External hard drives don't mount under sonoma

not_apple_genius wrote:

[...]

I had a similar issue [...] I was seeing a pop-up come show and disappear so fast that I had to screen-record and slow it down to see what it was. [...]

[...] System Preferences > Privacy & Security > Allow accessories and changed [...] to connect to "Automatically When Unlocked". Connected my adapter again and voila, it shows up.

Hope this helps.

Nice tip!

Was also sometimes seeing the same disappearing dialog when connecting external drives. My "workaround" was both suboptimal and embarrassing (reconnect device with cursor positioned just so for a split-second click).

Hopefully ppl will see and follow your recommendation.

This answer solved the problem for me – External hard drives don't mount under so… - Apple Community

Macbook Pro M1 recently updated to Sonoma, saw the same flash of a dialog when attempting to connect Time Machine drive and photo card reader. Adjusted preferences and now no problem.

Thanks so much @not_apple_genius!

not_apple_genius wrote:

I found a reliable workaround(?).

I had a similar issue when connecting my USB-C - B adapter with a SD card reader. I was seeing a pop-up come show and disappear so fast that I had to screen-record and slow it down to see what it was. It was a permission dialog about "Allow accessory to connect?".

So, I went to System Preferences > Privacy & Security > Allow accessories and changed the settings in Allow accessories to connect to "Automatically When Unlocked". Connected my adapter again and voila, it shows up.

Hope this helps.

I found a reliable workaround(?).

I had a similar issue when connecting my USB-C - B adapter with a SD card reader. I was seeing a pop-up come show and disappear so fast that I had to screen-record and slow it down to see what it was. It was a permission dialog about "Allow accessory to connect?".

So, I went to System Preferences > Privacy & Security > Allow accessories and changed the settings in Allow accessories to connect to "Automatically When Unlocked". Connected my adapter again and voila, it shows up.

Hope this helps.

Upgraded to Sonoma the other day and just ran into this problem. By using the CLI to open/mount an external device, it shows the error: /private/var/folders/nq/shhjy89n10zcx722l7xmvjp80000gn/T/AppTranslocation/57A89A71-7A6A-4BC6-A67A-7F5B76984DB6: Permission denied (your pathname may differ slightly)

I think I know what is the problem: After upgrading to Sonoma, the permissions are incorrect on the directory /private/var/folders/nq/shhjy89n10zcx722l7xmvjp80000gn/T -- the permissions are 700 (drwx------) with owner of 'root' and group of 'staff'.

Two further problems:

1) If I change the permissions on the each directory in the path, beginning with "T" to 770 (or 777), everything works, however...

2) A reboot or disk unmount resets the permissions back to the bad values.

I hope this helps!

I'm a Linux expert, and somewhat know my way around macOS... but I am lacking sufficient knowledge how to fix this problem properly in macOS (problem is too deep into the weeds!). Knowing where the error appears to be, does anyone else have enough expertise to figure out the correct fix?

Also, this is on an M2Max 16" MBP running 14.1.1 and drives are attached through USB-C.

IHTH!!

A variation of the same worked for me. I just upgraded to Sonoma (coincidence?), and also couldn't get an external storage drive to appear in Finder. After futzing for an hour with different cables and the different ports and trying 3 different external drives and rebooting and changing settings and researching I read your comment here (thanks!) and thought to try plugging into the ports on my Apple Studio Display monitor -- and voila! -- the external drive appears mounted in Finder. Noting that when I initially plug in the external device, I get the "Allow new device to connect?" dialog, so at some level my Macbook Pro knows it's there. Just...doesn't appear.

I had this problem today after upgrading from 14.1.0 to 14.1.1. Encrypted hard drive for Time Machine didn't mount, and encrypted flash drive didn't either (the only two I tried). I opened Disk Utility which took a while to show the system drive and Time Machine drive (I didn't have the flash drive plugged in). In Disk Utility I clicked to mount the Time Machine volume – or its container disk, I guess – tried a few times – and eventually it asked me for my system password to give permission to use Keychain. After that the Time Machine drive mounted, and I plugged in the flash drive and I got the password prompt (for the flash drive's password, not system password) and then that one mounted. So, fingers crossed, everything is cool now.

So I found this idea of the external cable interesting enough that I bought a non-apple SSD (card reader) to USB-C cable. I was amazed! The external disk mounts immediately and prompts for the password every time. This versus using the built-in slot for SSD on the laptop which only mounts the disk after a reboot and then only once. Please remember that my unencrypted SSDs mount just fine every time using the laptop SSD slot.

Very strange behavior. Something about physical hardware used? Differences in timing on mount points? I wonder if other folks with mount issues could try some other hardware connection to see if it helps there issues. Like maybe buy a port extender instead of a direct connection to the laptop and see if that makes a difference?

I have the same problem. My 2 TB external hdd used to work perfectly with Ventura and an upgrade to Sonoma killed it.

I did use the option within System Preferences to allow accessories to connect and even got an external hub to connect my USB HDD . The caused the drives to show up as soon as I rebooted.

Fix - I noticed that the drives showed up for a brief moment and then disappeared. So the trick was to click on the drives and open a file within the external HDD as soon as they show up on reboot. If I did that they did not disappear on me. Its is crappy fix but it works

Apple should really fix this issue. I have done first aid etc on the external HDD but it does not resolve. IF I unmount the HDD , it doesn't show up unless I reboot.

I've seen similar with Sonoma on my 2019 Mac Pro, it repeatedly and randomly will not mount all the NVME drives loaded onto Sonnet PCIe 4x4 cards which it considers external storage.

I tried everything and the only solution was to blow away this disastrous OS and downgrade to Ventura, using Migration Assistant to restore.

With the exact same hardware, apps, etc but on Ventura, it now works 100% of the time with all drives mounting correctly.

+1 on sterow suggestion. I had unencrypted external SSDs that connected fine on Intel MPB but did weirdness on M1 MBP.

Disk Utility mounting didn't work for me, it asked me to reformat the drives. No option to mount; drives showed up as empty and unformatted (!!!) in recovery mode.

Privacy setting changes didn't make a difference, and ideally, you shouldn't have to downgrade security settings for this.

What did work? Using a USB-C to A cable, then an adapter or dongle from to USB-A back to C into the M1 MBP. Mounted instantly. Using any USB-C to C cable (Apple's or third party) would not let the external SSD mount.

Here are a few things you can try:

1. Check for Updates: Make sure your macOS is fully updated.
2. Reset SMC and NVRAM:

• • SMC: Shut down, unplug for 15 seconds, plug back in, and restart.
  • NVRAM: Restart while holding Option + Command + P + R for 20 seconds.

1. Safe Mode: Boot in Safe Mode (hold Shift during startup) to see if the drives mount.
2. First Aid: In Recovery Mode, run First Aid on your drives using Disk Utility.
3. Security Settings: In Recovery Mode, check Startup Security Utility to ensure external drives are allowed.

Hope this helps!

This may be caused if your Mac went into sleep mode which is a known issue. Do not use sleep. Just have display turn off.

As far as I can tell Apple has majorly messed with external permissions.

I get this with one of my three external TB3/USB-C drives.

So, now we only have permission to access our own drives that were working painlessly just moments before updating to sonoma, if we let Apple servers 'scan the drive' first or something? SINCE WHEN?

And what happens when on the road and not wanting needing accessing any internet, IE like photography files to edit?

None of my externals are encrypted, they have OS 12 and 13 on them respectfully, and I WAS Admin and owner with ReadWrite that since Sonoma has also been removed, and I have to authorize as an admin to access another drive each time... doesnt remember my verifying myself.

It starts off looking like this and returning to this, saying I dont have permission to add alter or change the permissions on any of the externals... I literally have to do the power button silicon mini boot and drive select, IM SURE doesnt wear that power button down does it (sarcasm)

The external boot attempt works if using the pw. from the internal Sonoma not the external Admin pw. that I USED TO use.. so looks like the admin access and control is gone for good and cant add it back

I tried a few things... turning off SIP, gatekeeper, used csrutil via Restore boot, turning down and turning off select external drive security levels also via Restore, going into CoreServices and enabling myself a Root user in the Directory Utility and confirmed via sudo visudo tinkering via terminal.

None of that made a diff or gave me my own Admin back but somehow can at least boot them (with that endlessly stupid 'authorize an admin' nonsense)

I have upgraded to 14.1.1 on my MacBook PRO M1 I am still having this issue with the SDXC port trying to mount encrypted disks. I can use the Disk Utility mount command to force the prompt for the password and get the drives mounted but it is a painful process when one wants to swap between multiple disks.

Has anyone heard anything about Apple acknowledging this problem and/or working on a fix?