Disk not ejected properly

I don't doubt that some (or all?) of the blame lies with Apple. But thing is, my LaCie Big works perfectly fine with my 5k iMac. And I know from talking to LaCie that others are using the D2 thunderbolt 2s without a problem. So it seems to be some combination of hardware and perhaps software that causes the problem.

Now I am facing a slightly different but slightly better situation. Not having used my iMac for hours, I returned to find a message that my LaCie 2Big Thunderbolt external Raid set (used as Time Machine backup) had not ejected properly, although it showed up on my desktop in its yellow version. I clicked on the TM icon in the menu bar, and was advised that it was setting up a backup run. Within seconds the desktop icon of the LaCie Raid Set appeared as such, with the green/white TM logo.

I don't know if this is occasional behavior or the result of some small upgrade in the OS. Anyone else seeing this behavior?

So i've got a bit of an update.

After getting so fed up with this ongoing issue (it's been over a year). I took my iMac (mid 2010 27") into apple for them to look at. They said there was no problem with the machine after their tests. However the issue still continued with my Drobo, other external drives, printer etc. continuing to eject.

I finally bit the bullet and purchase a new fully specked out 5K 27" iMac, as my old one was getting slow (i'm a professional photographer) and in the hope that it would resolve the issue.

Guess what?

It didn't.

In fact it was even worse as my Drobo was now plugged in via USB 3 rather than Firewire. So every time the computer went to sleep i'd come back and the hard drives were ejected, the printer, my Wacom tablet and even my wired keyboard. This meant that I had to restart the computer as I couldn't put my password in. ARRGGH.

I tried various combinations in the hope that it was one of the hard drives which was doing it. Just the Drobo on it's own. Still doing it. The Seagate and the WD drive. Still doing it. Just the Seagate drive. Still doing it. So it wasn't down to the external hard drives. I was worried that it had contracted some sort of dodgy software virus.

After almost 5 hours on the phone to apple HQ in California, I've now been told that it is 100% an issue with the Apple OS. Apparently Apple are aware of it and are looking into the issue, but have no timescale on fixing the fault.

So what is happening, is that when the computer goes into sleep mode, it shuts down something to do with the USB ports, which in turn ejects the external hard drives, causing a 'sleep wake kernel panic'. Which can cause the computer to restart. Which was happening to me loads.

They have recommend a work around for me though. Which is to go to System Preferences>Energy Saver and tick the box for "Preventing the computer from sleeping automatically when the display is off". I've also unchecked the box for putting the hard disks to sleep when possible.

We've set up a screen saver to come on if I leave the computer for a while. And the last thing we did was to go to System Preferences>Desktop & Screen Saver and set up a Hot Corner for the bottom right to 'Put Display to Sleep'.

I was told to avoid going to the apple menu and putting the computer to sleep that way and if I want to put the screen to sleep and not the computer to use the hot corner function as there is obviously an issue when the computer goes to sleep.

So if I need to leave the computer over night or for long periods, i'll just shut it down rather than going to sleep. It's a right pain, but no where near as much as having the hard drives, printer, keyboard etc. ejecting and having to restart anyway.

So i'm not quite 24 hours in yet of proper use, but it seems to be working (fingers crossed).

I hope this is of some help to anyone who is having this awful / annoying / soul destroying problem. And lets help that Apple manage to find a solution soon.

Thanks for the info!

After reading your post I've created my own setup of settings in order to fight this problem.

In energy prefs - enabled are only Put hard disks to sleep when possible (because I think it is not so good idea to keep the drives always spinning) and Power nap. Computer sleep is set to NEVER sleep. Schedule is NOT set up (it used to be - sleep at 4 AM).

I can't understand how Apple can't fix this for so long! It wasn't an issue in previous OSX versions, it was brought with Yosemite!

My advice to everyone experiencing the problem is to send them feedback through the form: Apple - Feedback

I don't have problems with my thunderbolt drives - and actually I am running OSX on an external SSD via thunderbolt dock. So this makes me wonder - what if I buy a thunderbolt hub and input my USB3 drives into it? Will this prevent the problem from happening?

Hey - I'm the author of a utility called Jettison ( http://www.stclairsoft.com/Jettison/index.html ) and am wondering if using it will stop the USB kernel panic when the machine goes to sleep (Jettison ejects external drives before your Mac sleeps). There are actually multiple problems with OS X's handling of external drives during sleep and wakeup - I've reported several to Apple and am trying to narrow down some test cases so I can get after them some more on these issues. They just closed one of my bugs with a "works as intended" resolution status, so I'd love to get some debug data from you and re-open it...

- Jon

You're saying you got a bad test result and they got a good one so they closed it?

**** that's a bit weird.

I think there's an awful lot of info here for you to use and test. You will notice there is no specific make of drive that it happens with - just a likelihood, and with yosemite, almost a certainty. The only constantly externally connected drive I personally have that does NOT un-mount in sleep is an old Seagate 1 TB that I use a lot as a video dump while I'm working ie it's in constant use so always seen by the most annoying Spotlight. Spotlight loves to index things and use most of your cpu when you least want it. I was hoping that had gone away with Yosemite, but no.

BUT I notice that even though Spotlight (best way to slow your computer down) is supposedly working very hard, it fails to update video files I saved an hour ago on an less used back-up external drive. That at least is a clue.

I am totally shooting in the dark here but what if Spotlight is not registering any update in the system until you leave the computer alone for maybe 30 minutes? By which time it's gone to sleep and not noticed your external hard disks. No that'd be ridiculous. They "ping" don't they?

Like I have said before I had the DNEP with a OWC external disk drive but not with a Buffalo drive that I replaced the OWC with. Why don't you check

out the Buffalo drives software or whatever they are doing to solve the problem. They must know something that the other drive makers and Apple

doesn't know.

🙂 Careful with your wording in forums like these - Buffalo have not s*lved anything. They may have a less robust bit of HD code that is from the olden days like my 1TB Seagate that doesn't suffer from this stuff - newer drives do.

No one, so far, has SOLV*D anything.

I 'm just trying to stop searches finding this thread as "solverd" when it isn't. It is tediously ongoing, Apple. For YEARS now.

There are indeed several issues. There is one with the new mac pro, that shuts down the fan when it is in sleep (and the mac then heats up). There are several issues with the sleep function in connection with the new thunderbolt2 drives.

I have now 3 LaCie thunderbolt3 drives. There was a problem with the Setup for two of those drives (when finally formatted, reading errors, and kernel panics) so I sent these back (bought from Apple btw). Some drives seem to work others don't.

LaCie told me there is a problem with the sleep function. They are waiting for Apple to patch Yosemite. There is also a problem with the shutting down procedure. These drives create kernel panics when they are shut down (by pushing the blue button for four seconds).

I now put my drives to sleep (one second push on the blue button; never shut them down). Then I shut down my mac if needed. It's not ideal but it works. The drives appear on the desktop again when the mac starts up again.

I've got an other version 1 thunderbolt drive also LaCie attached to the mac, which I shut down/put to sleep (the procedure in this case is pushing the big blue button about four seconds) and push one second to get it on the desktop and working again.

Off topic but re sleep, I have a retina iMac stuffed to the gills (yos 10.10.2), and that will go to sleep even in the middle of cpu 100% use - rendering out Cinema 4d work. What?! I have to set it to NEVER SLEEP to get stuff done overnight. Left on its own it will render ONE frame overnight, not the expected 2,000 because it's in energy saver mode - okay it was using less electricity but I got nothing done so that's all night's electricity wasted having the mac on. This is all pretty screwed up. Faster computers now but Snow Leopard was a whole lot better by a billion miles...

I miss things behaving as you'd expect.

And my mac being efficient (except Spotlight which is still a random annoying cpu hog - do you guys still not know what "background process" means? Don't interrupt Cinema4D or After Effects etc). Be NICE to running processes.

This is all off topic.

ANYWAY...

Has anyone LIKED or ENJOYED Yosemite yet other than emailers? Anyone creative with deadlines etc?

Just curious....

ANYWAY...

My Buffalo drive is the hd-pa1.otu3 and the manual has hd-patu3. Their website is Buffalotech.com. They have lots of different drives etc. and also

a forum. I haven't checked them out until today but lots of info on site. My drive is under the portable drives section. The forum might have some help

on it.

Hi all. I know this isn't the answer for everyone or perhaps anyone!, however i've had these issues and been following this thread forever. For me it turned out to be the energy saving powerboard that i'd plugged the computer/drive into. When the computer slept, it turned off the peripheral sockets. A doh! moment as should have been the first thing I checked. Drive now plugged directly into the wall and hey presto! sorted. Hope that helps someone out there.

Hello all,

I have a MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2014).

I have this issue of Disk not Ejected Properly with an external USB drive (1TB).

The HD is used with a Case (I bought the 2.5 HD and the case).

I bought a powered USB hub (D-Link) and every time I use the HD plugged to the USB Hub, it works perfectly.

I suspect that the USB in my Mac does not give enough power to the external HD.

I am now having a problem with a pretty full external Seagate drive where it was previously intermittent.

That 1TB drive now gets chucked off the system almost every time I wake my retina iMac from sleep (Yosemite up to date). However, it never shows the bad message we are used to. The disk just isn't there on the desktop, or it is. It's there one time in ten I'd say. I have to unplug the usb and replug, then it shows up.

What has changed at my end?

That drive is recently nearly full, so it'll be slow to check.

So I suggest the drive's directory is not found and collated in sufficient time so it gets booted off the system or just ignored.

Anyone have any thoughts on that?

Thoughts from Apple at any point in this thread would be the most welcome of any thoughts.

(Previously in this thread I noted this drive as the one that was unaffected. Ho hum...)

Thanks, but it is deeper than that. Your advice is correct. However, it does not stop some drives (most drives) from getting booted off, or at least a message saying they have been booted when they have not.

Thanks for the info.

Perhaps amongst us we can find a 3rd party solution with enough info where Apple has found NIL with 24 pages here of this problem.

24 forum pages of one problem is impressive. In the bad way.