• When unable to eject system logs say:

Kernel - disk5s1: device is not readable.
Diskarbitrationd - unmounted disk, id = /dev/disk5s1, ongoing.
Diskarbitrationd - unmounted disk, id = /dev/disk5s1, failure.
Diskarbitrationd - unable to unmount /dev/disk5s1 (status code 0x00000010).
Kernel - print_unknown_ioctl:17066: disk5s1 unknown ioctl _IOW('X', 2, 48) (0x80305802), pid = 4143


Dont tell me to do this
The ONLY thing that ALWAYS helps is to turn off and then physically disconnect the cable. But doing this tens of times per day is driving me crazy. I also don’t want to Force Eject.


ChatGPT
It helped before, so here is what it recommended that i havent tried yet. [I have no idea what is single-user mode, sip or disk identifier. If you think i shouldnt do something from this list please tell me].

1. Reboot in single-user mode, then “/sbin/mount -uw /diskutil unmountDisk /dev/disk5”
2. Try different cable / different port
3. Check and disable SIP: Boot into recovery, then “csrutil status”, then disable it.
4. Unmount using Disk Identifier: “sudo diskutil unmountDisk force /dev/disk5”
5. Reset NVRAM
6. Connect the drive to another macbook to see if the issue is drive-specific

Im not experienced. Everything that I’ve tried has been found on the internet, this forum specifically (thanks to everyone here btw!), and also with ChatGPT.

The main frustration is: each time i see this error its for a different reason. And i have a big list of troubleshooting steps to go through EACH TIME to try and fix it. “Just works” they said …

If you have any questions, want any additional info or logs, screenshots - please ask, i will provide anything you need.

 

[Ben J.]

What is "drive1"?
A whole drive? A APFS volume that you created?

I had a problem with a tiny 10MB partition on an external SSD that would never eject. If you tried, it would immediately pop up again. The only thing that would work was to right-click the volume in Disk Utilities and select 'deactivate'. I suspect this was some kind of "unerasable" partitions that drive manufacturers sometimes put on their drives. I made an applescript to run that command at startup, and I don't have to see it again.

Unsure if this is because of some security settings I changed, but my Finder is 'quittable' FWIW.

It was a long time since I worried about the "Disk was improperly ejected" warning.