Disk not ejected properly

just to chime in here - have never seen this problem on a mac before after using them for 20 years, until i recently got a 7 port powered usb 3 hub, and a usb 3 2m extension cable - in an effort to hide all the things (ext hard drives etc) away in a cabinet.

Started getting these 'drive not ejected properly' messages. tried the fixes described in this thread (jettison app + orig solution) but these did not fix the problem. my drives were ejecting randomly - not just on waking/sleeping.

I assumed it was the hub - but then thought to try the hub without the extension cable - and voila, no more error messages. so in this case it looks like a faulty extension cable that works only half the time. So, not that great.

Anyone particularly fond of a specific brand/type of usb3 extension cable that I might have more success with? the one i got was a no name brand off ebay for $5. (lesson learned)

this is very annoying because the same problem happens with SD cards inside PCI Express Card SD adapter at my 17" Macbook Pro.

the conclusion is this is not related to brand or model of external storage... it could be related to OS X energy saver code or something related.

Actually I'd tend to agree with houstonwehaveaproblem2014 I think there are many different issues going on here. I've discovered that this issue only occurs when my Seagate Backup Plus Slim drive is plugged in. My WD Mybook works fine, even connected through a usb3 hub. But when the Seagate is plugged in, both drives eject erratically. I'll get a replacement from Amazon and let you guys know if the new one works better.

I think it's definitely the OS X energy saver code. I think I've proven this because running "caffeinate" absolutely solves all the problems for me. caffeinate is a program you run at the command line in Terminal. I just keep it running 24/7, so my Mac never sleeps.

As update to my earlier post about trying disabling the Master/Intelligent Power saving on the APC UPS (may also apply to power strips).

It is now 10 days since disabled this feature on the APC Back-UPS 550 and have not had one Time Machine "Failure to eject correctly" compared to at least daily ones previously. I did at the same time disable the put the hard disk to sleep option in OSX energy saver preferences. I have now re-enabled this option in OSX and will see what happens.

Just tried excluding the Spotlight search feature for one of the drives that keeps ejecting but it didn't solve the problem for me.

And as far as turning off the power saver mode, I don't want to do that. I like having everything go to Sleep when it is not being used. I shouldn't have to do that.

c41 wrote:

I assumed it was the hub - but then thought to try the hub without the extension cable - and voila, no more error messages. so in this case it looks like a faulty extension cable that works only half the time. So, not that great.

Just to provide further info in my ongoing tests and trying to work out the cause of problems for me...

I'm now not convinced its a faulty extension cable - as If i reorder the chain and test with one of my hd's, (imac -> usb3 hub -> 2m usb 3.0 extension cable -> usb 3.0 hd) (ie: putting the extension cable downstream from the hub) I am not getting the random eject issue (DNEP issue). So perhaps the issue is with my hub and its ability to hold a strong usb 3.0 signal (?) cannot be extended past its own short 20 inch cable.

Long story short, if you're having problems and are also using hubs or extra cables, try taking them out (or isolating parts of the chain) and using your usb devices connected directly to your mac to see if the problem persists.

I'm having this issue on two different Macs; a 2013 Mac Pro running Mavericks and a 2013 MacBook Air running Mountain Lion. On the Macbook Air it's happening with an OWC SSD in a Sonnet Thunderbolt expansion chassis. On the Mac Pro, I have the same type of Sonnet chassis with the same type of OWC SSD and have had the same issue with that. In order to keep operating, I tried using my USB 3 "MiniPro" SSD and had the same issue with it even while just restoring my data from a Time Machine backup on the network. I have all the usual "don't sleep" system settings in place and the machine is accessible 24/7, but these added drives keep getting "improperly ejected" by themselves to the point of being corrupted so I can't write to them and even had mounting issues and unsuccessful initial attempts at reformatting after this happened. I'm actually sending the OWC drives back to them to be checked out, but after seeing all the stuff on this thread, it seems to be some sort of MacOS issue.

I have a Mac Mini running OSX Server (Mountain Lion) and had the USB3 MiniPro SSD on it (and it has another external Thunderbolt drive) and _never_ have had any issue with it. Note that OSX Server apparently never spins disks down (I had looked into that thinking that allowing the external RAID that I use for backups might have a prolonged life if it could spin down) so I'm thinking this issue is very likely some energy saving measure related to spinning disks down that's not working correctly. I haven't yet tried "caffinate" or some of the other suggestions here (I did try Robin's solution to no avail on the Mac Pro) that may work to keep the "disk sleep" issue or whatever it is come into play. I may try that until there's a fix from Apple.

Well I have had my Buffalo 1tb Thunderbolt drive now hooked to my iMac as my Time Machine backup.

And so far NO disk not ejected messages! I have done nothing to my settings as far as power or any other

configuration item. So I think the whole problem is in the USB3 programming that Apple uses. I have put the

computer to sleep lots of times and shut it down without any problems. So Apple must have the Thunderbolt

programming in pretty good shape for most drives. Hopefully they will fix it for USB3 too.

John

I am new to Apple buying an iMac in Feb 2014. I am using a USB connected SeaGate Maxtor OneTouch 4 for the Time Machine. I had no problem until OS X updated to 10.9.2. After that I started getting the DNEP message. I implemented the "Spotlight" and the "do not put the hard drive to sleep" methods mentioned in the thread and for the last 3 days, no issues. Fingers crossed.

I have spent literally hours on the phone with Apple support, I've gone through six different senior specialists, and nothing they've suggested has worked. I've been on with iTunes specialists, iPod specialists, software, hardware, the whole thing. Nobody has any idea what the **** is going on. I have Jettison but it only works if it can detect a drive to eject.

At 12 thousand hits it is about time to figure this out. This is maddening. It is not just mavericks either. I have USB portable drives and they randomly eject. Nothing in this entire thread has helped. It is a software bug that needs to be addressed. For the love of god Apple fix this!

The Spotlight and "Do not put the drive to sleep" method did not last. Today, my external drive started ejecting again by itself. I have not contacted Apple because based on all of your posts, it would be fruitless to spend the time. Is is possible to send them a raft of e-mails?

The "disk ejected improperly" problem when waking from sleep started with Mountain Lion on my Mac Pro. It affects USB3 Seagate Backup Desktop drives connected to a CalDigit USB 3/eSATA card. The same problem occurs in Mavericks. It must be software rather than hardware, because the problem does not exist in Snow Leopard. Fortunately, I use Snow Leopard 95% of the time, for many reasons, not just because of this annoying glitch.

That's helpful info, although I think external HDDs other than seagate are affected. (I'm assuming you're running different OSs on the same machine and getting ejected (or not) according to which OS your USB3 HDD is plugged into?)

And for what it's worth, Apple are aware of this thread (so mind your language everyone!) and last week I heard the "u" word mentioned during a call-back regarding my long-running case. Fingers crossed.