My MacBook Air won't recognize my USB hub

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Level 1

10 points

My MacBook Air won't recognize my USB hub

Hi, I've been trying to get my MacBook Air to recognize my USB hub and can't seem to get it to work. Actually, I tried one hub and now I've bought another (thinking the first one may be defective), but still nothing is happening. I'm wanting to plug in a mouse and insert an SD card (has slots for both) to open the pictures taken on my camera, but I don't see a way to do it. I admit I'm a PC user, but shouldn't the memory card pop up somewhere in Finder for me to access the files just like it would on a PC? I'm running Catalina and have the USB hub plugged into the USB-C port.

Thanks for any help!

[Re-Titled by Moderator]

MacBook Air

Posted on Jan 18, 2022 1:46 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

GreeniusGenius

Level 4

3,769 points

Jan 18, 2022 1:59 PM in response to Cuppybear

SD card should work fine. I have heard of issues with Hyperdrive stuff before… Hyperdrive not working on macbook pro m1 - Apple Community. It’s [The SanDisk SD card] a reputable brand, and I doubt best buy are selling fakes. It’s just whether your USB-C hub is any decent at all. You may want to look into adapters from: https://satechi.net/, or Thunderbolt docks from someone like CalDigit, their stuff is proper quality.

Do return the Hyperdrive adapter since you’re having issues with it.

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Answer 2

Jan 18, 2022 1:51 PM in response to Cuppybear

Is your SD card formatted as Fat 32, or exFAT (compatible with Windows), or one of Apple’s various formats. Have a look in Disk Utility. Be sure to go to the view menu, and select show all devices. macOS does not like NTFS at all, so you should reformat it to one of the aforementioned formats instead. Does the USB port work on the adapter?

Additionally, could you send me a link to whatever adapters you have purchased. This would help too.

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Answer 3

Jan 18, 2022 2:13 PM in response to Cuppybear

The SD card should popup in Finder (in the sidebar), and if you open Disk Utility (in the sidebar), you should also find it there. You could also get a popup saying that the SD card cannot be read, and that you need to initialise it, which also means that it is working. My 2012 MBP (with a built in SD card slot), works perfectly fine with SD cards. I’m yet to hear of a macOS bug in which SD cards don’t popup.

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Answer 4

Jan 18, 2022 2:18 PM in response to Cuppybear

That’s why I was saying, it looks like a dodgy adapter…. If you restart you Mac do you still encounter these issues…

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Answer 5

Cuppybear Author

Level 1

10 points

Jan 18, 2022 2:23 PM in response to GreeniusGenius

it finally showed up when i popped a memory card reader USB stick into the USB slot of the hub. that's so complicated and I shouldn't have to do that

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Answer 6

Jan 18, 2022 2:25 PM in response to Cuppybear

So you should return it and get a better quality one then (see my suggestions above). I agree, you shouldn’t have to do that. That’s not how it should work at all.

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