USB problem/Thunderbolt on Mac mini M4

Hi,

I have kind of the same problem. My external ssd mounted at the back of my Mac mini M4 works fine. All other ports do nothing. I received the mini from apple on Monday. I'm a bit stuck now.

The cables and such that I use all worked fine on my old iMac.

I’ve having the very same problem with my newly purchased base-model M4 Mac Mini. My old Apple Extended Wired USB Keyboard simply won’t be recognized, or intermittently stops working (same with my old LogiTech USB wired mouse).

i’ve tried plugging them in independently, and switching out the third-party adapter to an Apple made more than the results are exactly the same. Never, ever had any issues with this keyboard and mouse with any other Mac I’ve owned.

Same.

Using a short USC-C male to female cable as a passkey saver will not allow the hardware to work when plugged into the rear port (it is fine going directly in).

When I plug the same setup into the front, I have no issues. I don't really like burning the front port and I don't like putting these hardware units directly in as they've been damaged very easily I'm the past.

Hoping the Satechi M4 mini hub won't experience these issues once released - I'm sure they're currently doing the testing as the release is coming soon

When I have my wired Mac keyboard connected to the back and power up the Mac Mini, it doesn't work if it's connected to one of the back ports, but it worked perfectly fine in the front ports.

I never use sleep on my machines; it seems we are all having the same issue, but there may be a few causes. As some posted here, I hope it can be resolved with software as using the front ports is inconvenient.

Sleep is unnecessary on later Macs and should be disabled. Shut for long absences/idle overnights and for regular operation use the settings exactly as shown below: (reboot after setting):

Also, do not manual-sleep for brief absences; use instead the Lock Screen settings to switch the display off on timer:

Once set, you can also use Control-Command-Q to immediately lock your screen (instead of waiting for the display to switch off on timer).

I am experiencing issues with all the rear ports. I plugged a monitor in from the back but when I plugged in another peripheral the monitor connect became glitchy. Same thing occurred when monitor was connected thru HDMI. Plug in another C , then the HDMI connection glitched.

I saw an article on this:

https://apple.news/AaP7mE6IIRzie2zdDxFUdtw

Anyone able to get an answer from Apple support? This is a massive miss on apple's part not to test their USB compatible ports before shipping to the masses.

Had headaches with the m2 MacBook years ago out of the box. Thought things would be different this time but quality continues to slip.

My guess would be a problem with the power supply of the rear USB / Thunderbolt ports, which would be a hardware problem hardly solveable with a software workaround.

And, no, in absolutely no way is keeping the Mac permanently out of sleep mode a viable solution.

Being that the cable works fine on the front port, how have you determined the issue is the cable? I am an engineer with 30 years of troubleshooting, so I'm seriously curious how the cable is the issue.

Also of note, that is absolutely not a male to female USB C so I will have to say that that is not going to work with my Yubikey, but maybe you had a different plan on how to plug that in, so I'm all ears.

The issue is a production situation - there are so many reports of this issue across so many platforms by so many users.

Well, since you posted the incorrect cable to use, and I did ask how you decided the cable was the problem when it works 100% in the front, I guess you have no reasoning for thinking it's the cable since I asked politely for you to explain your thinking and you just bailed.

If it works in the front but not in the back, even a noob can conclude it's obviously not the cable - you don't need 3 decades of experience to figure that simple situation out.

Thanks for trying, but nothing you said made sense, yet I did ask for your explanation, which you balked on.

Good luck out there

Re: “I have kind of the same problem. My external ssd mounted at the back of my Mac mini M4 works fine. All other ports do nothing.”

If that SSD is in a Thunderbolt or USB4 enclosure that cannot fall back to USB 3.x, that would be the expected result. The USB-C ports on the front do not support either USB4 or Thunderbolt. Just USB 3.x.

I'm new to Mac. Recently bought a Mac Mini with M4 chip. My problem is with the front ports (not the rear ports). I have an XCellon USBC-4311-2 hub and a wireless Logitech mouse. The mouse stopped working. Switched the hub to one of the back ports and the mouse worked again. After rebooting, the the front ports started working again. Took the computer to a local authorized dealer. They ran some checks and they say all is fine. Today it happened again.

PanamaMacUser wrote:

I'm new to Mac. Recently bought a Mac Mini with M4 chip. My problem is with the front ports (not the rear ports). I have an XCellon USBC-4311-2 hub and a wireless Logitech mouse. The mouse stopped working. Switched the hub to one of the back ports and the mouse worked again. After rebooting, the the front ports started working again. Took the computer to a local authorized dealer. They ran some checks and they say all is fine. Today it happened again.

Xcellon – USBC-4311-2 4-Port Slim USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type-C Hub

That's a hub with four USB-A (USB 3.0) ports that attaches to a computer via an uplink cable that has a USB-C connector on the end.

It does not appear to have any provision for operating off its own power supply, which could be a problem. If it is simply distributing USB 3.0 bus power (900mA @ 5V = 4.5W), there might not be enough to go around once you started plugging drives into it. I've seen portable drives that wanted to take 896 mA just for a single drive. If it is hoping to negotiate for higher amounts of power from the host, using USB-C Power Delivery, the description and specifications make no mention of it.

But that shouldn't matter if you are just attaching a keyboard and a mouse – and since the only ports on the thing are USB ones, it shouldn't need a DisplayPort Alt Mode, Thunderbolt, or USB4 signal that is only available on the rear-panel ports of the M4 Mac mini. It should work with any of the Mac Mini's five USB-C ports - front or back.

Thank you Sir. The only device communicating through the Xcellon hub is the Logitech wireless mouse. The wireless keyboard is Apple. No problem here. I may have to buy an Apple mouse and do without the hub. My old monitor uses a VGA cable and so I'm using a VGA/HDMI converter. No problem here...I hope. I went with Apple because I already had an IPhone because I use Rexton hearing devices. Apple: Don't let me down!

I'm surprised this thread has seen no posts since early February. I have a Mac mini M4 w/512GB drive and it is basically a brick due to this problem. I've had to completely remove my external USB drives, USB wired or USB wireless (Logitech) keyboards and USB label accessories since they all fail within 30 minutes or so. This is true with the front or back ports. I'm currently only running with a Thunderbolt drive plugged into the back and have to use a small bluetooth Apple keyboard which I don't like. I've reported this to Apple a week ago and they acted surprised and claimed they hadn't heard of the issue. They want me to take it to the Apple Store and I will but not looking forward to hauling all this equipment into the store to set up and wait 30+ minutes for it to act up knowing I'll be leaving their with no remedy to the situation other than possibly a replacement Mac mini that most assuredly will have the same issue. Aargh!