SD card reader not working on high sierra

I've been testing the betas and going back and forth reporting issues with the SD card. In my case at least I'm pretty sure it isn't an OS level issue.

I worked this out by completing a series of troubleshooting steps:

• Cleaning the SD card slot
• Looking for an actuator switch in the slot that tells the OS a card is present (which can seize up). Pressing is several times with a cocktail stick can release it. Note: this switch only appears in earlier SD card slots on Macs and not in my 2.2ghz Macbook Pro.
• Blowing compressed air into the slot.
• PRAM/NVRAM reset.
• SMC reset.
• I tried a range of sleep settings, including disabling hibernate.

After the last step I considered that I must have a hardware failure, but instead I tried the following:

• Booting into safe mode and then testing the SD card slot.
• I found that with certain kernel extensions disabled, the SD card worked normally.
• To test further, I downloaded the latest OS installer and then installed High Sierra on an external drive.
• I found I didn't have the issue when using this drive!

I discovered that there is a flaw in the current version of the Jetdrivetoolbox software (used for ejecting SD cards made by Transcend before system sleep) that seemed to push the card reader off the hardware profiler after the machine wakes up. Note: the SD card should appear in the card reader and USB bus sections. After I uninstalled Jetdrivetoolbox, my SD card is working perfectly and behaves as expected. The only advantage of the software was that it allowed the system to hibernate (usually a Mac can't do this with an SD card present in the slot).

You may discover that it's a hardware issue or merely dust - or you have incompatible extensions or startup items that are interfering. Another option (I don't know for sure) is that using an installer to do a clean install on an external drive rather than using the recovery partition may force firmware updates to be applied. I also had an iPad charging issue (cycling between mount, charge and unmount) which was resolved installing the OS on an external drive that could be explained in this way...

Same here. I upgraded to High Sierra because after the latest security update, my sound stopped working. Now I have sound, but I can't read my camera's SD card. I'm an artist and photographer -- this is a major problem.

If you open System Information (Apple Menu > About This Mac > System Report) and look under Card Reader, what do you see? Try this with both a card inserted and no card inserted.

If the card reader is recognized, you should see at least a Vendor ID, Serial Number, etc. Otherwise, it's a hardware or Firmware issue. If you see card info with a card inserted, then the card is recognized but no being mounted, and most likely you've got a software problem.

Are you absolutely sure the card is FULLY and yea FIRMLY

pressed ALL the way in, try removing and reinserting evenly.

Try again if failed to insert not slowly but quick.

If again failed, then NOTE on card some landmark such as a letter or symbol

then - remove card, and wait 30 seconds, and reinsert but this time not going

all the way in but just shy of being fully inserted.

You can also check to see if it may be showing up in the computer

but not on the desktop in terminal by typing either;

diskutil list

or go type;

'cd /Volumes' without quotes

and then typing ls

Then you can verify it;

in my case it would be:

diskutil verifyVolume CANON_DC

To Repair the drive in my case I'd run;

diskutil repairvolume /Volumes/CANON_DC

if you were doing this to your Mac Hard Drive it would look like this:

diskutil verifyVolume "Macintosh HD"

And it would take quite some time.

Make sure your set to see it in finder preferences:

ALSO, it is possible the reader is damaged.

Do you have all of these checkboxes selected on your Mac?

With the card in the reader does Image Capture see it? If it does export all of the files to a folder on your Desktop.

Then reformat the card. If it's a card from a camera put it in the camera and reformat using the camera. Take some test shots and try the card reader again.

Do all cards not show up?

First reset the SCM: How to reset the System Management Controller (SMC) on your Mac - Apple Support

and reset the NVRAM: How to reset NVRAM on your Mac - Apple Support

If that fails to fixe the issue hold down the Option key and select the  ➙ System Information menu option.

Under the USB section see if the card reader is recognized:

It the card reader is still not recognized boot into Safe Mode, Mac OS X: Starting up in Safe Mode, and try the reader from there.

Alas, the PRAM reset didn't rectify the problem. After resetting the PRAM and booting up again, the mid-2010 Mac mini's system report did register that a built-in SD reader is present, which seemed promising, but the reader still wouldn't read cards. (I've tried several brands of SD cards, all of which worked prior to updating to High Sierra and still work when inserted in my printer's memory card reader or if I use a USB card reader. Only the Mac mini's internal card reader is compromised. After resetting the PRAM and getting the computer to at least register that an internal memory card reader is actually present. I tried several troubleshooting suggestions in previous posts (e.g. Command+R, launching Image Capture and then trying the card, and checking to see if Disk Utility registered the card it didn't). If it was a Finder issue, as some have suggested, I figured it wouldn't hurt to trash the Finder.plist file and reboot. After doing this, the computer's system report reverted back to its, "This computer doesn't contain any Apple memory card readers" status. So, basically the PRAM reset got the computer to temporarily register that a card reader is present, but I'm still at a loss as to how to get it to actually detect/read cards again. Hopefully 10.13.4 will address this, especially considering how many people with certain Mac models are experiencing similar woes.

I'm running High Sierra on a 2010 Mac mini. I've tried just about everything suggested in this string. The most recent attempts involved resetting the NVRAM. When I did that I could at least see the internal card reader when I checked System Report. It still will not show up on my desktop with or without a card inserted. One suggestion back a few entries in this thread was to rename the SD Card (I assume the poster meant SD Card Reader) reader in Utilities. Thought I'd try that only to find that the reader does not show up in utilities. So I still can't get the internal card reader to work. Not the end of the world because an external drive connected to a USB port can be read but I have to admit it still bugs me. It should not be this hard to get a fix.

You have to refresh the info (command-R) after you insert the card. Or quit and relaunch System Information.

Until you know whether it's software or firmware/hardware, I'm not sure what you can do other than getting an external card reader.

submit feedback directly to apple here Feedback - Mac mini - Apple

It looks like Apple stopped publishing standalone Firmware updates in Sept of this year, at which time they archived the page that lists current versions. At that time or shortly prior, the current Boot ROM version for the 2010 Mac Mini (4,1) machine was MM41.0042.B03, which was actually first released in 2012.

I would wager the current version today, according to SpiritPainter, MM41.0045.B00, was a very recent release, probably released with High Sierra to support the new APFS disk format. If you're running that firmware version (Apple Menu > About This Mac > System Report) it could be that's what messed up the recognition of SD cards and perhaps other removable media.

If this is the case, the likely solution is to wait for Apple to release a fix, so please let them know about it by submitting feedback Feedback - Mac mini - Apple

Sounds like there are a few different issues going on here. The OP was about card readers that are suddenly inaccessible, and don't even appear on a System Report (meaning the System thinks the SD Reader doesn't exist) following the High Sierra update. This is likely a firmware issue, probably the result of a firmware update bundled with the OS update. Because Apple no longer releases Firmware Updates individually, there's no way to reinstall the update (even reinstalling the OS won't reinstall the firmware bc the machine is already running that version).

If you can see your card in Disk Utility but it's not mounting, that's a separate issue. It could be the card, a damaged Card Reader (coincidentally with the OS update – that will happen sometimes), dust buildup, etc. I've personally always had trouble with my card reader mounting and keeping a volume mounted. I usually have to remove and quickly reinsert with force.

I hope everyone with the OP's problem will submit feedback, because if it's a firmware issue, there' nothing we can do but get Apple to do another update to fix the problem. Feedback

Meanwhile, get an external reader, or for photos, use Image Capture to get the files directly off the camera via USB. these are always a nice backup for if/when the card reader does actually fail.

Help me to solve the missing SD card reader on my iMac with High Sierra 10.13.2:

How to reset NVRAM on your Mac - Apple Support

This method was suggested by Apple help, where i have found it first.

No more missing SD card reader.

Leo

I faced same issue after upgrading to MacOS Sierra version. 10.12.6. Ever since my card reader was

not mounting in finder. Following trick solved my issue.

Reset NVRAM:

Reset NVRAM/PRAM. http://support.apple.com/kb/PH18761

or

Launch Applications->Utilities->Terminal.App

Type terminal commands

nvram -p

nvram -c

nvram -d

-p : print all firmware variables

-c: delete all variables

-d : To delete the specific named variable listed by -p flag.

I had same issue after upgrading to mcOS Sierra 10.12.6. After resetting NVRAM I solved this issue.

Here is solution,

Steps:

Reset NVRAM/PRAM. http://support.apple.com/kb/PH18761

or

Launch Applications->Utilities->Terminal.App

Type terminal commands

nvram -p

nvram -c

nvram -d

-p : print all firmware variables

-c: delete all variables

-d : To delete the specific named variable listed by -p flag.

An SMC Reset has been known to fix that problem.