Thunderbolt Cable Easily Disconnecting on Regular Basis?

I have a drobo connected to my Retina 5k iMac. Extremely annoying as any time I need to plug a USB device in I have to move/slant the computer to reach, and half the time my thunderbolt drobo disconnects.

If you are going to design a mass storage device connection, you had best be sure the thing will stay connected.

I miss Steve Jobs. Heads would have rolled if he were around.

Two minutes after I posted this, my boss walks in saying his secondary monitor is no longer working. I go in there and see that his secondary monitor uses a DVI to thunderbolt adaptor—and it is having the SAME EXACT PROBLEM! Touch his iMac, and the external monitor goes black.

I tried a different adaptor, just to see if it is the plug side wearing out... no go. It is the jack side causing the problem.

Try to reset NVRAM. It really helped me with Thunderbolt Ethernet adapter's continuous disconnection even if I thought it is design fault.

PS For those who might need it

How true!

Laptops and external devices never go together well, when the laptop can move freely. The plugs disconnect at the least provocation.

I found the only help is to have very long cables, to lessen the tension of the cable. The cables that come with the drives usually are way too short and every movement will pull them from the socket. The cables need to be long enough to ly flat, curled up on the table, so that the table carries their weight and the bights in the cable provide strain relief. With long cables it is even possible to work with the MPB balanced on the knees, without the drive continously dismounting (at least for firewire drives - I did not try that with a thunderbolt drive yet). But better don't try that when working on library files!

And an anti-slip mat below the MBP will prevent it from moving. 😝

Regards

Léonie

Thank you for posting this.

It reminds me of the inherently poor design of the old Ethernet AUI cables.

Gravity is not being kind to Thunderbolt connections. They are insidious and do not appear to be less than perfectly seated, when they may be.

I use a MBP (sorry to say pre-Retina!) with a pair of external LaCie RAID enclosures via Thunderbolt. I have experienced issues with programs (Final Cut Pro X for video and Capture One for photography) while accessing these drives. The issues have been Thunderbolt connectivity.Crashing, inability to read OR write, abrupt changes in state, etc. Reseating the cable(s) and then having to treat the interface like cob webs - total BS.

Some manner of strain relief is required, and it should be very easy to design this into the cable and/or interface.

I am fearful, however, as we are potentially breaching the fuzzy area which devices Real World Use and Design.

I am guessing it will be up to the clever third parties of the world to engineer a solution.

patrick

I agree Jim, did you get any response? This coupled with Magsafe2 falling out every 5 mins makes me $2000 MBP Retina hard to enjoy at times....

Good. My T'bolt ports hold fine. I work in two locations and plug in and remove at least two T'bolt cables twice a day every day. These hang off the edge of the desk. None has ever come loose.

Likewise -- @youcrazyboy! -- my MagSafe. I use two different power bricks, each with its own cord, and have _never_ had one fall out. Take it to Apple and have them fix it.

Hi Jim,

I had the same issue and thought it was the cable or the thunderbolt general design flaw. In a way, thunderbolt is a very bad design plastic casing which holds the head is way too long and easily gets hit or imbalance from the weight. Also the head is always very loose.

I went to the Apple store and asked the Genius guy. He said it is a design flaw as he also have 2 macbook pro retinas with this issue. We then went to test the macbook pros in the store and are all loose but one thing is that do not disconnect as easily.

I had my macbook pro for service a and changed the motherboard. It seems the old motherboard seems to not fit well with the unibody casing.

After they made the change, it now doesn't disconnect when I move the laptop. I hope this helps you and you can get your machine looked at. At least my thunderbolt external drives don't disconnect when I move the laptop.

Hi, I got the seam trouble... There is not solution... I tried fix it by tapes, but result is the new type of the connection.. I am surprised that our complaining group is so small... It is serious problem!!!! I bought lot of accessories connected by thunderbolt.. wish to solve the problem, but opposite is true... when I move my macbook = 80 % disconnection! But, probably there is not easy solution for engineers.... I recommend to make thunderbolt connectors more narrower... or make small clips to the macbook body.... But I got 2 years warranty and I will ask your guys in apple shop to solve it as soon as possible, so please be focus on it! I will ask the new machine without this problem, it will be easy to demonstrate the problem!!! Hurry guys, thanks for your work and time..

You might create a good work-around using TetherTools JerkStoppers.