USB devices not recognized after macOS Tahoe update

den.thed wrote:

You're welcome.

Sounds like you may have a bad USB device or cable somewhere in the mix.

I could be wrong, but my first guess would be the older Seagate external drive.

Disconnect all of your USB devices and Restart the Mac.

Then reconnect one device at a time and test each device.

the Apple SuperDrive

the Rode AI-1

the Seagate

If any of those fail or cause a problem.

disconnect that device, Restart the Mac and test a different cable.

If they all pass the test reconnect two device at a time, then add the third and test.

If it fails again with all three devices connected.

then the Mac may not be suppling enough power to run all three devices.

in that is the case, you need to acquire a Self-Powered Hub or Dock for two of those devices.

Great advice.

I would suggest using a high quality USB-C cable less than one meter long. If an adapter is being used, then a high quality adapter as well. The cables provided by device manufacturers tend to be basic cables and the OP mentioned an older Seagate drive.

I'm not surprised an Apple SuperDrive is having problems. There were several models over the years with some of them only able to work with certain model Macs due to power requirements. Maybe a USB "Y" cable would work where the extra USB connector would be used for extra power from the second USB port. Plus an Apple SuperDrive needs to be connected directly to the Mac (at least for one of them it was required). For a CD/DVD, I would recommend using a standard USB optical drive instead of a SuperDrive.

Oh, and I would try using a different USB port when connecting the various accessories individually. I had a Mac which would shutdown a USB port until the Mac was rebooted. So if one of the devices triggers such a condition for the OP, then it will affect the results of all the other devices & skew the results.

I only meant to clarify your reference to USB cables....seems I couldn't stop typing ;-)

If you have 3rd party ‘protection’ software installed, that may be the problem. For example, ESET has been reported to prevent external drives and memory cards from mounting. Such 3rd party system ‘helpers’, ‘cleaners’ and ‘protectors’ do more harm than good. In fact, such products are completely unnecessary for macOS and the only‘good’ (if you want to call it that) they do is to put money in the developers’ pockets. For the user, they offer only harm…and if that is limited to harm to your bank account, then count yourself lucky.

Mac's have built-in USB port overload protection.

If the USB ports are shorted or overloaded, the USB overload protection trips and shuts off the USB ports.

At that point, the only way to get them working again is to remove the bad cable or load and reset the port protection.

On the new Silicone Mac's, a simple Restart is required to reset the USB port overload protection.

On the older Intel Mac's, an SMC reset was required to reset the USB port overload protection.

If you reconnect a bad USB cable, device or two many USB devices and overload the USB ports again, then you need to go back to square one and reset the port overload protection.

Do you have a desktop or laptop Mac..?

If it's a laptop Mac, see > Allow USB and other accessories to connect to your Mac - Apple Support

den.thed wrote:

Thank you, for expanding on the importance of using high quality cables and adapters.

I just know Tahoe seems to be more particular about using high quality cables, especially for displays, but also drives. Seen so many reports here.

Then double down on your comment about the Apple SuperDrive and raise you an LG CD/DVD drive.

I'll trust your recommendation.

Plus I could have added another "disconnect the device, replace the cable and Restart the Mac" in there somewhere.

Probably overkill (even my own reference to the port issue), but it is always good to keep it in mind when nothing else works. I only encountered it with one Mac (a USB hub solved that problem). I figured I wouldn't remember it later on, so better mention it while I thought of it.

Good teamwork.

You're welcome.

Sounds like you may have a bad USB device or cable somewhere in the mix.

I could be wrong, but my first guess would be the older Seagate external drive.

Disconnect all of your USB devices and Restart the Mac.

Then reconnect one device at a time and test each device.

the Apple SuperDrive

the Rode AI-1

the Seagate

If any of those fail or cause a problem.

disconnect that device, Restart the Mac and test a different cable.

If they all pass the test reconnect two device at a time, then add the third and test.

If it fails again with all three devices connected.

then the Mac may not be suppling enough power to run all three devices.

in that is the case, you need to acquire a Self-Powered Hub or Dock for two of those devices.

Thank you, for expanding on the importance of using high quality cables and adapters.

Then double down on your comment about the Apple SuperDrive and raise you an LG CD/DVD drive.

Plus I could have added another "disconnect the device, replace the cable and Restart the Mac" in there somewhere.

The setting to 'Allow Accessory to Connect' is only available on Mac laptops. Your iMac will not have it.