My Macbook Pro Retina's USB port on the right side not working at all

Ho hum, back from the Genius Bar again. It's my regular bar now. Anyway, they've replaced the IO Board again, and along with it the logic board. Right now, SuperDrive works in the RH port. Place your bets, ladies and gentlemen....

No takers? Very sensible. Superdrive no longer works in the RH port. This isn't a hardware problem is it? It must be a design fault. This is wasting my time, and Apple's time and money. They must have spent more on labour and parts than the cost of this Macbook.

I don't want to be forced into seeking a refund, but this hardware is neither of merchantable quality or fit for purpose, even though not a major malfunction.

It is a major disappointment though, for me with Apple products.

Wow! I'm stunned. You had both the I/O board replaced and the Logic Board and still problems. Well my WD usb3 drive still acts up now on the right usb port too. My seagate still works flawlessly. I thought my problem was fixed after an Airport update. Also my Compact flash cards still occasionally eject too. My guess its a power management issue maybe with the right port sharing the same bus as the trackpad, keyboard and bluetooth...

Thanks for keeping us posted.

You could well be right, but the odd thing in my situation is that the Superdrive always works on the front RH port for a period of time once the maintenance has been carried out. And then once it stops, it stops permanently, until the IO board is replaced again.

Other points to note:

1. I'm not getting feedback or reading other posts from other people with the exact same problem, and

2. This is an apple device connecting to an apple device, so other manufacturer h/w isn't coming into play.

So much of the Macbook internals have now been replaced, I'm now considering unrealistic but possible scenarios such as:

• The SuperDrive is causing the problem somehow
• Something else that hasn't been replaced such as the Power adapter is causing this
• Some kind of software event is making it break. For instance, I think that Time Machine backups have run each time between there being no problem and then it reappearing.

The only real conclusion I can draw is that it is event related. Something is happening that causes permanent failure.

What I would really like is for apple to just replace the whole lot and let them send the faulty kit off to a lab for analysis. Every time this breaks, I have to wait one week to get an appointment at The Genius Bar, and then another 5 days before it gets fixed. Apple's service is more lip than customer focused, at least that's my experience.

What about replacing the superdrive? My superdrive works fine on the right port but i rarely use it. Maybe I can mimic what you are doing to get the same result...

Replacing the SuperDrive seems like something worth trying, although another option has emerged today. I went back to the retailer that I bought the Macbook from (John Lewis). They were surprised that apple were just replacing parts without trying to diagnose the problem. They offered to attempt a diagnosis if I could provide them with all the hardware involved, and history of what has been done so far.

They said that if no diagnosis could be made and the problem persisted, they would simply replace the Macbook and Superdrive.

This retailer supply 2 years warranty at no extra charge, so I'm now asking myself why I even bothered trying to engage apple with the issue. Looking back, I naively thought that connecting an apple device to an apple computer should work, and if it didn't, the manufacturer would be the best source to resolve it. But then again, I'm no genius.

John Lewis sent the Macbook off for diagnosis / repair. I was a bit irritated to be told on the phone that nothing had really been diagnosed, but the IO board had been replaced (which had already happened before). Hey-ho. Before going to collect it though, the guy from JL tech support offered to run diagnostics on the 'fixed' Mac.

Diagnostics failed with an SDD SATA error.

Clearly, I'm now not amused. We discussed a complete replacement, and I was directed back to Apple. Apple said that this would be no problem at all, but that they had no logged record of the SDD error, and until they had that, they couldn't arrannge for a replacement. This turned out to be complete BS - as soon as John Lewis logged the latest error, they told JL that they wouldn't replace the unit, and that they should just reformat the hard drive and return the unit to me.

Luckily, John Lewis being the superior retailer they are, they have now cut Apple out of the loop and are now going to replace both the Macbook and the SuperDrive themselves. Clearly they have an understanding of customer service that Apple have no clue about. It also makes sense, as this is either a non-obvious fault in the Macbook, or something strange with the SuperDrive causing an issue.

While the outcome now looks positive, it has rocked my confidence in Apple, both with their quality control and poor customer service.

I too am having trouble with one of my USB ports. For me it is LEFT, near the Thunderbolt and Display Ports. Mine appears to act up when all three are in use. I did experience it temporarily when the USB port on the other side was in use and not Display Port and Thunderbolt, but have not been able to reproduce that behavior consistently. The RIGHT side has not acted up in any configuration.

I have trouble with the left USB port as well when I have my thunderbolt display plugged in. Right port is fine. Anyone else?

I have same trouble with my right USB port on MacBook Pro Retina, 15-inch, Early 2013.

I'm spotted problem after updating my notebook from 10.8.5 to 10.9

I can't connect any device with my Mac via right USB port.

Some times it work, but this is not good....

Guys, this is the wrong thread. Right hand side USB port problems only. 😁

I'm now needing therapy for Macbook Portaphobia. I have a nice shiny new MBP and I'm scared to plug anything into it now. Never had issues like this with the serial and parallel ports on my old desktop,

Enough - being flippant isn't going to help you with your southpaw ports. Hopefully someone else might have experienced something similar and know the answer.

I have the same exact Apple device model and issue as 4its. Mine is the top model 2.7GHz Intel Core i7 already upadated to Mavericks OS 10.9. The right usb port does not recognize my 1TB Seagate Portable hard drive.

Having the same trouble with my right USB, next to the HDMI with display plugged, on Mac Book Pro Retina late 2013 13".

Port is disconnecting my USB-device and refuses to load my iPad. The other ports seem to work fine, so far ...

It is pretty frustrating for such an expensive device. Maybe there will be a softwareupdate to fix it. I had keyboard trouble (freezing) as well and an update seems to have fixed it.

I've had some odd behavior with the left USB port as well.

When I had a thunderbolt display plugged in, and plugged in my iPad 3, the display blinked 3 times and then turned black.

Another time, I plugged my iPad in with an old dock connector cable (the ones that had the buttons on the side of the connector to release it), and it kept connecting and disconnecting over and over and over until I unplugged it. Plugging it in on the right side worked fine. Also, using a newer cable worked fine.

i've got problems with the LH USB. New late-2013 MBP. I'm using an admittedly ageing non-Apple disc drive burner, but for some reason, it won't burn any discs (CDs or DVDs) when connected to the LH port. The RH port seems better.

Any ideas whether I've got a problem with the MBP or whether the poor disc drive is too blame?