Thumbnail pictures not showing up on external hard drive after downloading OS Sonoma

Two days ago I decided to chance it and download Sonoma and aside from this issue it seems fine, here are the details of the issue:

My thumbnail images are no longer showing up on files in my external hard drive, they do on the built in drive.

For many years I have added thumbnail pictures to my media files to make them easier to identify and until I downloaded OS Sonoma the images showed up on the files with no issues. To be clear, this issue is NOT with my MacBook Pro internally (Finder seems to be working properly on the laptop) and just to be sure I have tried these two solutions already https://www.macrumors.com/how-to/fix-macos-file-icon-previews-not-showing/ https://www.howtoisolve.com/finder-preview-thumbnail-issue-on-mac/... When I view the exact same files (original's) in my folder on the Mac desktop the thumbnails appear as they should, but if I view them on the external drive the thumbnail images no longer appear on any of the files, instead it's the generic icon for the media device.

As an experiment I dragged one of the files from the external drive to the desktop to see if the thumbnail image would show on the desktop- it did not.

Possible relevant information:

The external drive was not turned on when OS update was performed.

MacBook Pro13-inch, 2020, Four Thunderbolt 3 ports

Intel Iris Plus Graphics 1536 MB

16 GB 3733 MHz LPDDR4X

Sonoma 14.1 (23B74)

External HHD

Capacity: 6TB

Format: ExFat

~Thanks😀

MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 12.5

Posted on Oct 27, 2023 8:56 AM

28 replies

Nov 6, 2023 5:03 PM in response to MacMikeInOK

No worries. I really appreciate you taking the time to consider the problem. Have a great evening.

Nov 7, 2023 8:03 AM in response to Coffeeb4start

Yes this is very frustrating, I appreciate you taking the time to comment. My hope is that if this gets enough attention perhaps it will get the attention needed from the software engineers. 🤞

Nov 16, 2023 3:15 PM in response to ihateyoursuggestion

Update:

Well, today there was an OS update and sadly it did not fix the problem. 😥

Nov 16, 2023 8:01 PM in response to ihateyoursuggestion

Thank you for the update. A bit frustrating but this weekend, after my back up, I'm reverting back to Ventura until they find a fix. I'll continue to monitor this thread, thanks again

Nov 17, 2023 10:22 AM in response to ihateyoursuggestion

I downloaded it too, issue persists. Please Apple, fix this!

Nov 17, 2023 11:07 AM in response to coffman112

I'm disappointed to learn that nothing seems to work. Perhaps someday this will be resolved.

Nov 22, 2023 6:38 PM in response to ihateyoursuggestion

No problem and great analogy!

Jan 29, 2024 9:15 PM in response to ihateyoursuggestion

well it's 29 Jan 24 and I'm having the same issue...Apple Support where the heck are you on this issue!

Feb 2, 2024 2:04 PM in response to ihateyoursuggestion

THANK YOU for A) creating this thread. B)Following up. C) Sharing the news!!

Feb 2, 2024 2:36 PM in response to Coffeeb4start

My pleasure. Glad I was able to participate in finding a solution. Thank you for your contribution😀!

Feb 2, 2024 7:12 PM in response to ihateyoursuggestion

You're welcome AND I can confirm that it works! I'm back on Sonoma. I'll now upgrade my other MB Air that I've kept in the box. Cheers!!

Feb 8, 2024 6:27 PM in response to ihateyoursuggestion

Well, it worked for a few days. I now have approx. 70% of my files with missing thumbnails. When I scroll, the file will attempt to load the thumbnail but moments later the image disappears :(

Feb 20, 2024 3:29 AM in response to ihateyoursuggestion

Hi team

My issue is more fundamental. A FAT32 formatted drive itself doesn't appear in the finder, never mind problems with the display!! Formatting it in exFAT is fine, normal behaviour. FAT32 (same device) it becomes invisible. This is not something that people need to fix by installing applications or fiddling round in utilities.

The 'initialise' dialogue only includes various flavours of Mac drive and exFAT. FAT32 or FAT are not available in Sonoma (14.3.1).

I cannot believe that Apple will turn their back on the widest used disk format (covers Linux, Android oh, and yes Windows). I think Apple have left it out by mistake, I cannot believe they would be that insular. (Apple are you reading this?)

Reformatting is not an option for your own archived disks in FAT/FAT32 if you only have a mac or for a disk/drive that a friend gives you with data on.

Fingers very crossed that good sense will prevail!

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Thumbnail pictures not showing up on external hard drive after downloading OS Sonoma