External USB hubs working erratically with MacBook Pro port

do these CD readers have their own Power supply ?

if not, does the Hub provide separate Power?

Many Bus powered CD/DVD readers are right on the edge of not getting enough Power from the USB bus.

You may be able to use this display to investigate:

Option-Apple Menu > System Information > USB

note current available and current required numbers

katiefromthefort wrote:

A few weeks back my usb hub quit working, sort of. I was using it for my external CD drive. If I unpluged the hub from the macbook Pro (14.8.9) and plugged it back in, the CD drive and other peripherals would work, for awhile. I thought the hub (FOPHMO) might be dying, so I purchaesd a different one, more expensive (Belkin) but that one is working erratically too. I'm now wondering if the problem might be with th port on the computer. There have always been things plugged in, so I doubt if the problem is dust. To test this, I switched ports. I'm using the ports on the right side of my Macbook; the other port has the charger plugged in, and when I moved it to the "bad" port, it seems to be working. Any advice or thoughts for further diagnostic tests? Thanks.

MacBook Pro 16″, macOS 14.8

The current Sonoma is macOS 14.8.9 (?) I would start there

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The current stable release of Tahoe including bug fixes, security updates is macOS 26.6.2