Disk Not Ejected Properly -- AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN AND AGAIN...

I upgraded to macOS Ventura on my MacBook Air today.

The "Disk Not Ejected Properly" notifications started immediately. They appear every few minutes.

I have swapped my external drives.

I have switched USB-C ports.

I have changed cables.

I have adjusted System Settings to "Never" put hard disks to sleep.

I have reset the NVRAM and the SMC.

I still get dozens of "Disk Not Ejected Properly" notifications per hour.

While running Big Sur and Catalina over the last three years, this problem did not occur even once!

There is something wrong with Ventura.

Here’s what stopped this pesky notification on my MacBook (os 13.5):

open Finder. >Application. >Utilities.

>Activity Monitor.

in search box “notification center”

double click Notification Center

click Quit

To terminate the process entirely, click Force Quit.

Hi, I see you are having an issue with device connectivity. No worries, let's get this fixed!

There might be a possibility you are not using a correct cord. This may cause connection issues between your Mac and the device you are attempting to connect.

If you are using an adapter, check to see if it is an official Apple adapter.

In terms of it happening when your MacBook goes to sleep, it may be shutting off any disks when this happens.

Try keeping your MacBook on when the device is connected. If you are trying to get items from the hard drive onto your Mac or vice versa, you may have to keep an eye on your MacBook while the process is being completed.

Another issue that may cause this is an improperly connected cord. Your cord may not be fully plugged in. Try making sure your cord is fully connected to both the Mac and the hard drive. There may also be foreign objects (dust, lint, dirt, grime, etc.) in the ports. Try cleaning the ports on your MacBook and the hard drive. Do not use water to do this (Yes, people have done this before, yes, it will damage your MacBook). Use compressed air or a toothpick. Do not use a paperclip or anything metal as this may cause a short-circuit and damage components.

A final cause may be the hard drive itself. The hard drive may be incompatible, damaged, or otherwise refusing to connect. Try seeing if your Mac is compatible with the device. It is unlikely as Apple tries to maximize compatibility with external accessories, but sometimes some slip through the cracks and the Mac cannot recognize it.

I hope this all helps!

Same with me. Ever since I bought a new MBP 2023 M2Max with Ventura, two external USB3 OWC "toasters" with removable bare drives eject multiple times an hour with the machine on or asleep. They never had this problem under Big Sur on my trusty (but slow) 2015 MBP.

It's obviously an OS bug but **** will freeze over before anyone inside the Apple cone of silence ever admits it. We just have to hope that in some future OS security update, it is quietly fixed.

This is a problem with Ventura OS. I have two LaCie Rugged 5TB hard drives that I use for covering events. I have two Macbook Pro's and the LaCies work fine on the one that runs an older operating system. They can stay plugged in without ever giving a Disk Not Ejected Properly message. On the Macbook Pro with Ventura OS it happens every time it goes to sleep.

Also the Macbook that I updated to Ventura worked for two years and never showed a Disk Not Ejected Properly message until I updated to Ventura.

I had this problem once right after upgrading to Sonoma..

I restarted my M2 Mac mini and immediately right-clicked on my Time Machine disk on my desktop and quickly ejected it...

I then restarted my Mac mini again and the problem went away...

This is what worked for me.

OS is macOS Sonoma 15.4

SSD connected to USB-A port

I disabled the screen saver as suggested elsewhere but the error message kept popping up.

So I fired up Disk Utility, clicked on Time Machine on the left pane and then ran "First Aid".

It took a really long while, found no errors, but after that I have not seen the dreaded "disk not ejected properly" message.

Hope this helps.

Carlos

I've responded to this thread before. I solved the issue on my system. I'm still using Ventura, and should update soon. In System Preferences, Lock Screen, I set "Start Screen Saver" to Never. But, I should qualify my solution. Occasionally, and far less frequently than before, I will get the dreaded Disk Not Ejected... error message. We should send our feedback directly to Apple: Feedback - Apple.com Website - Apple

Good luck to us all. A software problem like this should have been corrected years ago.

Jim

Replacing connectors or changing ports may work, but when I switched ports the problem returned in a couple of weeks. So far turning off sleep options seems to work better.

I am having the same error on a 2018 MacMini running Monterey (10.6.7) with an Crucial X6 external drive corrected directly to one of the four Thunderbolt 3 ports built into the Mini. It happens whenever the Mac wakes after more than a few minutes of Sleep. This appears to be a timing problem. I had this earlier with another External drive USB port connected to the Mini through a USB hub, which I replaced because I thought it might be defective. I then plugged that external drive into a USB port on a 2017 MacMini running Monterey and did not get the Disk Not Ejected Properly error when it awoke from sleep. So this points to some problem that was in the OS at least since Monterey, depends in some way on what Mac is used, and does not depend simply on USB Hubs. I agree this is an Apple bug that Apple needs to address.

My 2012 MacBook Pro suddenly decided that (upon plugging my backup drive in) that it hadn't been ejected properly. The icon for the Time Macine Hdd would appear, then disappear with the message that the drive hadn't been ejected properly... and around in circles thing went until I just unplugged the drive and went to see if Google had any information.

I found a link that had some ideas listed, and apparently SOMETHING worked because I can now plug the drive in, do a Time Machine back up, eject it and go on with my life.

This involved opening up the Terminal and typing in some commands, getting rid of some local Time Machine files, and then plugging in the drive and removing a file from there (I believe its extension was *.inprogress).

Anyway, for me, this worked. I have no idea if this is related to the issue that the newer machines are experiencing or not. It was items 6 and 7 in this list that worked for me. Here's the link:

https://macpaw.com/how-to/time-machine-backup-failed

I spotted this thread - I had a similar problem with my iPod classic syncing with iTunes on my iMac - see pic. I think I picked up a comment above and tried it - which was to disconnect the iPod at both the iPod and iMac end and reconnect making sure that it was properly connected. Amazingly and too my relief this worked!

This is an apple issue, I started receiving these messages about 4 updates ago on Monterey. I use this OS because of my Mini hardware limitations, I also use this OS on my M1 Mini, both systems started sending these messages, however, the drive is still connected (so not a cable, apple BS), normally drives do not reconnect without using disk utility or reboot. Like others this normally happens after the drive goes to sleep, and reawakened, I started ejecting drives after I am finished, and have still received the message. I also experience bluetooth issues, slow mouse disconnected keyboard (unfortunately all apple). I think if you look at all the intermittent functionality now displayed by apple, some consideration to switching to the alternative might be warranted.

Similar issue (although mine is not ejecting Time Machine except after LONG wait time) on brand new Mac Mini. Worked until latest update on Ventura. Safe mode works fine, but not in regular startup mode so I believe it's a Mac OS issue too. Similar issues with other daily backup drives that I switch out with Time Machine. Apple needs to fix this and stop blaming cords, drives and third party software. I will be going to Apple Store for them to troubleshoot, but I am not confident (as Mac user since 1990) that they will be able to "fix" the problem with the Mac OS.

Interesting and helpful viewpoint. So it sounds like something is going wrong with the transition to (or perhaps from) sleep. That would be consistent with my observation that setting the drive not to sleep seems to stop the warning. That certainly could be a problem with the drive -- for example -- not reacting fast enough. What's interesting is that when I searched for "Drive Not Ejected Properly", it was not any single type of drive. In fact, I bought the Crucial SSdrive to replace a Seagate that failed after repeated Drive Not Ejected Properly warnings.

I wonder if the problem might be that that some part of the Ventura upgrade changed the process of triggering sleep enough to go beyond the tolerances of some drives which had worked with Monterey. That could cause the drives not to handle Sleep properly and cause the failures. Would that make switching off the sleep options a solution? Or at least a stopgap?

Thanks for your insight.