USB 3.0 device only works after connect a USB 2.0 in other port

There is a known issue with certain Macs or OS and USB3

I work in a school, and we are just about to replace about 200 sets of USB headsets because they don't work on Macbook Airs. If we run them through an adapter they are fine, on older Macbook Pros they are fine, and on a Windows machine running USB3 they are fine.

There are also other USB2 devices we have that no longer work such as MIDI interfaces and keyboards.

Be great if anyone can find a solution to this.

Hello there, leandropag.

It sounds like you are having issues with an external USB 3.0 Hard drive not being recognized unless another drive is connected. The following Knowledge Base article may offer some additional steps to review for troubleshooting your issue:

OS X El Capitan: If a USB device isn’t working

If a USB device isn’t working properly, make sure you connected it to your computer correctly, plugged it into a power outlet if it has a power cord, and installed any software the device needs.

• Check power and cables:

  Make sure the USB device is turned on and its cables are properly connected.

• Check for missing software:

  Make sure you installed the latest software for your device. Visit the manufacturer’s website for any updates.

• Check the USB hub:

  If the device is connected to a USB hub, make sure the device and the hub are the same speed. Connect USB 3.0 SuperSpeed devices to a USB 3.0 SuperSpeed HUB, USB 2.0 Hi-Speed devices to a USB 2.0 Hi-Speed hub, and so on.

• If the device doesn’t have a power cord and is plugged into another USB device that doesn’t have a power cord:

  Try plugging the device directly into your computer’s USB port or into a USB device that does have a power cord. You might need to disconnect and reconnect the other device as well, if it has stopped responding.

• If you have many devices connected to your Mac:

  Disconnect all USB devices except the device you’re testing, an Apple keyboard, and an Apple mouse. Make sure that the device is connected directly to the computer, and that any hubs or extension cables are disconnected. If you can use the device now, the problem may be with one of the other USB devices or hubs you had connected to your computer. Try reconnecting them, one by one, to your computer. When you find the device causing the problem, review its documentation for further troubleshooting steps.

• Verify that the device appears in System Information:

  Choose Apple menu > About This Mac. In the window that appears, click Overview, then click the System Report button to open System Information.

  Open System Information for me

  In the window that appears, see if the USB device is listed below Hardware in the list on the left. If the device appears but does not work, review the device’s documentation for further troubleshooting steps.

• Restart apps:

  Quit and restart any apps that use the device.

• Restart your Mac:

  Choose Apple menu > Restart.

Check your device’s USB connection

Thanks for reaching out to Apple Support Communities.

Cheers.

Hello again, leandropag.

Thanks for the follow up on what you've already accomplished. Due to the nature of your question, it may be best if we get you in contact with someone who can look into this further. You may find more information by using another one of Apple's support resources - https://getsupport.apple.com

Cheers.

Leandropag

You do realize you are linking to a mostly "Hackintosh" forum, right?

What format is your USB3 drive? If you can see it you can right click on it and select "Get Info" or while drive selected use cmmd+i. Best to use MacOS GUID Journaled format. If it shows NTFS that is most likely your issue. Reformat. Note: Reformatting will erase all data on drive.

Unmount any connected drives then restart your Mac.

Plug-in your USB3 drive.

Go the the Apple icon and click "About This Mac"

Click on "System Report"

Under hardware scroll down to USB

Does it show your drive? Is it listed as USB3

Open Disk Utility, click on your drive there if listed.

Is it showing Mount or mounting point?

While I don't think this will help with a freshly booted Mac, but after you insert the cable and it does not show up, go to a Finder window and under the "Finder" menu, Quit Finder.

Under Finder Preferences>General click on Show hard drives and external disk on Desktops.

If you insert in the other port does it show up?

Any luck?

Try resetting SMC and NVRAM again.

Hope this helps, Greg

Your issue is quite weird, and it suggests one of two things: either a driver problem or an actual bug in the OS handling of USB.

What is the make and model of your external HD? Did you install any software specific for it? The reason I am asking is that some manufacturers provide special software for their drives, and there may lay the cause of the problem. If you did not install any such drive software that would suggest a bug. If you did install, uninstall it and see if the problem goes away.

Hi Leandropag

I somewhat agree with Luis, I think it has to do with your external drive, but it may or not relate to drivers. You really don't need any drivers.

However, you say it is an encrypted drive, this may be the issue.

Some of the WD encrypted/password protected drives have had Mac issues. There have been some issues with other drives as well.

Is this a WD drive and are you using the included password protection scheme?

What type of drive and how are you encrypting the data?

My suggestion is to purchase another USB3 device, it could just be a USB3 thumb drive and see if it gets recognized and mounts properly. This will tell you if the issue is in your computer itself or (more likely) your current USB3 hdd.

It is possible that it is in your computer port, but not likely, and it could also be something to do with the hardware or firmware of the external drive. You might want to go to the manufactures website and see if there are any firmware updates. Check their forums/blogs, if they have them, for this issue with Macs.

I highly recommend you back up this drive right away.

Also don't update the firmware for an encrypted drive if using the drives encryption scheme. Many encryption/passwords protection is tied to the firmware version itself.

But really you want to back this up given the issues you are already having.

If you get a new USB3 external drive, I recommend you get one with UASP capable chips. UASP is a faster protocol that standard BOT that is available on most USB3 drives.

Best of luck let us know if you resolve this,

Hope this helps, Greg

The same thing happened to me.

My USB 3.0 Hubs NO LONGER WORK since I upgraded to OS X 10.11 El Capitan.

I waited for so long for the bugs to be found and addressed.

But then this happened. It is seriously limiting my ability to add and use external hard drives and peripherals.

It looks like a BUG in the new USB drivers that were introduced into OS X 10.11 El Capitan.

Hackintosh Sites discovered the bug and by manually changing the kext files involved, they can get USB 3.0 hubs working again. But this is a huge pain to do. It is more complex than what most people can do.

So I am waiting for Apple to correct this HUGE bug. The programmer who did the new USB drivers should be FIRED for incompetence.

Yes, I'll complain to Tim Cook about it.

Macs don't use the UASP protocol. So UASP capable USB 3.0 drive enclosures are just as fast as regular USB 3.0 enclosures.

Marianco

All Macs with USB3 ports are UASP capable and UAS in enabled by default. Since Mountain Lion 10.8 Apple has included kernel extensions (kext) for UAS. In System>Library>Extensions>IOUSBAttachedSCSI.kext (Apple wouldn't include the kext if Macs didn't support UASP)

There are numerous speed test including many device manufactures showing increased speeds using UASP on Macs and then using just BOT for the same set-up. This includes Caldigit, OWC, ASUS and many others. Anandtech has run tests as well.

So yes, Macs do, by default, I might add, use UASP when a UASP enabled device is attached using a USB3 cable. If a UAS device is not detected, then Macs revert to BOT. This has been true since at least the rMBP released in 2012. (Which is what I'm using right now)

On occasion, UAS will not be used due to USB hubs, USB2 devices being inserted into the ports (shared bus) and when the USB3 port gets stuck in BOT protocol. Always best to attach a USB3 UAS device first into the USB 3 port. If the Mac gets stuck on USB2 or BOT, removing all devices and a reboot normally clears it.

Hope this helps, Greg

It is OK to link with findings in Hackintosh forums. They do very technical and in depth analysis of OS X that no one outside of Apple will reveal to you. Certainly the monitors of Apple's own forums don't know at all and cannot help.

And the Hackintosh forum monitors' findings are disturbing.

http://www.tonymacx86.com/el-capitan-laptop-support/173616-guide-10-11-usb-chang es-solutions.html

In 10.11, Apple has completely rewritten the USB drivers. The new drivers appear to employ the use of ACPI to a much greater extent than the previous drivers. This puts more pressure on ACPI (DSDT) to be correct. If it is not correct, ports that exist may not be enabled by the new drivers.

In fact, even Apple's own products were found to be incorrect, so Apple created a way to override DSDT with a port injector. In the event properties are injected to define the available ports, these properties are used instead of ACPI.

https://github.com/RehabMan/OS-X-USB-Inject-All

In 10.11+ Apple has changed significantly the way the USB drivers work. The drivers use ACPI to obtain information about which ports are active. Often, this information is wrong. Instead of correcting the DSDT, a port injector can be used (just as Apple did for their own computers).

So some Apple programmer rewrote the USB drivers.

He or she did so in such a way that even Apple's own computers were NOT compatible with its USB drivers.

This forced some other programmerat Apple to override the driver with a port injector hack.

Talk about Apple hacking its own operating system to get its hardware to work.

That's incompetent.

There is also a port limit of 15 for the USB drivers. Each USB 3.0 port takes up 2 ports, each USB 3.0 port takes up 1 port. So USB 3.0 Hubs rapidly use up the available ports so that the remaining ports on the hub are ignored. One an hack the offending driver to take more ports. But really, this should be Apple's job.

If anything, you are limited to small USB 3.0 hubs by the USB 3.0 driver bug.

USB 3.0 hubs WORKED in OS X 10.10 Yosemite. The new USB drivers FAIL even on Apple's computers.

Hi leandropag

Did you happen to try inserting a USB3 second drive, maybe a thumb drive?

Does it show up?

Hope this helps, Greg