My iPhone 12 Pro is not recognizing my SD card - lightning reader

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19 points

My iPhone 12 Pro is not recognizing my SD card - lightning reader

I have a third party SD/MicroSD to Lighting reader that I use to view my dashcam footage. My iPhone X on iOS 13.6 can view the contents of the MicroSD easily, both in the Files App and Photos App.

My iPhone 12 Pro (iOS 14.1) does not recognize the card at all. I’ve tried renaming and reformatting the card, rebooting my phone, all to no avail. I do not want to restore/reset my iPhone; I don’t know if it would fix the problem and I finally got my iPhone set up the way I like it.

At the moment, if I want to view the SD card, I have to connect it to my iPhone X and then airdrop the videos to my iPhone 12. It’s a pain.

iPhone 12 Pro, iOS 14

Posted on Nov 16, 2020 4:10 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

cjguiser Author

Level 1

19 points

Nov 21, 2020 7:33 PM in response to lobsterghost1

So I went out and bought an official Apple SD Card Reader, and it worked perfectly fine with my iPhone 12 Pro. I guess Apple put something in the new hardware/software to stop third party readers from working.

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Answer 2

drtbyk

Level 1

8 points

Nov 19, 2020 3:44 PM in response to cjguiser

I have this same problem in iOS 14.2.1 on my iPhone 12 Pro Max. I was hopeful that this update would fix this issue. This is a critical issue of me when I'm on the road. Now I have to revert back to my iPhone X with iOS 13.x.x.

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Answer 3

Nov 19, 2020 3:45 PM in response to cjguiser

If you are using a 3rd party card reader, you might want to reach out to them to see about compatibility with iPhone 12. I have the Apple SD Card reader and it works fine with my iPhone 12 and 12 Pro Max.

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Answer 4

drtbyk

Level 1

8 points

Nov 19, 2020 4:17 PM in response to lobsterghost1

Well, after trying this connection repeatedly and chatting with Support, the Card Reader finally was recognized. Very disconcerting since I have been swapping it between my iPhone X and iPhone 11 Pro Max and it is recognized instantly on each of them. Oh well, at least it's working now.

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Answer 5

cjguiser Author

Level 1

19 points

Nov 26, 2020 11:14 PM in response to Stephen Guimond

Nothing. Apple Support was useless. What finally worked was spending $30 to buy an official Apple SD Card Reader, just to see if the issue was specific to that third-party reader. It turns out the Apple reader works perfectly, so the problem must be either a software change in iOS 14.1 or a hardware change in the iPhone 12 models that don’t recognize third-party readers.

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Answer 6

Dec 3, 2020 10:41 PM in response to Stephen Guimond

The only thing that worked for me was the official Apple SD card reader (lightning connector directly). Possibly the iPhone delivers battery power to the SD card reader differently than my other third party SD card reader receives power when it is attached to MacBook. It works on my MacBook but not iPhone.

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Answer 7

x002x

Level 1

4 points

Dec 21, 2020 10:05 PM in response to Stephen Guimond

another solution (which albeit is stupid..) is to let the battery drop under 70% charge. under 70% charge, my 3rd party sd card reader somehow magically works... another use on macrumors forum first reported this weird functionality..

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Answer 8

cjguiser Author

Level 1

19 points

Nov 19, 2020 4:45 PM in response to lobsterghost1

I thought that might be the issue, but there are reviews of the same reader on Amazon saying it works on their iPhone 12 Pro.

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Answer 9

drtbyk

Level 1

8 points

Nov 21, 2020 7:42 PM in response to cjguiser

Nothing in iOS that is stopping it from reading 3rd-party readers. Mine just had dirty contacts.

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Answer 10

Nov 26, 2020 8:39 PM in response to drtbyk

Hi. What did you learn from Apple support that made it finally work? I have the identical problem.

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Answer 11

drtbyk

Level 1

8 points

Nov 27, 2020 8:22 AM in response to Stephen Guimond

Nothing. After about a dozen times of plugging in and unplugging the reader was finally recognized. So, I’m guessing the Lightning connector contacts were oxidized and finally made a good connection.

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My iPhone 12 Pro is not recognizing my SD card - lightning reader

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