USB 3.0 Hub Broken on Mac OS Monterey 12.0.1

[UPDATE] QUICK ANSWER - IT IS STILL BROKEN

Long Answer: After upgrading to 12.1 my usb hub seems to be working. All ports including using SD card etc. Then as I use my M1 Mac mini I came across some problems:

(i) I need to check some files on my external Seagate Fast SSD with direct usb-c connection, and it take forever to load. I check seagate website which said that my Fast SSD is compatible with Monterey. I thought may be my drive need a fresh start so I format it. Same result no change. I plug my Fast SSD on my MacBook Pro 2018 model and it is working properly.

(ii) I use to charge my iPhone by connecting to my MacBook or my Mac mini depending on time of use. So I plug in my iPhone and it take forever to charge. But on MacBook it is fast.

So the usb-c hub works after 12.1 but other problems remains. I decided to downgrade again to BigSur (which took almost 5 hours of my time re-installing everything) for my M1 Mac mini, and both problem above goes away.

I'm not going to upgrade to Monterey again.

The problem is that if say my cable is the wrong kind, why would I get the required speed in BigSur, same cable, same hub, its not working in Monterey. Funny thing is that after downgrading to BigSur everything works perfectly. It can't be hardware problem.

The problem here is not because I change my cable (or hardware) I use the same that I've been using. The only change I made was upgrade to Mac OS 12.01 then 12.1. If it was a hardware issue, the problem should exist in Mac OS 11.x too

I think it’s an inconvenience though design - USB cables can carry a lot of power and can cause damage. so they may be locking down on poor non-certified cables to help prevent warranty claims. Pain in the butt it is.

I use Seagate Fast SSD and the cable that came with the SSD I don't think a brand like Seagate would cheap out on cable. Not only that I mean even my iPhone cable that came from apple itself is not charging as fast as when the OS is BigSur. So I don't believe its uncertified cable.

I have three USB hubs, one is USB 2.0, a second is USB 3.0 and a third is TB. All three are plugged-into my 2018 Intel Mac Mini full-time. All three are flakey to one extent or another - peripheral devices that work in one USB port on one hub will cease to work at seemingly. random times and will, sometimes, work on one of the other hubs. All peripherals (but not the hubs, so far) and cables have been verified "good" by plugging into a Win10 (ugh!) laptop. The hubs are different ages, manufacturers and, clearly, host interfaced to the the Mini.

Any help would be very much appreciated.

I called Apple support, they had me run a diagnostic & we got an error "May be an Issue with the trackpad." Codes: NDR005 & 006. We restarted and rest the ?RAM or NVRAM or something else. Anyway, on restart my old USB Hub worked. Problem solved. MacBook Pro (13-inch, M1, 2020) running macOS Monterey.

Tried both the keyboard NVRAM reset ([CMD OPT P R] held-down as the power button is used to re-start the Mac and held-down until the second start-up tone is sounded a number of seconds later after the first tone), the command in Terminal (sudo nvram -c), both with no resolution of the persistent flakey behavior of all USB device slots on 3rd party interface hubs on my 2018 Mini in Monterey (12.1). As I said above, I have a USB 2.0 hub daisey-chained into a USB port on a USB 3.0 hub that is plugged into one of the two the Mini USB ports. A second Thunderbolt hub is plugged into the Mini and the USB ports on it are extremely flakey, too. I think this all started with the update to Monterey 12.0.1.

As a second unrelated issue, boot times are extremely long due, I think, to the very recent addition of a 4TB Toshiba HD to my Thunderbolt interfaced Mercury Elite external HD enclosure. I think I saw a post recently that said that the OS is hanging the boot sequence waiting for the TRIM firmware to complete a check of certain brands of HDs. This is annoying, and I intend to a) confirm what I'm saying here and b) see if there's a fix. I'll post if I see any resolution to this *much* less important issue than the hubs issue above.

Sorry if I'm duplicating information, but I'm having good success with StarTech hubs. I have a USB 3.0 and a USB 3.1 hub. Each is connected to a Mac mini (2018) USB 3.1 (Gen 2) Type C port. The USB 3.0 hub, itself, provides a Type C connector which is limited to 5 Gbps. The USB 3.1 hub ports are 10 Gbps (Type A connector).

Power distribution should be carefully considered. If I recall correctly, an external SSD would only function properly when connected to the Type C connector on the USB 3.0 hub. Also, be mindful of using the right USB cable (e.g. an older USB 2.0 cable limited the transfer rate to 480 Mbps).

- Pie Lover

Thanks Pie Lover,

I guess I have not been clear enough about my USB setup and peripherals. I have 3 USB hubs of different ages and capabilities to accommodate a large number of peripheral devices, 3 printers, a scanner, a smart battery backup unit, etc. Because some of these slow-data rate devices are a considerable distance (8-10 ft) from the computer I have an 8-port USB 2.0 hub that accommodates these and this hub has its own external power supply. This has a long USB cable that comes back to the close vicinity of the computer and plugs into a USB 3 hub, see below.

Closer to the computer are still more peripheral devices that are not particularly demanding of high data rates, but are a mix of USB 2.0 and 3 devices. These are serviced by a 7-port, externally powered USB 3 hub that is plugged into the Mini via a USB port on the Mini. The 8-port "slow" hub is daisy-chained into that "close" hub as I said above.

A second close hub is plugged-into one of the two Thunderbolt ports and it is nearly crippled with respect to its USB 3 ports - they work sometimes but mostly don't. The TB hub has other ports for SD card, HDMI, etc, but I have not tested them as I have been preoccupied by the USB issues.

Finally, the second Mini TB port is used by external HD box, the Mercury Elite. The Mercury Elite box is not interfaced to the Mini via a hub (ugh!) but rather it is direct to a TB port - that's the only way to get decent disk transfer speeds.

I just added a 4TB Toshiba HD to the Mercury box a few days ago and that's about when boot times began to stretch-out. Unfortunately, I did some other changes about the same time that may have had some effects on boot time issues. I used an SSD in the Mercury box to build an external clone of my internal SSD to be used as an emergency backup boot device and I test-booted from that external SSD. It worked and while it was a slow boot, I was not then aware of the external non-Apple SSD Boot issue and just noted that it was an annoyance to look into later. ***Under all other conditions (I.e., when not needed for an emergency boot = virtually never) I always boot from my internal SSD.*** Thus, according to my further reading of other's troubles with long boot times **when booting from non-Apple external SSDs,** my situation does not seem to fit their conditions.

To make things *more* confusing, last night I ejected the external SSD from my desktop (i.e., unmounted that disk - just to see if having on the desktop was somehow a problem) and, voila, this AM the Mini booted very quickly, even though, as expected, the external SSD re-mounted along with all of the disks in the Mercury box. I will do more testing to see if this "good behavior" persists. And also , as expected, there was no change in the USB situation (why would there be? - I'm just grasping at straws, here).

Hi, I am hoping someone can please help me. I can't seem to get my external monitor to stop flickering anytime I try to use it, after upgrading to MacOS Monterey. I have spent hours on the phone with Mac support and no one really has been able to help. I have a MacBook Air M1 - and have resorted to just plugging it and unplugging it, not a sustainable solution.

I am a student starting classes again on Tuesday. We are online because of covid, meaning it's really important that I have a working computer monitor at home. In my 20 years of owning exclusively Apple products, this is the first issue that is causing me to seriously reconsider my commitment to their devices/OS - and I really have no idea what to do at this point other than buy a windows computer or Chromebook.

Thanks,

Matt

Matt, it may be the cable - you seem to have plugged and un-plugged it several times, but did you do it at both ends (i.e., the monitor side, too)?

If that does not work, try another HDMI port on the monitor (if it has another one).

If that does not work, borrow or buy another HDMI cable and try that - you may have one around the house used for TV or something else that you can snag for a test.

Finally, test the monitor itself - plug it into another computer (even if it is not yours - say a friend's) using the same cable you are using now - how is that?

Let us know if any of that works, helps isolate the problem, or if it is still a problem of unknown origin.

Have you done a re-installation of the OS? Try a simple re-install and, hopefully, you won't have to go to a "clean installation" which is when you backup everything on the computer onto an external USB 3.1 thumb drive (less $$ than a HD and fast), wipe the M1 Mac's SSD, then reinstall and then recover all your files to the M1 Mac.

Did Apple lead you thru a hardware diagnosis of the M1 Mac itself?

The fact that the monitor works with other computers and your hub works with them, too (I assume you checked that), leaves just the computer or the OS. My suggestion is the reinstall route and then, if necessary, back to Apple at a Genius Bar - I'd say.

Sorry for the trouble you are having and the time it is taking to chase this down.

It is possible my experience might help.

I have a Garmin 62st, a bit long in the tooth now. I tried to use it with my MBP (M1 X) with Monterey and the MBP said the Garmin was incompatible or some other similar message.

I Googled the problem and thought Oh Dear.

A few days ago I upgraded to Monterey 12.1 and tried again. This time the Garmin and MBP communicated but before communication finished communication was lost.

I went to Apple support and during the experiments support asked me to try another USB cable. I did and now the 62st did not communicate at all. Apple basically said by a new GPS.

Today I pondered over the distinct difference between the two leads (50 cm worked but timed out, 27 cm would not communicate at all) and thought I'd try my longest usb cable (1.3 metres!). The Garmin works fine. I can download and upload to the device and I'm a happy bunny. I'm guessing this cable is more capacitive and might well stop ringing and other problems associated with a high speed bus. Anyway I am pleased I don't need to buy a new Garmin GPS. Perhaps those with hubs that won't work could use an extension USB cable and see if that fixes the problem.

I also note my long cable has a ferrite choke at each end :-)

I have an M1 MacMini and have a J. Burrows 7 port USB 3.0 hub. Prior to the Monterey update everything was working like a dream! I had a webcam connected which would start up fine. After the update, when I open photobooth, the usb subsystem would become unresponsive. The system itself isn't using any CPU. When I unplug the hub from the back of the mac, and replug it in, i get control of the system again. It's almost as if the usb controllers are getting saturated with a flood of acks? Maybe there was a change in the way usb devices ack? However, heres' the kicker. If I plug in the webcam in the second USB, it works fine. Anyway, I'm unable to use my mic and webcam now, unless I plug it into my machine, but that's not a workable solution, because I've got a KVM too and share the webcam etc with 4 other machines. Apple please have a look at this, or tell us how to gather data and send it to you. Interestingly, when I switch apps from Photobooth to say, chrome for a few second, the webcam switches off. My expectation would've been that the webcam would stay on, regardless of which app i'm focused on?

My hub was finally working with 12.2. I had to plug power cord into hub so webcam could directly use the one other USB-C port on my MacBook Air. I just upgraded to 12.2.1 and the problems started all over again: no matter what I do, the webcam doesn't work! Deja vu all over again! Come on Apple! Everyone has this problem, or a variation of it, and they've had it ever since 12.0!