Music on MBP - Cannot copy to ExFAT external drive
Background:
I have a 2021 M1 MBP running Ventura 13.1. The Music app works well - no issues playing or displaying my albums. My music consists in its entirety of CDs I own and have ripped over the years to mp3s. Some of these albums were ripped using iTunes on a Windows PC and some have been ripped on this MBP.
Prior to updating to Ventura I could copy my complete Music folder on this MBP from Finder to an external USB drive formatted as ExFAT. This allowed me to save and play the files on a Windows laptop and also served as a backup.
The problem:
After updating to Ventura I am unable to copy my Music folder from Finder to an external drive formatted as ExFAT without it hanging up. When I try I get messages like this:
This occurs on any USB drive including an external SSD if formatted as ExFAT either on this Mac or the PC. Prior to updating to Ventura I had no issues at all copying these same files to the same external ExFAT drives. There are over a dozen files that cause the hang ups now. After the hangs I can click on OK, then resume copying into the existing Music folder on the external drive (I have to do this with each of the offending files and merge the folders, a pain).
I have checked my permissions for the files and that is not the issue. I then reformatted the SSD drive to APFS with Disk Utility and all the Music copies ok with no hang ups or issues. However APFS is not compatible with Windows so I cannot read those files without a third party app. I then reformatted that drive back to ExFAT, same issue.
Initially I had 5 files that were causing hang ups, this was repeatable, the same 5 files, so I assumed corruption. As a test I deleted an album with one of the offending files (deleted from both the Music app/library and Finder) then re-ripped the whole album but to no avail, the same identical file still caused a hang up. I then went to the Music app > Settings > Files and selected "Keep Music Media folder organized". This was a mistake, it moved most of the files to a Music subfolder under Media and I now have 14 files that are causing hang ups. Note that these files play without issues and copy using APFS. And ironically if I select all the Albums individually, i.e., not the Music folder, I can copy them to an ExFAT drive with no hang ups. The file structure on this Mac is Macintosh HD > Users > my name > Music > Music > Media > Music > and then the Albums by Artist. I have tried copying from any of the Music folders, subfolders, etc. to no avail. The only things that work is using APFS or copying the individual albums directly. FWIW my mac is not having any other issues.
So what happened with Ventura? Why are some files not copying like before? Any suggestions? TIA... 😀