Ventura 13.2 no longer recognizes Pioneer BDR-XD07UHD as an optical drive

No - it was just a quick follow up call to pass on information the tech had received from the engineering team. And in essence, the answer was .... this is Pioneer's problem. There is apparently a separate system for engineering discussions with outside vendors, so the tech support guy didn't have any insight into whether or not Pioneer and Apple were in talks. Seems basically like a dead end, but I would agree with most people here that this is an issue that Apple created in the 13.2 update and should take some responsibility for solving.

Apple Support guys are never in touch of what the engineers really know when it comes to issues and bugs. iPadOS 16 had a pretty major bug with zoom accessibility making the device lagging real bad when this feature was activated. Everyone at Apple support said they don't know the issue and maybe its an app causing this blahblahblah, Then, 16.2 came out, and they specifically said in the release notes that it fixed the zoom accessibility causing lag issues, so the engineers knew this issue like I expected, it just wasn't in their priority to solve it as fast as other bugs.

For your ASUS drive, you could always return it. I also have an old ASUS drive and it's working okay, but I much prefer my pioneer one. I like the slot mechanism better and it's also quieter.

It’s funny, but in the notes about 13.2.1 they don’t even acknowledge that there was an issue with pioneer drives. My pioneer Drive is a Toploader so I always had to open it up to put the disc on and then shut it. I actually prefer pushing a button to have the drawer come out and this one is faster. I’ll probably keep this.

mine is working now as well with 13.2.1 ... however..... I have to use a specific combination of USB-C cables. just using a USB-C -> USB-C cable from Pioneer to MacBook won't work, but if I use my apple brand USB-a to USB-C Adapter, and then plug a USB-A to USB-C cable into the pioneer it all works. seems counter intuitive to me, but maybe my USB-C to USB-C cable is funky. can't have enough cables, adapters and work arounds I guess.

I was disappointed after installing 13.2.1, because not only did my Pioneer Blu-Ray not show up, but neither did my two external drives. (From Western Digital, used for Time Machine and Carbon Copy Cloner backups.) Zapping the NVRAM had restored my WD drives after I installed 13.2, but this time it didn't do anything. Spent an hour with Apple Support yesterday, eventually reinstalling 13.2.1, but no joy.

Got back on the phone with Apple today. They had me unplugging my various drives (and Wacom tablet) and replugging them into different ports. Did nothing, so I returned everything to their original ports. Then, suddenly, all three drives appeared! Support didn't have an explanation-- maybe there's a problem with the hardware or the firmware, maybe an insufficiency of resources. If the problem pops up again, I'll call them back. For now, it seems to be OK.

I was/am having the same problem with my Verbatim and Dell USB External DVD/CD Writers not working on 13.2 and saw those with a pioneer drive not being recognised also. Seeing people now say it works in 13.2.1 got my excited but after updating to this and then trying my 2 optical drives again I’ve still got the same problem. The prompt comes up to allow the usb accessories which I do but then nothing. Both drives also just blink the led light continuously and they make a tick noise with the light too. Both drives function fine on a windows laptop I have. I’m trying this on my new MacBook Pro 14” M2 2023. Seriously strange. Every other usb device I have works perfect. SanDisk SSD for example.

Managed to find out that inside my Verbatim & Dell drives was a Hitachi-LG drive. GUD1N in the Verbatim. Seems these aren’t currently compatible with Ventura 13.2(.1) in the way the pioneer drives weren’t I guess. I hope Apple know about this and are working to fix it in the next update.

The problem is when connecting directly to usb-c port on the MacBook.

Verbatim technical support confirmed this and found that you can get the drives working by connecting it first to a USB 3 type A hub that’s connected to the MacBook. So I bought a 3x USB 3.0 & 1x Ethernet Hub from Satechi and can confirm that with this hub the drive I have here is instantly recognised by the new MacBook Pro M2

Forgot to mention previously that my tech support from Verbatim which confirmed the Hitachi-LG drives installed in their external DVD writers aren’t working directly to a usb-c port on MacBook Pro M2 with Ventura 13.2.1 but only through a usb 3 hub first, also confirmed that their external Blu-Ray writers now work ok because they are installed with Pioneer drives.

So there is still definitely a compatibility bug with accepting Hitachi-LG drives directly connected at least. Perhaps other drive manufacturers too I don’t know. Be interesting to know what drive is installed on your external usb optical disc CypressVH. Only way I found out with my verbatim drive what was inside was by connecting to an old windows pc and seeing what it was in device manager.

I excitedly (within reason) installed the new Ventura 13.3 to test to see if my dvd drive works direct to my MacBook Pro M2 now but no still same ticking and blinking led light on the front. At least it still works via a usb hub.

So from the previous comment above does that mean peoples USB Pioneer blu ray drives aren’t working again with 13.3? What on earth are Apple up to with this?

Update: After rebooting recently, I found my external drives (Pioneer BDR-XD08S Blu-Ray, and two Western Digital hard drives) once again weren't mounting. I remembered that my new Wacom Intuos Pro tablet had thrown a "Touch On" alert up on my screen when the externals reappeared before, so I tried unplugging & replugging the tablet and, lo & behold, all three external drives mounted! I haven't explored the situation any further yet, but I thought I'd go ahead and file this report.

Isn't a problem of Pioneer but of Apple, the Usb port recognize the device but not the software

fab18062:

I have the same blu-ray drive, but MacOS says that has firmware 1.00 and the Pioneer updater reports that update is not needed.