USB ports stopped working after upgrade to El Capitan

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Level 1

8 points

USB ports stopped working after upgrade to El Capitan

Hello everyone,

I have a 13" 2011 MBP recently upgraded to El Capitan.

It has 2 USB ports and one of them hasn't been working for a year or so - if you connect a phone or anything to this drive it would charge, but the OS X would not see the device. I wanted to fix this for quite some time, but didn't do it because the second port was working.

There were some problems before, like sometimes it would recognize my printer and sometimes it wouldn't, but after the upgrade to El Capitan it became completely unusable - the only thing that works fine is a USB mouse. The funny thing is, that if you disconnect the mouse, and then connect a printer/USB hub/anything else, the port shuts down completely - even if you connect the mouse again it will not work. You have to restart the system to be able to use the mouse again.

I tried resetting the SMC, resetting the PRAM, I also run the apple hardware test and it didn't find any problems - any help would be appreciated.

MacBook Pro, OS X El Capitan (10.11.4)

Posted on Apr 27, 2016 6:24 AM

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Answer 1

AppleJoe

Community Manager

Apr 28, 2016 1:38 PM in response to balkanizeyou

Hello balkanizeyou,

Thanks for using the Apple Support Communities!

I understand that your Mac is having some issues with the USB ports not connecting to devices as you would expect. To begin troubleshooting this situation, I recommend reading over and working through the suggested steps from the following article.

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

Cheers!

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Answer 2

balkanizeyou Author

Level 1

8 points

Apr 28, 2016 4:43 PM in response to AppleJoe

thanks for the reply!

I tried all the steps, but all devices other than my USB mouse (like my external HDD, a HP printer or a USB hub) don't even show up in the System Information when I connect them - what's weirder is that after I connect and disconnect them, my Mac wouldn't even recognize the mouse anymore - in order to use the mouse again I have to restart the computer.

I've read somewhere, that the Mac USB ports have some kind of protection from overcurrent - if the device connected to the port draws too much current, the port gets shut down until you restart the Mac. It kinda seems to be the case, because after you connect for the printer or the external disk the port seems to "shut down" and it's unusable until you restart the computer. But why would it activate? Those devices worked perfectly before the update to El Capitan and besides, the printer and USB hub have their own power supplies so I doubt they would draw too much current.

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Answer 3

AppleJoe

Community Manager

May 1, 2016 6:26 AM in response to balkanizeyou

Thanks for replying with this information. Because it sounds like this is power related with the USB ports, I suggest resetting the System Management Controller (SMC).

Reset the System Management Controller (SMC) on your Mac - Apple Support

You mention using a USB hub as well. Have you been connecting your devices to the hub or directly to your Mac? If you have been using the hub, try connecting directly to the Mac after resetting the SMC.

Best!

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Answer 4

balkanizeyou Author

Level 1

8 points

May 4, 2016 5:18 AM in response to AppleJoe

Thank you for trying to help!

Unfortunately, I've already tried resetting the SMC before with no effect. I tried it again right now and the problem still persists.

I've been connecting my devices directly to my Mac. The hub was just an example of a device that causes the port to "block".

Oh, and the weird thing is that if I restart the computer and log in onto the Windows platform (I have a boot camp Windows 7 installed), one port works just fine (the second still doesn't work though).

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Answer 5

AppleJoe

Community Manager

May 4, 2016 6:03 AM in response to balkanizeyou

Thank you for replying again and letting us know that resetting the SMC didn't help to resolve the situation either. At this point in the troubleshooting process, I suggest contacting Apple Support directly. Contacting AppleCare will allow us to really dig in to this situation and provide you the best support possible.

Contact Apple Support - Apple Support

Have a great day

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