External Drives in Monterey

As another data point, the built-in SD card reader in my mid 2015 Macbook Pro stopped working when I upgraded to Monterey. I've tried everything that has been suggested, including SMC reset etc, and the OS just doesn't recognise it. I've tried multiple SD and micro-SD cards that work perfectly well in other devices.

Then I plugged in an external USB SD card reader, and that works just fine, so it's just the built-in reader, it's nothing to do with SD cards themselves.

Seems pretty clearly to be a bug, just have to wait for them to fix it.

I have a 2020 MBP 13" and since Monterey - my USB-C hubs and connection are disconnecting.

Tried 2 of the same i-Tec USB-hubs that worked fine before, tried an Anker hub, and dell hub. I mainly need a USC-C ethernet connection. Only the Dell works a bit, it at least does not disconnect the ethernet and the usb-c external drive but it still disrupts them. I cannot do a proper video call while on ethernet. The other hubs keep disconnecting and keep giving the "usb-c device was not disconnected safely)".

Any ideas how to solve this?

I’ve upgraded my 2015 MBP to a 1TB NVME SSD. Was a last resort, but my SD card slot kept disconnecting. I now have no need for the extra storage. Might be an option for those with older MacBooks using the SD card slot as additional storage.

I replaced the drive that was causing issues and haven't had any more problems. The drive in question is fine, and works on other machines, but it was easier for me to replace the drive for $79 than to try and troubleshoot this issue.

fantastic Howard that a simple clean solved your problem, but I'm afraid it will be a different story for those of us with sd card reader problems.

The problems are not down to dirt.

How can I be sure? In order to avoid data loss on the sd card, my 'genius' idea was to gracefully unmount the card either through the Finder or Disk Utility. The OS, however, has different ideas, and randomly re-mounts the sd card, only to dump it again when it is bored of it, and then send me a message that *I* ejected the card, without unmounting it first, which is not good practice. No ****, sherlock!

Monterey is buggy as **** - for many tasks, like, say, opening a new window in safari, it feels like I'm on a 2010 era HDD macbook pro, not a speedy ssd mean machine. High sierra was snappy as a snappy thing, and it's back there I'm heading.

It's almost as if apple are causing these problems and slowing down our machines in order to nudge us towards new hardware, doesn't it? I've sung the apple hymns and waved their banner through (very) hard times and good for 30 years, and this crap stinks.

no, you are quite right :) And if that hadn't been one of the first things I had done, right before I went and bought another 512 gig sd card, thinking it was borked, I would have been scuttling off to my little Cupboard of Nefarious Liquids® to get my bottle of 99.9 isopropyl alcohol, to squirt away at the macbook innards.

I'm giving it till 12.2, and then I'm back to 10.13

Cheers

"A simple workaround is to not sleep the computer but just put the screen to sleep. What with SSDs they don't need to be put to sleep like rotational HDs do to extend life. "

Also thought of that, but alas it does not work either.

As I mentioned, it still burbs the card out (or at least thinks it does) but not only that randomly MOUNTS an unmounted card for no reason.

Buggy

Buggy

BUGGY

this ain't my first rodeo, brother. Did I mention 30 years?

Though, to be completely honest, no, I haven't booted into safe mode, as there is little else can be done on the mac in that mode, and as it is, the random mounts and unmounts are...Erm...random, and can occur multiple times a day, or not happen for a few days. This has not occurred in high sierra, the little time I dabbled in 10.14, or big sur.

It is on a 'clean' system, ie not upgraded from an earlier one.

If it were only me, I would assume something I had running, but as I say, it's pretty clean with no system-level malfeasance. As you correctly point out, a guest/new user account should put any user-level additions to bed, but they do not. It's a system-level flaw. NOTHING should be forcing an unmounted sd card to mount without user input, *nothing*, and that's forgetting the forced-unclean-ejecting of media.

It isn't just me, and it isn't a user-issue.

this ain't my first rodeo, brother. Did I mention 30 years?

30 years old ain't a lot of experience.

Booting into Safe Mode does the following:

• Verifies your startup disk and attempts to repair directory issues, if needed ⬅︎ ⬅︎ ⬅︎

• Loads only required kernel extensions (prevents 3rd party kernel/extensions from loading) ⬅︎ ⬅︎ ⬅︎

• Prevents Startup Items and Login Items from opening automatically

• Disables user-installed fonts 

• Deletes font caches, kernel cache, and other system cache files ⬅︎ ⬅︎ ⬅︎

So when you boot into safe mode just immediately reboot normally and see if there's any improvement.

as a further update, on reboot into normal mode (ie, not safeboot) I ejected the sd card. Now, around two and a half hours later, I just checked and the sd has reappeared. Hasn't been kicked out yet, but that will come.

So, to be clear;

Booting into safe mode STILL lets the OS 'randomly' mount an unmounted sd card on its own volition, with no user input.

Clearing caches etc, effected by the safeboot furthermore has no effect (but then, why should it, as the same behaviour was observed in SB mode anyway, indicating it is NOT a bad cache/errant extension/dodgy user daemon etc)

The mounting/unmounting of the sd card is not reported in the system log, which is in of itself a little odd, but hey ho.

My suspicion is that something (bug) is 'randomly' interrupting power to the sd card usb interface, though some other users here have reported this same eject/mount activity with external usb devices too, so it maybe the whole usb line being taken down. This interruption is then compensated for by the OS, causing it to mount a usb device, whether that be external or sd card connection point, as it would appear to the os that the device has just been plugged in.

This interruption would explain both the force-ejecting-by-the-os AND the os-mounting-when-not-wanted, as the last one should certainly not happen other than on reboot (force relaunching the finder, for example, does not mount the card)

If anyone has a better explanation and solution, then as prince charles might say, 'I'm all ears'

2017 iMac Pro, 32GB, 1T SSD, macOS 12.2 (21D49).

Two Sabrent 2T SSDs configured as RAID 0, and are randomly “not mounted” when my backup tries to run, yet are mounted later.

An external WD Red in an enclosure randomly posts “deject before disconnecting” messages, yet is always connected and mounted when I check.

All drives directly connected.

This didn’t happen on Big Sur or before (“up”graded a few weeks ago).

Sounds like Monterey is shutting things down that it shouldn’t.

All the other answers to this issue notwithstanding, I have to believe this is a Monterey issue. It began only after upgrading to Monterey with no other changes to cables, wi-fi or any other connections, and no changes to any settings, whether for Time Machine or other external devices. TM backups continue to be successfully made. But the Disk Not Eject Properly notification show up every time I wake up my iMac. Since nothing changed except the macOS, I can only conclude that it is Monterey that is the problem, and Apple should take note.

I have no explanation for the differences in cables, I followed a suggested remedy that worked for me. Another user suggested trying certified USB cables. I looked at what was shipped with the drives (LaCie and WD), they had the correct stamping and labeling that indicates that they were certified. However, I bought two new cables, nothing fancy (Amazon basics and some other vendor called Plugable) with the USB-IF certification (like the old ones). I haven’t had a mounting problem since. My M1 mini seems to have delayed mounting, but they do mount reliably. Intel Mini 2018 i7 seems to be more consistent.

True enough. However, an SD-Card slot is a device that will sit on the USB bus, so I suspect these are things that have unintentionally gotten caught in the cross fire of the changes, that apple implemented in Monterey, to tackle the issue I raise above.

Whitey012001 wrote:

that may be the case for external hard drivers, but this also happens to older MacBooks with sd cards mounted to the sd slot. Think there are 2 issues on this thread

This has been discussed in the private level 6+ forum (“the Lounge” if you see other references to it), and it seems to be a problem with some SD card slots. I have an external OWC 14 port hub with an SD slot, and I just confirmed that it worked with Monterey, so it is only some slots.