sd card on iMac not working with el capitan

Same here 21.5" i Mac 2009 SD card not working with El Capitana. Have to re boot every time card inserted. Tried all suggestions . Apple please fix this problem, very annoying.

Same issue with my 21.5" iMac, Late 2009. After upgrading to El Capitan 10.11.2 SD Card Reader stops working after or even before using SD card in the SD slot.

Reboot often helps, but just at the beginning. When not functioning any more the System Report says there is no any Card readers in the iMac.

After reboot System Report usually shows Card reader as present:

Built in SD Card Reader:

Vendor ID: 0x05ac

Product ID: 0x8403

Revision: 1.00

Serial Number: 9833

This issue is very annoying. A assume there is a problem with card reader driver in El Capitan.

Please help.

Okay, after 10s of hours spent with Apple senior advisors and untold hours downloading and redownloading El Capitan, Yosemite and even Mavericks, Apple came to the conclusion that we all have bad SD card readers and or bus systems. The told me that is nothing more than a coincidence that all of us with late 2009 21.5" iMac PCs are having the problem and that there is no real issue with El Capitan software. Additionally, I was told that any Apple product is considered out of date when it is 5 years old and completely obsolete when it reaches 7 years old. I was also told that there is simply not enough complaints about it to justify the engineering time to fix a problem that we do not have. Yes, these late 2009 iMac will read an SD card if you reboot the PC with an SD card in the slot, but you have to reboot the iMac everytime you want to look at an SD card. Apple has heard that there are issues with reading NEAT scanners after the install of El Capitan too. But that is not Apple's problem they say. Basically, we are all in the same boat without any oars. There is no fix and there will be no fix because there is no problem. It is all a fluke coincidence that this has happened after El Capitan installation. We are delusional as a community to think that Apple would issue software that would ever cause a conflict. So, after trying every conceivable solution, short of hardware replacement (which I will do next), there is simply no fix for our non-issue. Please, if anybody does come up with a solution for the late 2009 iMac PCs not reading SD cards, share what you have learned. What I have learned is that this is our problem to solve because Apple has washed their hands of it.

That is bad news and I am quite disappointed by Apple services. Do you consider to change the SD card reader?

Buying a new PC because of such an issue is somehow weird. I will definitely consider as well to kovae away from Apple products.

so everyone with late-2009 iMac needs to start submitting feedback to Apple once a day - maybe then the critical mass will shift?

ah, what fun! Can't file a bug report unless you are a registered Apple developer... This is called "designed obsolescence" - thanks Apple.. but Wall Street still must be loving the stock....

I also have a late 2009 iMac running 10.11.2, and like you, I am suffering the Internal Card Reader issue.

What I have seen so far is that whenever I reboot, I can see the SD card when I insert it and I can play with it, eject it, remount it without any issues.

When I put the iMac to sleep and it wakes up spontaneously for the "Alert wakeup" that happens every two hours, I get the following message

Jan 5 14:14:16 Lucas-iMac kernel[0]: 002356.802602 PRT5@26500000: AppleUSBHostPort::resetGated: retrying enumeration in 100 ms

Jan 5 14:14:16 Lucas-iMac kernel[0]: com_apple_driver_AppleUSBCardReaderUMC:: Stop::Controller Reset

Jan 5 14:14:17 Lucas-iMac kernel[0]: 002357.612932 PRT5@26500000: AppleUSBHostPort::resetGated: retrying enumeration in 200 ms

Jan 5 14:14:18 Lucas-iMac kernel[0]: 002358.622154 PRT5@26500000: AppleUSBHostPort::resetGated: retrying enumeration in 400 ms

Jan 5 14:14:19 Lucas-iMac kernel[0]: 002360.031431 PRT5@26500000: AppleUSBHostPort::resetGated: retrying enumeration in 800 ms

Jan 5 14:14:22 Lucas-iMac kernel[0]: 002362.238651 PRT5@26500000: AppleUSBHostPort::resetGated: retrying enumeration in 1600 ms

Jan 5 14:14:25 Lucas-iMac kernel[0]: 002366.049015 PRT5@26500000: AppleUSBHostPort::resetGated: retrying enumeration in 3200 ms

Jan 5 14:14:32 Lucas-iMac kernel[0]: 002373.060316 PRT5@26500000: AppleUSBHostPort::resetGated: retrying enumeration in 6400 ms

Jan 5 14:14:46 Lucas-iMac kernel[0]: 002386.473756 PRT5@26500000: AppleUSBHostPort::resetGated: unrecoverable enumeration failure after 8 attempts

I just get it once, but that is enough.

So it looks like that all of a sudden the USB Card Reader Driver decides to stop the controller and from that moment on, there is no way to see it anymore.

By playing a bit with USB Prober, I see the following difference when the Card Reader is visible

and when it is not: as you see, the PRT5@26500000 is empty

EHC2@6,1 <class IOPCIDevice>

EHC2@26000000 <class AppleUSBEHCIPCI>

PRT1@26100000 <class AppleUSBEHCIPort>

PRT2@26200000 <class AppleUSBEHCIPort>

PRT4@26400000 <class AppleUSBEHCIPort>

PRT5@26500000 <class AppleUSBEHCIPort>

Moreover, I see that there is a special Kext associated to the internal card reader when it is working

and it is missing whenever it is not working. Also, other kext are missing as you can see here below, as actually the list is shorter

com.apple.driver.usb.AppleUSBHostCompositeDevice 1.0.1 32 KB 32 KB 0xffffff7f81979000

com.apple.iokit.IOUSBHIDDriver 900.4.1 40 KB 40 KB 0xffffff7f81999000

com.apple.driver.AppleUSBHostMergeProperties 1.0.1 16 KB 16 KB 0xffffff7f81635000

com.apple.driver.AppleUSBCardReader 3.7.1 44 KB 44 KB 0xffffff7f82c6b000

com.apple.driver.usb.AppleUSBOHCIPCI 1.0.1 20 KB 20 KB 0xffffff7f8193e000

com.apple.iokit.BroadcomBluetoothHostControllerUSBTransport 4.4.3f4 44 KB 44 KB 0xffffff7f81dde000

com.apple.driver.usb.AppleUSBOHCI 1.0.1 120 KB 120 KB 0xffffff7f8191d000

com.apple.driver.usb.AppleUSBHub 1.0.1 180 KB 180 KB 0xffffff7f81945000

com.apple.driver.usb.AppleUSBEHCI 1.0.1 252 KB 252 KB 0xffffff7f818b2000

com.apple.iokit.IOUSBMassStorageDriver 1.0.0 180 KB 180 KB 0xffffff7f82c3e000

com.apple.iokit.IOUSBFamily 900.4.1 608 KB 608 KB 0xffffff7f816df000

com.apple.driver.usb.AppleUSBEHCIPCI 1.0.1 32 KB 32 KB 0xffffff7f81981000

com.apple.iokit.IOBluetoothHostControllerUSBTransport 4.4.3f4 168 KB 168 KB 0xffffff7f81db4000

com.apple.iokit.IOUSBHostFamily 1.0.1 420 KB 420 KB 0xffffff7f81639000

I am not familiar with kext but I tried to do the following

Lucas-iMac:foto luca$ sudo kextutil -t -v 3 /System/Library/Extensions/AppleStorageDrivers.kext/Contents/PlugIns/AppleUSBCa rdReader.kext

Password:

Defaulting to kernel file '/System/Library/Kernels/kernel'

/System/Library/Extensions/AppleStorageDrivers.kext/Contents/PlugIns/AppleUSBCar dReader.kext appears to be loadable (not including linkage for on-disk libraries).

Reading loaded kext info from kernel.

Loading /System/Library/Extensions/AppleStorageDrivers.kext/Contents/PlugIns/AppleUSBCa rdReader.kext.

Reading load info for 13 kexts.

Reading loaded kext info from kernel.

Adding /System/Library/Extensions/AppleStorageDrivers.kext/Contents/PlugIns/AppleUSBCa rdReader.kext to mkext.

Created mkext for architecture x86_64 containing 3 kexts.

Loading /System/Library/Extensions/AppleStorageDrivers.kext/Contents/PlugIns/AppleUSBCa rdReader.kext.

(kernel) Received request from user space to load kext com.apple.driver.AppleUSBCardReader.

(kernel) Loading kext com.apple.driver.AppleUSBCardReader.

(kernel) Allocated link buffer for kext com.apple.driver.AppleUSBCardReader at 0xffffff7f9c66b000 (61440 bytes).

(kernel) Kext com.apple.driver.AppleUSBCardReader executable loaded; 15 pages at 0xffffff7f82c6b000 (load tag 188).

(kernel) Kext com.apple.driver.AppleUSBCardReader has IOService subclass com_apple_driver_AppleUSBCardReaderDriverNub; enabling autounload.

(kernel) Kext com.apple.driver.AppleUSBCardReader is now started.

(kernel) Kext com.apple.driver.AppleUSBCardReader sending 10 personalities to the IOCatalogue and starting matching.

(kernel) Kext com.apple.driver.AppleUSBCardReader loaded.

Successfully loaded /System/Library/Extensions/AppleStorageDrivers.kext/Contents/PlugIns/AppleUSBCa rdReader.kext.

/System/Library/Extensions/AppleStorageDrivers.kext/Contents/PlugIns/AppleUSBCar dReader.kext successfully loaded (or already loaded).

The driver got loaded, the SD card wasn't seen anyway, but after a couple of minutes the driver disappears again from USB Probe monitor, so apparently either this is not the correct way to load it or there is something else I should do or there is something wrong with it.

I also was thinking of reusing the kext of Yosemite in case they are running different versions but did not try as I may incur in kernel panic from which I do not really know how to come out...

I tried to reload the other missing kext as well

I hope this is a valid starting point for someone else who is more experienced than I am with kernel and kext. Maybe there is a process somewhere which could be run to have the com_apple_driver_AppleUSBCardReaderUMC start again ?

Cheers

Luca

My SD reader slot disappeared for about 10 minutes....which brought me over here trying to figure out why, but then it returned on it's own.

I just got my new iMac for Christmas and had it upgraded a bit vs the standard iMac and was a bit surprised when the card slot disappeared. I had just ejected an SD Card then forgot if I deleted all the photos, so I put it back in about 30 seconds later and it was very slow to recognize the slot in use again, it didn't reappear for about 10 minutes.

El Capitan v 10.11.2

iMac (Retina, 4K, 21.5, Late 2015)

Processor: 3.1Ghz Intel Core i5

Memory: 16GB 1867 Mhz DDR3

Graphics: Intel Iris Pro Graphics 6200 1536 MB

Well,

for the time being, it looks like I have solved my problems.

In my case, the Internal Card Reader disappears whenever the Mac wakes up autonomously (PowerNap I guess is called), so I tried to find a way to disable it, since I was not successful in reloading the USB drivers without rebooting each time.

So I rebooted the Mac, typed Command + R almost immediately, entered the recovery mode, selected my language and from the Menu I launched the Terminal app. I then wrote csrutil disable and then reboot

Once back in my mac, I edited the following plist like that

sudo defaults write /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.mDNSResponder.plist ProgramArguments -array-add -DisableSleepProxyClient

sudo chmod ugo+r /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.mDNSResponder.plist

(you may want to first copy the original plist file to somewhere else just in case you want to revert this action in the future)

and then rebooted. Again Command + R and this time I typed csrutil enable and rebooted again.

From that time on (30 hours have passed), the mac always sleeps well at night and whenever I wake him up, the card reader is always there. It looks like the "half wake-up" of the PowerNap creates some issues with the USB driver, while the full and complete wake-up after sleep is working fine.

The csrutil stuff is needed because starting from 10.11 not even root can modify system files located in specific folders, unless you disable this protection.

Hope this helps at least someone who was facing the same problems I had.

Cheers

Luca

I'm another late 2009 iMac owner with the internal card reader problem. I have never had a problem with the card reader until El Capitan. I'm now on 10.11.2 and the card reader seems to work after a reboot with an SD card installed. As others have noted this gets very annoying.

After reading this thread today and having another failure seeing an SD card, I decided to attach an external card reader from my PC and inserted the SD card. Lo and behold Photos launched and read the card, no problem, except I wanted to import the files to iPhoto (a rant for another time). After telling Photos not to open this SD card, I ejected the SD card and inserted again. It was seen by iPhoto with no problem.. I ejected and reinserted the SD card again with no issues.

It may be pure luck, but if it is I can live with it.

Its probably more than just El Capitan. I am still on Yosemite but am experiencing similar difficulties with the iMac. It will read the SD car but has stopped writing to it. I suspect something they sabotaged us with in a software update.

Hello all, similar problem here - no issues until El Capitan update. Don't get your hopes up about the latest update to OS X - version 10.11.3 - I just installed the update and I still get the exact same message: 'The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer.' SMC and PRAM resets didn't do a thing for me, but I wanted to share with the group that my issue is a little different. I have a 27 inch - Mid 2010 iMac. Again, no issues with any of my SD cards, regardless of brand, size, type, etc., until El Capitan arrived. Here's how my situation is different: The card reader is recognized under System Report and I only get the above message when trying to read my 64 GB micro SDXC card, whether thru connecting my phone directly, through the internal card reader, or via an external USB card reader. It has no problem reading my 2GB or 16GB micro SDHC cards, nor any problems reading standard size SD cards 32GB and below (I have quite a few). We also have several Windows laptops, a Surface tablet and a Dell Desktop and each of those has no problem reading the 64GB micro SDXC cards.

OOkay so we all appear to know there is a problem since loading El Capitan. We all know that hitting this button or that button will fix it for some. Apple on the other hand appear to deny any responsibility. Not the first time they have done this but it is a great way of not having to fix it. Now we all know we did not have this problem before El Capitan so what if we all asked apple support to roll us back. Maybe if we tied their help desk up for several days they may at the very least accept there is a problem. They may not fix but, but hey it's a start. For me the new iPhoto is not such a massive improvement anyway so having this problem when using it only pours salt on the wound. Come on Apple, admit there's a problem and move forward........

You're are right. This isn't Windows. In both Windows and Ubuntu, the SD card just works.

But this is Mac OS X El Capitan. I have a brand new MacBook Pro with El Capitan. My very first Mac. And everything has been awesome, except for the SD card!!! I literally have to restart my Mac every time I need to access my SD card. The only saving grace is that this computer boots fast. And I also had to restart my Mac to get the Apple branded USB superdrive working. Seriously? Whatever happened to "plug-n-play"? Are we going backwards with technology?

Hi everyone,

Just read through this whole thread because I am having the same issues with my card reader. Just updated to El Capitan about a week ago. Not too impressed so far. My card reader is NOT working still, but for a quick fix to get the job done (uploading photos) I just connected my camera with the card in it, and it had no issues recognizing it. Just thought I would give everyone a solution as it seems Apple will not be fixing the actual problem for a long time.