When will Apple repair this major issue? I'm livid, a year's worth of my co-worker's projects are gone forever. Apple knows this is an issue with Monterey, fix this before you start losing your customers. I will not use a computer that eats my files!!!
iMac 27″ 5K, macOS 11.4
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What model and year iMac do you have?
What manufacture, model and type of drives are they?
How are they connected to your iMac?
How are the drives formatted.
What fix attempts have you tried?
Thanks to ayeeTCMEDIA to explaining clearly and letting me know I'm likely not crazy for going
through the same thing!
tl;dr - there seem to be real issues with Monterey (12.2... just checked), the ASM235CM chipset used in many SATA-USBC enclosures, and apfs drives on big SSDs. These manifest in slightly different ways, but slow mounting, inability to mount, or inability to format, or just totally disappearing.
Scenario, like many others, I have an APFS formatted disk large SSD (Samsung 870 QVO, 8TB).
Worked great on macOS 11 Big Sur in a UGreen SATA->USB 3.2 (USB-C connector) enclosure from UGreen.
Upgrade to Monterey 12.1 (skipped early versions...)
And - like many others - I can't see the external drive at all!
Doesn't show up in Finder
Doesn't show up in Disk Utility (not even as something that can be formatted)
Try different cables, etc... nothing. Won't ever show up.
Search internet...
Try on
- BigSur (Intel, iMac) : doesn't work.
- Monterey 12.1 (Intel, iMac pro) : same, doesn't work
- Monterey 12.01 (M1, MBA) : same, doesn't work.
Try with a SATA-USBA Cable (with external power...) still nothing!
Order another SATA-USBC enclosure (CableMatters) with another USBC cable.
Still fails. (Although at a slightly different point. This may suggest something to people
who know what the internal steps/timing sequences are...)
Notes from Console / Unified Log.
Okay, here is where things get interesting. Steps to reproduce yourself.
1. Launch Console (app called Console)
2. Start streaming
3. Filter by USB OR apfs
This will make all sorts of relevant messages appears.
Here's a rough sequence of events.
1. USB gets mounted.
2. Device is reset
3. (Device may be reset multiple times)
4. At some point, the apfs drive starts mounting...
5. It throws a few error, see below.
6. It keeps trying to verify checkpoints, but fails every few mins on the "next" checkpoint. (It's like it hits a timeout...)
7. Eventually, the computer goes to sleep because I can't watch this forever...
... then the mount process fails, and the USB Mass Storage stack is terminated due to some
sequence I haven't quite put together.
8. Then all the apfs stuff shows the checkpoints fail and "can't mount drive"
So roughly, 7 is why it won't show up in Disk Utility (or even System Inspector...)
What seems to be common to those having a problem?
This fellow here!
- https://www.asmedia.com.tw/product/767Yq28sxFYMEgu4/3AbyQ83xZAUr3qW5
The ASMedia ASM235cm Chipset for the SATA-USBC.
This is what is used in many Samsung portable SSDs, which also have problems
- https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/monterey-cannot-erase-external-ssd.2321713/page-5
- https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/try-samsung-870-qvo-8tb-ssd-in-usb-3-0-enclosure.2283434/
- It's is in the CableMatters (well, I'm guessing that's why it's listed as ASM235...)
- And also in the UGreen
- and in many Samsung ones...
So there seems to be some type of horrible issue with this chipset and Monterey that
has the potential to actually make it so that BigSur won't even be able to read the disk.
- However, I was able to read data from the disk using apfs-fuse on a linux system, so
I strongly suspect the disk and data are intact. I'm guessing the ASM235CM issue in Monterey causes
some type of metadata to go out of sync on the filesystem in a way that then cannot
possibly be addressed given the bugs in the apfs verification/etc.? (Not sure here... can't
explain why I can't read this on BigSur.)
- Why does this work for some people? I think the bigger the drive, the more likely to
see the issue as there is more work for apfs to do. You can see apfs slowing verifying things,
it just won't ever complete on my big drive because I've' used lots of space! (about 5/8TB used...)
I'm going to call Apple tomorrow and see if they are willing to talk me through other stuff to
consider. I now have enough evidence that this isn't a _drive_ or _enclosure_ issue. It seems to be
_an Apple_ issue / Monterey-induced Problem. But I wanted to let people know they aren't alone
Sounds very painful. Perhaps you could provide some details and describe what steps you took to rectify the problem.
Have you tried the First Aid function in the Disk Utility (see below).?It is also possible to create a bootable installer for an earlier version of macOS (such as Big Sur Version 11.6.2) and run the included Disk Utility. This approach could possibly side-step any incompatibles with Monterey. If you haven't done so already, it might be worthwhile to upgrade from 12.0.1 to the latest version of Monterey (currently 12.1).
- Pie Lover
I'm the head of IT at a small TV station, we have about 15 different Macs. I've run all possible tests and tested multiple drives and enclosures against Macs with Monterey and Big Sur, and as far back as High Sierra. Only Monterey shows this failure. I've seen multiple posts with other folks in the exact same boat as me: External SSD in an enclosure no longer works on Monterey, and is even corrupted from simply plugging it in. The drives that seem to work are an external Pegasus R4 and my Sandisk Extremes. My only guess is that Apple changed something critical in Disk Utility, or removed driver support for Jmicron and/or Sabrent, the controllers for my enclosures. In any case, this has resulted in massive data loss. It's par for the course for Apple's forums to be fanboyish lecturing to shift the blame to the user, but I guarantee that this is a real issue. I'd love it if Apple would acknowledge this issue, or better yet, release a patch to repair. I'm going to copy Disk Utility from an older Mac just for fun and see if that works on Monterey.
Monterey 12.1
iMac 2018 Intel 32GB
It would appear that disk utility or whatever its backend is is broken. Disgraceful, I can format and use my external SSD's on a 2011 iMac as well as any Big Sur iMac, but the drive is immediately corrupted upon use with Monterey. Monterey is utterly broken, I wish I didn't upgrade almost every production computer here at work to it.
To clarify, these are SSD's in Sabrent and JMicron enclosures. My commercial Sandisk Extremes and other "brand" drives work fine.
Sorry to hear about your experience.
I don't believe you can run an older version of the Disk Utility with Monterey. However, you can create and boot (option key while booting) a bootable installer say for Big Sur V11.6.2. You can then run the Disk Utility using its corresponding version of macOS. Hopefully, First Aid will be able to restore the external SSD which can then be used to recover the data on a Mac running an older version of macOS.
- Pie Lover
Well, what I really hope is that Apple acknowledges this issue and solves it. I don't have a Mac for hacky work arounds, I have it because it's supposed to be the philosophical equivalent to a toaster - it's just supposed to work, but Apple seems to have forgotten that idea so they can instead clutch onto those iCloud bucks, the only thing they care about anymore. Even Compressor and Final Cut X are worse with their updates.
I'm seriously thinking about switching our editing systems out to AMD Ryzen setups running Ubuntu and DaVinci Resolve. I'm getting very sick of Apple's low quality control as of late.
ayeeTCMEDIA wrote:
It would appear that disk utility or whatever its backend is is broken. Disgraceful, I can format and use my external SSD's on a 2011 iMac as well as any Big Sur iMac, but the drive is immediately corrupted upon use with Monterey. Monterey is utterly broken, I wish I didn't upgrade almost every production computer here at work to it.
To clarify, these are SSD's in Sabrent and JMicron enclosures. My commercial Sandisk Extremes and other "brand" drives work fine.
I noticed that Jmicron has a firmware update tool. If your enclosures have firmware, does it need to be updated for compatibility with Monterey?
As was already pointed, the symptoms clearly indicate an issue with the firmware of the enclosures.
FWIW, I have been using several external SSD for video editing, and for other purposes, in Monterey with zero issues.
To reiterate, I'm the head of IT in a production environment, I've already tried all the usual tricks here. There is a driver issue with Monterey and Jmicron controllers, and I wouldn't be shocked if there were others.
Here are my updates:
Jmicron and Sabrent (made by Jmicron) controllers do not work in Monterey. They work on literally every other pre-Monterey Mac in the building, as well as Linux and Windows (when formatted appropriately).
Putting the Sandisk and Samsung SSD's in an OWC Elite Dual Mini works fine. Even a single drive in the dual mini seems to work, albeit one light is permanently red due to there being no 2nd drive, but that's not an issue.
I don't know what Apple changed in the background, but it is definitely affecting my 3rd party enclosures in a devastating way, as it resulted in a year's worth of data loss. And to avoid the inevitable lectures this post will get, I am not in charge of the users backing up their projects, I just provide the means to back up, then I fix the messes.
Thank you! It can be so crazy feeling when folks think you're making up a story because they think you did it wrong.
I updated to 12.2 to see if one of the "unlisted bugs" was related to this issue. Oddly enough, the drive worked once (once meaning one format operation and one large file copied to, then unmounted), but on the second attempt it gave the same error message and code, "Could not mount "disk name" (com.apple.DiskManagement.dis enter error 49153.)" yet mounted the disk anyways. So, long story short, the 12.2 update did not fix this issue for me.
However, I put the SSD's into a OWC Dual Mini and it's been working like gang busters. Even with one disk in a raid chassis, it is working fine.
I also updated the drivers on my Sabrent enclosures and now they work like a charm.
This doesn't change the fact that Apple changed something fundamental between Big Sur and Monterey that lost folks like you and I significant data. Still thinking about switching to a Linux with DaVinci Resolve system next year. Ya hear that Apple?
Thank you both for corroborating my experience with the same (and with the same dire consequences — around about a month worth of trying to piece together my project from cumulative backups, since multiple drives were affected).
Large Samsung SSDs in Orico (JMicron) housings are corrupted by Disk Utility if you try to run First Aid on them. (Interesting that there's an "are you sure" warning before running First Aid but not before Formatting a drive ... I think Monterey's Disk Utility is a bit of a disaster; and Certainly recovering AFPS volumes with it has been a lost cause for me.)
Ignoring Apple's culpability at suddenly corrupting disks with an update for one moment, did either of you have success in updating JMicron chipset firmware to work with Monterey on a Mac; and if so how?
Hmm, looks like your helpful reply to me got kiboshed by the Powers That Be, ayeeTCMEDIA.
However, I was grateful for your instructions, and others might be also, so I'll repost them here (sans the commentary, which I agreed with, but which I suspect got them removed):
I had to use one of the PC's in the building to do it, but Parallels or a VM might do it too.
Basically, i went here:
https://www.sabrent.com/firmware-update/
I figured out which enclosure was mine (i used amazon to figure out the model of the rubbery one) and ran the updater in windows 10. I read somewhere that you must have a drive in the enclosure for it to see it, so I used an unused Samsung 870 with no issues. I'm guessing any drive would work, but I wanted to be better safe than sorry with any potential data loss.
After that the enclosure worked again, but it did not fix the drive that was initially corrupted. After that I used Disk Drill to recover as much as I could. I should have run Diskwarrior first before anything, but the user had already run Disk Utility repair in Monterey, so there's a chance Disk Warrior wouldn't have worked at all after that operation anyways.
[truncated]
Thanks again.
I am running my 2013 MacPro off an external NVME SSD in a Jmicron enclosure and it work fine.
Monterey broke my external SSD's
