Can't eject USB drive after Sequoia upgrade

After upgrading to Sequoia 15.2, I could eject all removable drives without issue! Problem solved.

Thank you for this solution. It has just worked for me now!

The problem seems to be an Apple problem - the upgrade to Sequoia 15.1 or 15.2

Hello, sorry to disagree. Have two original Samsung ssd drives (1TB and 2TB). None of them caused problems before Sequoia. Original, thick USB-C cables.

@adrianhong - that did the trick for me. Leave it to Apple to intrude further with their never ending surveilance program - I will do this with the multiple drives I use for backups (since I rotate the set of drives) - thanks for that answer!

f8lee50 wrote:

[reply to @PRP_53]

Well it also happens when CCC is not involved at all - as in when I simply drag aa folder from my external SSD to the external HDD backup - FInder only.

That sounds about right

The TM Backup drive is marked by TM Backup Utilities as Read ONLY

It has worked that way for decades

I was so 'happy' to see that I was not alone in fighting this. I tried what was suggested and got a "Privacy List Error - The item couldn't be added or removed because of an unknown error" message. The search continues!

Hello,

I ran the command from your post:

sudo lsof "/Volumes/your_external_drive_name"

And the results came in. It's mds and mds_store. Lots of lines.

I ran the command twice, in a 5-minute gap, and the lines presented are the same. So mds_store seems (not sure) to be stuck, which might (not sure) behave like a bug indeed.

@PRP_53, Thanks for the help. Didn't solve it (I still have to reboot my Mac in order to eject a drive(!)), but at least it shed some light!

Please let me know if you find a solution! I have been getting this same problem on my external hard drive and have only been ejecting it by restarting my laptop and ejecting it once it finishes restarting. I've updated to Sequoia and I recently installed Backblaze too so I'm not sure which one caused this. I was thinking of uninstalling Backblaze to see if that's the problem but this makes me think it could be Sequoia. I need answers to this but can't find any online

This resolved the issue for me, I added each drive to the list. Be aware when you see the list of drives it only shows the drive if it is attached and excluded. It doesn't keep a list like Time Machine.

Well, @adrianhong - while this does work sometimes, I have some SSDs that don't appear on the desktop when I plug them in (mind you, CCC was able to back up to them anyway). I also see that when I added a drive that did appear in the Finder to the exclusion list and later opened Search Privacy to add another, the drive I entered earlier is not on the list...so perhaps this needs to be done each and eevery time you plug a problematic drive into the machine?

Let us all give thanks to Apple for making this ridiculously annoying.

Since updating to 15.2, I haven't tested this with my external HD yet that had the most trouble, however a new weird issue came up. While working with my Samsung Extreme SSDs, twice now I've received alerts saying my SSD was ejected improperly etc however I never ejected either drives nor did I pull the USB cord out. SSDs were both connected and I was still able to work with them. Not sure what's going on.

I rotate external SSD drives for backing up - just now discovered that a Sandisk 4TB I backed up to a month ago and at the time did a force eject when the thing would not allow me to unmount is now unreadable.

SO does this mean it is now a brick? Can I ask Apple to buy me a replacement (and I wonder if the other one I have in a back vault is in the same state).

Running 15.1.1 - I see I can "upgrade" to 15.2 but just saw a note on this thread that that did not help.

Is there any way to reformat the SSD so i can use it again, or is it completely dead forever?

[Edited by Moderator]

Well, this is quite annoying - I just found that a Sandisk 4TB SSD I use for backup is now not mounting on the desktop - apparently a victim of the lovely programming by the wonderful geniuses at Apple.

When I plug it in, I get this window

And neither TecTool Pro nor Apple disk utility even sees it at all.

Is there any way to revitalize the SSD? It's a backup - I don't mind reformatting it and starting from zero - but will Apple refund me the $300 it will cost to replace this item?

USB C connections are crap. I regularly have bad contacts with all kinds of devices (not only external disc drives) unless I keep things absolutely still. ( Saw this with the Sinclair computers of the early 1980's)