Q: External hard drive ejects on sleep

OK, likewise a very patient senior support guy from Apple called me however I was able to reproduce the problem the 2nd time round. I was able to get the system to generate a detailed log which has now gone off to the developers.

In the process of working through a range of steps and discussing what may or may not impact I have now removed Norton Internet Security as there were a couple of times in the log that the Norton process caused some issues. Will try this change for a while then will test a couple of other things we agree to step through.

Currently the drive is connected via FW800 - will also try with this connected via USB - expect to have the same results based on what others have seen but worth checking.

Currently the LaCie drive has had the ECO firmware removed per http://www.lacie.com/us/support/drivers/driver.htm?id=10248 but as the log from my system also showed instances of where the LaCie drive was timing out on commands related to wake/sleep from OSX I may also restore the original ECO firmware on the V3 drive and see how that goes.

Final thing to try is to try with alternate drives other than my LaCie d2 Quadra. All indications are that the problem is not just with LaCie but will see what I can find from testing depending on how above goes.

Other thing I can try is to try the same drive on a different Mac - e.g. my work Air which connects to FW800 via a Thunderbolt display.

While I find the testing "interesting" to a degree (my geek genes showing through) it will be nice to get to the point of simply having a system that consistently works reliably.

Bottom line from the interaction with Apple support - they are aware of the issue, it is being worked on, and they are very keen to get this resolved for all. No immediate benefit in that once the initial "warm feeling" passes I know, but from all I've seen they are clever guys and I'm sure it'll get sorted - so main question that remains is when - and that unfortunately is still unknown.

Andrew

I had my call with an Apple Care guy tonight but couldn't get either my Mac Pro or my Macbook Pro to go to sleep while we were on the phone (about 45 minutes). On the Mac Pro, I merely quit Caffeine but on the Macbook Pro I deleted Caffeine via Clean My Mac while he was on the phone with me.

After I hung up with the Apple guy, I used the Mac Pro for nearly three hours and only stepped away for 15 minutes when I heard it go to sleep. I had a hard time waking it, but once it woke up, it ejected at least 3 of my 8 external drives (6 USB, 2 firewire) but I'm not sure which ones.

He had asked me to generate the diagnostic file (hold down Shift, Control, Option, and Command and the "dot" key all at the same time) as the machine was waking up. I did and uploaded the file to DropBox and sent him the URL (otherwise, he would have had to call me with instructions to upload to his FTP server).

Andrew mentioned running Norton Internet Security might be a factor. I'm running Norton Antivirus. And I've turned Caffeine back on on my Mac Pro. I'll just let my Macbook Pro run without closing the cover to see if it ever will go to sleep.

Nick

Message was edited by: nickditoro

It would be nice to have Apple say something in this thread. Its great that they call people and try to figure this out.

But I believe that they hold a bigger picture of the concern, (including my problem with dmg´s).

Just a simple "we know there is problems with external drives and mounted images, and we are looking into it"

I have filed a bug report on my end but I know that Apple never get back to you in those cases.

And I would really like to know if there is anyone else with my problem, and/or if its the same origin as the external drives.

Martin

Hi Nick

Yes I uninstalled Norton Internet Security and the Mac has been "sleeping" by itself several times today and so far no issue which is interesting. Big test will be over night local time when the system sleeps for 8 hours or so and see if the drive ejects on wake up. The Norton was the latest version with all updates applied etc and to date have not seen any threads on NIS causing problems with Mountain Lion but still somewhat early days.

If things continue to have no issue as has been the case today I'll let the Apple support folks know.

Would be interesting to know if other who are having problems are also running some sort of AV software - but probably too early for that question given for me it's only been around 8 hours so far of "trouble free" operation but that's been in the day while I've also been working on the Mac from time to time.

Andrew

I am also running Symantec End Point Protection, and I am having the same mounting problem that everyone else is having everytime my iMac goes to sleep.   I wonder if there is some sort of incompatibility problem between the anti-virus program and Mountain Lion?

OK I have confirmed an outcome re Symantec (Norton Internet Security) - while it seemed to have some issues with its processes under Mountain Lion, removing this product unfortunately did not fix the drive eject issue. Just woke my Mac up this morning and my external LaCie got/was ejected just as before. Now to try it on USB instead of FireWire.

Andrew

The other interesting thing (so far) is that my LaCie drive which pretty well constantly ejects on wake from sleep on FW, today after being on USB instead has not ejected. As I have only be able to test this to a limited extent not sure if this will be a "fix" for me but given my experience so far and what I've seen in other posts I'm wondering if the problem with different drives depends on how they are connected - e.g one normally on FW which has problems works ok on USB or vice versa. I'll test a few more drives on USB if this one continues to work ok on USB. Here's hoping it does (even though not sure knowing that will help Apple get the broader problem sorted as it sounds more confusing to me).

Any others able to plug the same drive into different types of connectors and happy to test it on both e.g. USB and Firewire and see if it's any different?

Regards

Andrew

OK scrub that idea - just ejected on wake from sleep after being asleep for around 9 hours. Moving to USB seems to perhaps make the problem less apparent but does not fix.

Andrew

That was already clear; I did that with my Drobo - although with USB it seems to happen less frequently. Anyway, since I do not put my iMac to sleep anymore, the problem is gone. Thus, until Apple fixed it, I only put my display to sleep. I do not want to lose data because of this 'sleep'-issue.

Agree completely MrMacvos - with my drive on USB rather than FW the problem is way less frequent.

I assume you just use Energy Saver settings to never sleep your system but still sleep the display?

From the threads in various forums it was hard to see if there was a general pattern between Firewire vs USB and/or between specific vendors. My thought is that the more we can help clarify what and when the more likely we are to have Apple fix this particular bug.

Andrew

Yes, it's done in Energy Saver in System Preferences. From what I read in other threads about the same issue, it all has to do with eihter sleep or wake from sleep. As long as the Mac is running, no spontaneous ejects occur. I wonder how many people actually know that their Mac is asleep, when I read some of the other threads.

Thank you. That's what I do for the display power save setting all the time since the Mac lives in my bedroom (along with the wife and occasional cat lol).

Did not try to "don't sleep" on the system but should have thought of that. I used Caffeine for a bit but it did not allow the display to sleep so was only helpful when I was working on the system in the day and needing to be sure the disk didn't eject.

The change since moving the drive from FW800 to USB is that I am having so few eject issues that it's heaven compared to what I was living with. These previously occurred on wake from sleep pretty consistently and also a couple of random times in the middle of the night.

The iMac draws way less power than my 7 yo PC which it replaced so setting energy preferences is probably ok. Appreciate the reminder and tip. :-)

I just wanted to say that I don't think virus software is the problem. I don't have any running normally and it keeps ejecting my LaCie all the time.

Very frustrating!

I too am worried about damaging my externals.

Anyone install 10.8.1? If so, has it made any difference with this issue?

I just installed it.

The "unmounting-after-sleep" issue with my external WD drive seemed to go away on its own. I couldn't replicate it when the Apple tech called.

I don't keep Norton running all the time. Over the years, it has exacerbated other random issues at times.

I have installed 10.8.1 and my usb dive still ejects improperly after sleep. :>(