SD card not recognized after sleep

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Level 1

68 points

SD card not recognized after sleep

I have a 2015 MacBook Air with 128GB SSD running 10.14.6 Mojave. I keep this OS due to a software compatibility issue with Monterey.

I bought a 128GB Transcend Jet Drive to store music and audiobooks. I keep it in the SD slot all the time. This worked great for a while, but over the last year or so, an issue has come up.

When I open the laptop and wake it from sleep, I get the disk eject error message and the laptop doesn’t see the JetDrive. If I remove and re-install it, it doesn’t appear in the Finder. I cannot get the computer to recognize the JetDrive until I log out or restart.

I have tried ejecting the drive from the Finder by clicking the eject icon in the sidebar, and leaving it in the slot, but I still get the error message. I unchecked “Put hard drives to sleep when possible” in the Energy Saver Preferences. I also reset the NVRAM.

Is there any way to avoid this? Is there some setting or terminal command I can use to tell the computer to recognize the JetDrive all the time?

MacBook Air 13″, macOS 10.14

Posted on May 20, 2023 9:59 AM

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Answer 1

Laurie Author

Level 1

68 points

May 20, 2023 10:17 AM in response to Laurie

The Transcend website support FAQ for the drive says:

"Macbook will cancel permissions to reload external devices if you stay at the login screen for too long,and thus the JDL can’t remount successfully upon wake-up.

We would suggest you input the password shortly after opening up the lid."

The error message pops up as soon as I open the lid.

Also, "Ignore ownership on this volume" is checked in the Get Info window.

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Answer 2

BDAqua

Level 10

250,853 points

Jun 9, 2023 9:48 PM in response to Laurie

Hey Laurie,

We need to see what all is running & machine specs, a report from this will not display any personal info...

EtreCheck is a FREE simple little diagnostic tool to display the important details of your system configuration and allow you to copy that information to the Clipboard. It is meant to be used with Apple Support Communities to help people help you with your Mac. It will not display any personal info.

https://www.etrecheck.com/

Pastebin is a good place to paste the whole report if you capture the URL while there…

Workable but harder for me to work with...the Note tool on the bottom of this editor's toolbar, as shown in the image, to copy and paste the output from EtreCheck. In a Reply before you click post, look for this to add longer texts...

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Answer 3

Jun 13, 2023 1:54 PM in response to Laurie

Laurie wrote:

Very helpful explanation, thank you.

Would it be better to check "Put hard drives to sleep"? Does the setting only affect the computer's drive?

I ask this because the Finder does not see the JetDrive as a hard disk, it only appears on the desktop when I check CDs, DVDS, and iPods in the Finder prefs.

I personally would leave the setting unchecked. There have been numerous forum posts where people using Ventura have had issues with external drives disconnecting and leaving this unchecked helped many of them. This will affect both internal & external drives. Whether it will affect a USB stick (aka thumb drive) or SD Card is hard to say. For anyone with an older Mac running a spinning hard drive, I would still leave this unchecked because macOS is known to increase the wear & tear on internal hard drives by constantly sleeping & waking them. Leaving this unchecked should not hurt anything and may even be beneficial even if it doesn't solve your SD Card problem.

I keep the SD card in all the time, which should keep it from entering standby, whether it is on charge or not.

I honestly don't know. I really would not expect the SD card to matter in that equation, but who knows as I do know macOS has some really odd behaviors.

I do know that most items on a Mac are connected via USB. My first instinct would be that the SD Card slot is considered a USB device. USB doesn't always handle things well. I had an Intel Mac where the USB port would become disabled when I used an external USB drive connected directly to. The only way to get the USB port working again was to reboot the computer. I ended up using a powered USB hub which prevented the USB port from becoming disabled. I never did discover why it occurred since it occurred with any external drive. That is probably why you need to reboot the computer once there is an issue.

Maybe there is a hardware issue with your SD Card. I do know that most SSD failures I have encountered occur when waking from sleep or when first powering them on. You may want to purchase a USB SD Card reader to see if you have the same issue in case there is an issue with the built-in reader. Or maybe another reader will be more compatible with the JetDrive since others have mentioned possible issues with the JetDrives.

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Answer 4

Jun 13, 2023 10:20 AM in response to Laurie

Laurie wrote:

Keep Drive Spinning doesn't work on solid state drives.

From the FAQ: Q: Should I use Keep Drive Spinning on a solid state drive (a.k.a. a flash drive)?

A: No.

Using Keep Drive Spinning on a solid state drive (SSD) would be pointless.

The setting should be an Energy Saver feature for forcing a drive to power down when not in active use. While mostly used for preventing a rotating hard drive from powering off, it will also prevent all other drives from being powered off as well.

Some SSDs don't handle this power saving feature well and may have trouble waking up the SSD from sleep induced by the OS. If you leave this setting unchecked "Put drives to sleep when possible", then the SSD will never be put to sleep by the OS. If the SSD becomes inactive for a long enough period, then the SSD may put itself into a lower power mode, but this low power mode may not be the same as the OS would have set. One of the SSD manufacturer's told me about this difference many years ago.

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Answer 5

BDAqua

Level 10

250,853 points

Jun 10, 2023 6:13 PM in response to Laurie

I'd uninstall Sophos.

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Answer 6

BDAqua

Level 10

250,853 points

Jun 10, 2023 4:53 PM in response to Laurie

Etrecheck will not display any personal info.

What us listed under Anti virus & listed under Clean up?

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Answer 7

Laurie Author

Level 1

68 points

May 20, 2023 9:59 PM in response to Laurie

Keep Drive Spinning doesn't work on solid state drives.

From the FAQ: Q: Should I use Keep Drive Spinning on a solid state drive (a.k.a. a flash drive)?

A: No.

Using Keep Drive Spinning on a solid state drive (SSD) would be pointless.

SSDs don’t have internal disks that spin up, so there are no delays reading or writing to an SSD.

Moreover, the lifespan of an SSD can be affected by the amount of read/write operations it performs. Although Keep Drive Spinning’s operations would be a drop in the bucket for an actively used SSD, it would be a (small) contributor toward eventually wearing out an SSD. Since there’s no

benefit to be gained anyway, using Keep Drive Spinning on an SSD is not recommended.

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Answer 8

Laurie Author

Level 1

68 points

Jun 9, 2023 6:12 PM in response to BDAqua

I was looking at the Finder Preferences>General>Show these items on the desktop.

The SSD only appears on the desktop when CDs, DVDs & iPods is checked.

The computer isn't seeing it as an external drive.

Is there any setting I've missed that might affect how the MB Air handles this?

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Answer 9

Laurie Author

Level 1

68 points

Jun 13, 2023 3:43 PM in response to HWTech

HWTech wrote:

...as I do know macOS has some really odd behaviors.

I do know that most items on a Mac are connected via USB. My first instinct would be that the SD Card slot is considered a USB device. USB doesn't always handle things well.

I'll AMEN your odd behavior comment.

Looking at System Information>Storage, the SD card is indeed using USB Protocol, as opposed to the SSD which uses PCI.

Not that this fixes anything, but it is really helpful to understand why things happen if they can't be fixed.

I'll take my Dad's advice for dealing with troublesome things: Love it for what it is.

Thank you.

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Answer 10

Laurie Author

Level 1

68 points

May 20, 2023 9:41 PM in response to Laurie

No joy. I set up Keep Drive Spinning to my Transcend. I came back after dinner, opened the lid, logged in and the "disk eject error" message popped up. I will say it popped up after login, usually I can see it behind the login window. I removed the Transcend, try to reinsert, the computer does not see it. I'll have to log out to get it back in the Finder.

Any other ideas?

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Answer 11

Laurie Author

Level 1

68 points

Jun 10, 2023 11:24 AM in response to BDAqua

Ran EtreCheck, thanks for the referral. It helped me clear out a bunch of stuff that I had been neglecting for too long.

It does reveal installed software that the user may not want revealed, I'm hesitant to send a full report.

It seems the main issue reported is "SSD too slow - SSD is showing poor performance" which is a bit odd since all the sites I checked before purchase recommended the Transcend JetDrive Lite 130, which is what I bought.

I'm going to reach out to Transcend and see if they have any suggestions.

I'll post again if I learn anything. And thank you for the link to the Ventura issue.

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Answer 12

Laurie Author

Level 1

68 points

Jun 13, 2023 11:25 AM in response to HWTech

Very helpful explanation, thank you.

Would it be better to check "Put hard drives to sleep"? Does the setting only affect the computer's drive?

I ask this because the Finder does not see the JetDrive as a hard disk, it only appears on the desktop when I check CDs, DVDS, and iPods in the Finder prefs.

I also found an article on hibernation. https://www.howtogeek.com/260478/how-to-choose-when-your-mac-hibernates-or-enters-standby/

This paragraph in particular:

"Macs will only go into standby mode in specific situations.

MacBooks–that is, portable Macs and not desktop Macs–will only go into

standby mode if they’re on battery power. They’ll never go into standby

mode if they’re plugged in. MacBooks will also never go into standby

mode if they have an external device connected, including Ethernet, USB,

Thunderbolt, an SD card, a display, or even a wireless Bluetooth

device." [Italics are mine]

I keep the SD card in all the time, which should keep it from entering standby, whether it is on charge or not.

Right?

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