Catalina does not reject USB - flash drive

Question

Catalina does not reject USB - flash drive

Dear All,

I have upgraded my MacBook (13 inch 2017) to macOS Catalina. After this update a problem arose that I didn't have before. If I want to eject my USB flash drive, the MacBook always gives a message that it is being used by 1 or more programs, while this is not the case. I can only forcibly eject it.

When I was using Mojave, I did not have this problem.

I tried it with another USB and it had this problem too.

Are there more people who have this problem or is this just a bug?

Mac Pro

Posted on Oct 10, 2019 5:00 AM

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Answer 1

Nov 12, 2019 3:29 PM in response to erkki967

I had to do a "kill -KILL <pid>" for the "QuickLookSatellite" process. The process didn't let disks eject with just a "HUP" or even a "TERM".

Seems like a fairly big bug to me. Shutting down to remove a flash drive is not a good workaround.

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Answer 2

fuzzymo

Level 4

2,048 points

Oct 10, 2019 6:04 AM in response to svenfromschiedam

Try restarting in Safe Mode and see if the issue persists. I am running Catalina and do not have this issue.

Use safe mode to isolate issues with your Mac - Apple Support

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Answer 3

erkki967

Level 1

13 points

Nov 4, 2019 1:36 AM in response to fuzzymo

I have the same problem with Catalina and not with Mojave. Simple test: I copy some files to the USB stick and the delete them. And now the ejecting fails. My USB stick has the name "SANDISK". When I give a command

diskutil unmount /Volumes/SANDISK

the eject fails in the same way but as a result I get the info that the process QuickLookSatellite is still using the USB stick.

I made also the following simple tests:

copy files to the USB stick, and eject - success
open a Word document on the USB stick, write something, save and close Word, and then eject - success
I booted to safe mode and made the same tests including file deleting - same behavior as in normal boot
normal boot after safe mode: again same behaviour

I think that this is a bug in Catalina (my version 10.15.1). I made the tests with one SanDisk stick and one Kingston stick.

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Answer 4

Nov 30, 2019 5:41 PM in response to erkki967

Would any of these help me eject my external hard drive? It won't let me eject because files its going from an encrypted to an unencrypted file or whatever and i don't want to lose everything on my hard drive.

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Answer 5

ampaul20

Level 1

4 points

Nov 9, 2019 11:17 AM in response to svenfromschiedam

I also have the same issue.

I am looking for an answer how to fix it, as it gets cumbersome to restart or shut down my computer when I would need to eject my usb.

Please help!

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Answer 6

Oct 10, 2019 6:07 AM in response to fuzzymo

Thanks for your reply, I will try it.

I think I'm a little closer to the solution. I am currently using Office version 16.29.1 (19091700). When I open a document on this USB stick, nothing happens, but as soon as I edit something and save this document on the USB stick, nothing is wrong. If I then want to eject this USB stick, MacOS gives the message that the USB stick is being used, I think something is going wrong with saving a document.

It also happens when I edit a document with 'Pages'

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Catalina does not reject USB - flash drive

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