You can make a difference in the Apple Support Community!
When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.
When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.
Since Upgrading to OS 13.0.1, M1 MacBook Air stopped connecting to the OWC Thunderbolt Dock. It accepts the power like a charger. The System information shows that there are no devices on the USB bus.
Anyone know how to fix this? Clearly an Apple issue as it worked 90% of the time before updating the OS.
MacBook Air 13″, macOS 13.0
Thank you for your thoughts. I have tested an Apple thunderbolt cable and a Belkin.
the solution is ridiculous and tells me that it is software related in the mac.
the only way to get the dock to connect is to:
this method takes several minutes and is completely ridiculous. Under the previous OS, I could unplug, get a warning about unplugging drives without ejecting, leave for a week and plug right back in. With Ventura. The only way I can get the dock to connect regardless of cable is the steps above.
Thank you for your thoughts. I have tested an Apple thunderbolt cable and a Belkin.
the solution is ridiculous and tells me that it is software related in the mac.
the only way to get the dock to connect is to:
this method takes several minutes and is completely ridiculous. Under the previous OS, I could unplug, get a warning about unplugging drives without ejecting, leave for a week and plug right back in. With Ventura. The only way I can get the dock to connect regardless of cable is the steps above.
Hi 737SNAPilot,
Thanks for contacting Apple Support Communities!
We understand that your OWC Thunderbolt Dock isn't recognized by your Mac.
Do you experience the same behavior if you connect using an alternate Thunderbolt cable? You can learn more about troubleshooting your Thunderbolt
connection here: About Thunderbolt to Thunderbolt cable (2.0 m) - Apple Support
I've installed all available updates, but no Thunderbolt devices are recognized when I connect them with Thunderbolt to Thunderbolt cable (2.0 m).
Try using a different a Thunderbolt cable. You can also try shutting down your device or computer, waiting a few seconds, then restarting it.
Note: If after applying the most recent updates to your computer Thunderbolt is not listed in System Profiler, inspect the Thunderbolt port on your Mac carefully to find the Thunderbolt icon (a lightning bolt shape). If the port has a mini DisplayPort icon (a rectangle shape) then your computer does not have Thunderbolt. Even though the Thunderbolt cable will fit in the mini DisplayPort socket, it cannot be used with your computer.
Are you able to connect your Thunderbolt dock to any other devices?
We look forward to your reply.
Cheers!
Do you have the OWC Dock Ejector app?
I have an M1 MacBook Air and the OWC Thunderbolt 4 dock (which they no just call Thunderbolt Dock) and have no issues reconnecting when I use the Dock Ejector app to "unmount" all the external devices, disconnect and then take the MacBook Air wherever, then come back and plug it in. Even when booted on an external drive and I simply shut down I don't have an issue.
You may want to send an email to OWC to see if they are aware of the issue or if there may be some issue with your dock.
Yes, the ejector app has no effect either way. If I don't use it and unplug, I get the standard "you didn't eject properly" warning. If I use it, I don't get the warning. If I manually eject the external drive, I don't get the warning. In all three cases plugging back in doesn't work.
And yes I have been working with OWC, but I agree with them. This did not occur until updating to 13.0.1 Ventura. There is a change within the OS that is causing this. It is possible that OWC needs a firmware update to keep up, but they haven't said so. The fact that I can eventually connect using the crazy reset tells me that something is holding a key of sorts and all caches need a complete flush and the Thunderbolt cable needs to be inserted at the right time. It's like owning a PC.
So yesterday about ready to toss both the MacBook air and the thunderbolt dock in the trash I returned to the process I used at Apple in the 90's as an internal help desk tech.
I disconnected all of the peripherals attached to the dock. The dock then connected and disconnected just fine without the ejector app.
One by one I started adding the devices back starting of course with the 4K TV I use for a display ( I know bad Idea but I committed)
After adding each device while connected, I would simply unplug the dock and plug it back in.
External G Drive 8TB External Power Supply
The offending device is a thunderbolt ready hard drive by G Drive. It is the 8TB work drive I store video being edited for the next episode of CoolToys TV. There isn't anything else on the drive but it regularly hits 7tb of data with 4K video. So I moved everything to the main server, and tested again. Same problem, not storage volume related.
If I power the 8TB G Drive off, connect to the dock and then power on the external drive, all is well. This is regardless of use of the OWC ejector app.
4TB Portable G Drive
My first guess was the larger G-Drive went into power save mode and spun down, causing some sort of error on reconnect. I have a self powered 4 TB drive that did the same thing, however it did act differently if I used the OWC ejector app. If I use ejector on the 4TB USB powered drive, about 50% of the time it would reconnect the dock just fine. If I eject the portable drive, physically disconnect and reconnect, the dock is working normally.
This is new since Ventura, so I can't tell if it is the new Ventura USB drivers or the OWC cache does something funny when the dock is disconnected and a drive goes to standby. Not sure why the 50/50 with the portable drive.
M1 MacBook Air Stopped Connecting to Thunderbolt 3 Dock after Ventura
