I've got a USB bus in the USB port on my Mini. I plug in an external drive for BUs. I also plug in a thumb drive for BUs. It all used to work. I upgraded to Sequoia a few days ago. Now the drives won't eject because something is using them. Tried logging out, powering down, etc. Nothing works except force eject. Has Apple got a bug?
Mac mini, macOS 15.1
I may have found a solution that doesn't involve erasing the drive.
Settings > Spotlight > Search Privacy > + add the external drive the exclusion list
This worked for me, but you need to manually add all external drives that you use.
I may have found a solution that doesn't involve erasing the drive.
Settings > Spotlight > Search Privacy > + add the external drive the exclusion list
This worked for me, but you need to manually add all external drives that you use.
Yes, same here, have to reboot Mac in order to eject external pen-drives, physical drives or SSD drives. At least this bug has no prejudice! Also this reminds me when I tried to run Windows 3.0 using 9 floppy disks back in the day.
Just to reinforce that for those who are facing this problem, please run lsof:
1) On your Mac, press the Command-Space keys to open the Spotlight search
2) Type Terminal.app and press return. It will open the Terminal window
3) Type:
sudo lsof "/Volumes/your_external_drive_name"
It will show who is holding your drive. Big chance you will see mds and mds_store.
So this might be a macOS bug. If not, then investigate the listed apps.
Good luck!
Yes, I'm seeing mds and mds_store; so this means this is a spotlight indexing issue right? I went into spotlight privacy and excluded my external drive as @adrianhong recommended, and after a reboot of my computer I can now unmount my drive. Thank you to both for the info. Apple needs to fix this pronto!
---Currently on Sequoia 15.2 external hard disk unmounting issues, likely due to spotlight.
Here is the solution :
Have the drive mounted and visible.
Open System Settings > Spotlight > Search Privacy... (you'll need this in a moment keep it visible).
Open Activity Monitor, find mds_stores (use the search function in Activity Monitor), click on mds_stores.
Click on the X button at the top of the Activity Monitor window, select Force Quit (this is safe to do).
Now quickly drag the external drive into the Spotlight > Search Privacy... area. The drive should now appear in the list (of excluded devices). Click done. Close System Settings. If the drive wasn't allowed to be dragged in, try again, mds_stores may be still quitting. Try again, it will work.
If your external drive doesn't now eject, do a force eject (or shut down your Mac). The next time you mount the drive it will be excluded from Spotlight and will eject.
Happy days.
On a MAC MINI with Apple silicon Apple M2 Pro chip, after installing Sequoia the same problem happened.
All AI functionality was disabled, that didn't help until I noticed that some analysis functions were consuming CPU time in the Activity Monitor.
Anyway initially my idea was that it must have been AI, searching and indexing related so Apple Intelligence, Siri, Spotify and maybe other functions Media- and Photo Analysis should be disabled.
Disabling Media- and Photo analysis functions indeed did the Job!
Do this in a terminal screen (skip mymac> ):
mymac> sudo launchctl disable gui/$(id -u)/com.apple.photoanalysisd
mymac> sudo launchctl disable gui/$(id -u)/com.apple.mediaanalysisd
mymac> sudo launchctl disable gui/$(id -u)/com.apple.photolibraryd
Restart the machine, and then check in terminal screen if those processes really don't start anymore:
mymac> ps aux | grep -E 'photoanalysisd|mediaanalysisd|photolibraryd'
It is up to Apple to get this annoyance right, until then I will take it for granted that some, maybe useful media/photo functionality won't work.
AI implementations still seem to be in the Quick-and-Dirty baby stage ;)
It's not just you! I'm running Sequoia 15.1.1 on a MacBook Air M3 15" and ALL external USB drives fail to eject and therefore require Force Eject:
FSCK is not running. I've killed the Spotlight indexer but that hasn't helped.
Sometimes restarting the Mac will allow me to eject the drive in the first moments after restarting, so clearly something is kicking in early in the boot process which is preventing the drive from being ejected safely.
This is a new Mac purchased within the last few weeks and set up from scratch - that is, I didn't restore from a backup of any sort.
Every autumn brings a new version of MacOS and every autumn weird bugs such as this crop up. Clearly Apple's attention is focused elsewhere. It worries me that such basic things are being broken every year. After 40 years of MacOS, you'd think such basic features/functions would be protected from being broken by ongoing OS development: Apple excels in so many ways, yet the fact they can't protect their own OS from this sort of bugginess is more than a little worrying.
I've used the FeedBack Assistant to submit a bug report. Perhaps you can too. It won't be fixed if we keep it quiet: the squeaky hinge gets the oil! You can find official bug reporting details here.
All the best!
Peter
Open Activity Monitor in Utilities, View>All Processes, sort on Name, see if fsck is running, if so force quit it.
Yes there is an Issue in CCC Version 7.0.4 Build 8082
It will still perform the backup but mucks up during the " Cleanup Process " and Locks the drive Totally
Even using Terminal to unmount the drive will Not work
The issue does NOT present in CCC 7.0.4 Build 8081
The Developer has been alerted with all the appropriate Logs
Hi all, I turned off the indexing on the System Settings: Spotlight: Search Privacy: .....
And added the drives (they have to be mounted to add) then did a re-start, issue resolved.
Good luck
Two other things that can keep it from ejecting are Spotlight & Time Machine.
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. Give it Full Disk Access.
Give etrecheck Full Disk Access before running.
Thanks for Old Toad’s etrecheck instructions…
Slow iMac 2017 - Apple Community
Hello everyone.
I had the same problem on ONE of my (intell-based) mac after upgrading to Sequoia.
As for many of you, the USB drives and keys could not eject, due to the indexation processes mds and mds_store using the volume.
Two hints :
1/ I observed that ejection was OK on one of my USB keys, formated in MacOS Extended (and not FAT32).
2/ I observed that file indexations was NOT yet OK on this mac (... a few days after upgrading to 15.4).
This morning, file indexation is workign properly again.
And, miracle : USB keys and USB drives can eject normally !
==> perhaps it may be useful to let your mac work a (few days) on indexation after upgrading... then retry ?? Who knows !
Well, anyhow, it is a real pain to have such bugs at the core of MacOS.
Cheer up !
Problem solved! I right click erased the USB drive and it ejected. I copied the data back to it from mini and it ejected. That also fixed the original problem with the external USB HD I was backing up to using CCC (after upgrading to V7). CCC erased the HD before backing up. Interestingly Disk Doctor wouldn't unmount the thumb drive to erase it. But using Finder worked.
I have a couple of LaCie units. In one case, I solved the problem by adding the drive to the exclusion list, as explained in this discussion, and it worked well. In another case (ridiculous, but true), I replaced the hard drive's cable and the problems disappeared. It's the second time I see an external drive issue caused by a faulty cable with a LaCie product.
Specifically this sub-section
Finding the offending file and application
fsck not running
This is new Mini, few months old.
More information. I had to upgrade Carbon Copy Cloner to V7 to ensure compatibility with Sequoia. After upgrade I did my usual ** and the HD ejected properly. So must be something with the new CCC fixed the drive.
The thumb drive still does not eject properly. Wondering if formatting the thumbdrive with the new OS will fix it?
Can't eject USB drive after Sequoia upgrade
