Does Monterey Have a Bug with Mounting External Drives & Images?

[phrehdd]

Has anyone reported this issue to apple? I have a similar issue with a WD elements 12 tb drive.

I replaced a smaller WD drive with this drive when I started getting drive issues after buying a macbook pro 14 inch 2021.

The drive will be stable and then after a while it will oscillate between sleep mode and waking up every minute, unless you are constantly reading or writing.......How are there not more people throwing a stink about this issue, it seems like it would be systemic as tons of professionals use the wd elements drives as their workhorses.......Like others on here, I have a strong feeling that this is not a drive issue but an operating system/new hardware issue.......I never had these problems on my macbook air 2015.

It seems that Apple has taken the Microsoft approach where issues and fixes are concerned. I would rather Apple tell us the *issues* ahead of time and either workarounds or temp fixes until a proper fix is offered. I have a very different issue that requires multiple times a day to be addressed. This is rather sad that Apple gets by on its name and in some ways, not much of an alternative.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

Has anyone reported this issue to apple? I have a similar issue with a WD elements 12 tb drive.

I replaced a smaller WD drive with this drive when I started getting drive issues after buying a macbook pro 14 inch 2021.

The drive will be stable and then after a while it will oscillate between sleep mode and waking up every minute, unless you are constantly reading or writing.......How are there not more people throwing a stink about this issue, it seems like it would be systemic as tons of professionals use the wd elements drives as their workhorses.......Like others on here, I have a strong feeling that this is not a drive issue but an operating system/new hardware issue.......I never had these problems on my macbook air 2015.

I did use Apples bug reporting form to report this. Whether they actually do anything with that or not is unknown.

From what I've deduced by trying to solve this problem relentlessly since Studio arrived, the problem seems mostly centered in HDD-RAIDs, not one-drive setups and not SSD-RAIDS. Get 2 more more hard drives working as one in a box and you may have this problem. It MAY be hit or miss, meaning some boxes work and some don't... or perhaps in cases where some seem to work, their owners are only having them hooked up for short enough periods of time to not notice. For example, if I was turning mine on, using it for up to as much as about 3 hours and then ejecting it myself, I might not perceive I have a problem at all. Its the continuous connection scenario where this shows, especially if the Mac goes to sleep.

I've had at least ONE person assure me that they have a HDD-based LACIE RAID box that doesn't do this. However, Lacie won't sell that enclosure empty and I don't want to buy hard drives when I already have good-sized ones to use.

I have seen some posts here and there where people may be having this problem with single drive HDDs too but I could never tell that for sure. Perhaps some people have 2-drive boxes that they think is a single drive because that's how some RAID setups appear on screen (like they are one big hard drive). Many of them WD boxes are like that- 2 drives inside instead of one big drive.

For the most part, I feel like I've ruled out Studio hardware... mostly shining the light on Monterey as most likely culprit. I wish I could try a pre-Big Sur version of macOS on this Studio to fully put that to the test. I suspect my own RAID box would resume normal operations with Catalina or earlier.

It "feels" like this solution fully belongs to Apple squashing some bug(s) in Monterey (prob Big Sur too given some of what I've seen around the web).

I've since reached the "give up" point, purchasing OWC's Ministack STX and using one big HDD inside. Besides the otherwise useless expense of this extra hardware, I also paid by giving up about twice as much storage by stepping down to a single drive setup. However, for a full 7 days now, that one-drive Ministack STX connected via Thunderbolt has not unexpectedly ejected. So if someone can "get by" with an up to 20TB single drive setup, I can vouch for that box definitely working well.

For a new Mac geared to video production, if this problem manifests with many HDD-RAIDs, I think it's a big problem. Video production begs for big storage, much bigger than will fit on even 8TB inside and up to 20TB in a single HDD box outside. I'm guessing the really big houses would probably store the bulk of their projects on big NAS-based storage which does NOT seem affected (for example, my own Synology RAID remains consistently connected but that's linked by Ethernet instead of USB or Thunderbolt). So I suspect the pain will be felt by the independents leaning on one computer with big HDD-RAID DAS setups instead of NAS.

For anyone interested, the Ministack offered one more test I could try: I connected the RAID to one of the spare USB-C jacks on the Ministack to see if perhaps it as "middleman" powered hub might solve the problem. It did not. RAID box would still eject after up to about 3 hours of usage while the single drive HDD inside the Ministack would remain consistently connected. I had already tried a few powered hubs before but what was unique in this experiment is that this hub was connected with Thunderbolt 4 instead of USB-A or USB-C.

Best I can tell, I've tried EVERY user option available other than buying a bunch of HDD-RAID enclosures to see if I'm able to find ANY (other than maybe that Lacie) that can stay consistently connected with this Mac. Maybe one of the Mac-focused YouTube celebs will read this thread and break out a bunch of theirs to do some tests of this issue. For video and other big file users, there is probably an important story here that seems covered only by piecing together many tidbits spread all over the web.

 

[phrehdd]

I did use Apples bug reporting form to report this. Whether they actually do anything with that or not is unknown.

From what I've deduced by trying to solve this problem relentlessly since Studio arrived, the problem seems mostly centered in HDD-RAIDs, not one-drive setups and not SSD-RAIDS. Get 2 more more hard drives working as one in a box and you may have this problem. It MAY be hit or miss, meaning some boxes work and some don't... or perhaps in cases where some seem to work, their owners are only having them hooked up for short enough periods of time to not notice. For example, if I was turning mine on, using it for up to as much as about 3 hours and then ejecting it myself, I might not perceive I have a problem at all. Its the continuous connection scenario where this shows, especially if the Mac goes to sleep.

I've had at least ONE person assure me that they have a HDD-based LACIE RAID box that doesn't do this. However, Lacie won't sell that enclosure empty and I don't want to buy hard drives when I already have good-sized ones to use.

I have seen some posts here and there where people may be having this problem with single drive HDDs too but I could never tell that for sure. Perhaps some people have 2-drive boxes that they think is a single drive because that's how some RAID setups appear on screen (like they are one big hard drive). Many of them WD boxes are like that- 2 drives inside instead of one big drive.

For the most part, I feel like I've ruled out Studio hardware... mostly shining the light on Monterey as most likely culprit. I wish I could try a pre-Big Sur version of macOS on this Studio to fully put that to the test. I suspect my own RAID box would resume normal operations with Catalina or earlier.

It "feels" like this solution fully belongs to Apple squashing some bug(s) in Monterey (prob Big Sur too given some of what I've seen around the web).

I've since reached the "give up" point, purchasing OWC's Ministack STX and using one big HDD inside. Besides the otherwise useless expense of this extra hardware, I also paid by giving up about twice as much storage by stepping down to a single drive setup. However, for a full 7 days now, that one-drive Ministack STX connected via Thunderbolt has not unexpectedly ejected. So if someone can "get by" with an up to 20TB single drive setup, I can vouch for that box definitely working well.

For a new Mac geared to video production, if this problem manifests with many HDD-RAIDs, I think its a big problem. Video production begs for big storage, much bigger than will fit on even 8TB inside and up to 20TB in a single HDD box outside. I'm guessing the really big houses would probably store the bulk of their projects on big NAS-based storage which does NOT seem affected (for example, my own Synology RAID remains consistently connected but that's linked by Ethernet instead of USB or Thunderbolt). So I suspect the pain will be felt by the independents leaning on one computer with big HDD-RAID DAS setups instead of NAS.

For anyone interested, the Ministack offered one more test I could try: I connected the RAID to one of the spare USB-C jacks on the Ministack to see if perhaps it as "middleman" powered hub might solve the problem. It did not. RAID box would still eject after up to about 3 hours of usage while the single drive HDD inside the Ministack would remain consistently connected. I had already tried a few powered hubs before but what was unique in this experiment is that this hub was connected with Thunderbolt 4 instead of USB-A or USB-C.

Best I can tell, I've tried EVERY user option available other than buying a bunch of HDD-RAID enclosures to see if I'm able to find ANY (other than maybe that Lacie) that can stay consistently connected with this Mac. Maybe one of the Mac-focused YouTube celebs will read this thread and break out a bunch of theirs to do some tests of this issue. For video and other big file users, there is probably an important story here that seems covered only by piecing together many tidbits spread all over the web.

Some apps that engaged volumes and files on a NAS would fail/time out if the drives were not spun up. To avoid such things, scripts were used to "wake up" the drives. In your situation, a possible test could be done to do some simple task with your RAID via a script that uses cron/chron. Merely reviewing a directory would be sufficient. Just need to find out the timing of when things get "shut off" again and make sure to run the script slightly before. I hope this is making sense (I am without sleep at the moment).

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

If the problem is with the external, wouldn’t it show when I hook it to the Intel Macs running older versions of macOS too? It is stable with Intel Macs using same cable… through a few YEARS of nightly sleep cycles This issue has only shown itself to me since subbing in this new Studio running Monterey.

I feel it almost must be Studio or Monterey because I have already taken RAID plus cable back to Intel Mac and another Intel Mac and test, test, tested. All fine there. Same back to Studio and it will unexpectedly eject within about 3 hours.

Or is this chron thinking somehow further narrowing the possibilities TO Monterey? I think you might be suggesting a task to wake the RAID ahead of waking the Studio. However, I don’t need a script to do that when connected to Intel Macs. Would Apple have changed something about pace of wake from Intel to M1 Ultra or from High Sierra and Catalina to Monterey?

Besides, this isn’t only my problem. Lots of people with presumably lots of HDDs doing this are experiencing the same. Common variables Monterey (and some with Big Sur) and M1 vs Intel.

And one more thing: while it dependably ejects on sleep, it also ejects without sleeping… including during exchanges of files from RAID to Studio, so neither is possibly asleep.

 

[phrehdd]

If the problem is with the external, wouldn’t it show when I hook it to the Intel Macs running older versions of macOS too? It is stable with Intel Macs using same cable… through a few YEARS of nightly sleep cycles This issue has only shown itself to me since subbing in this new Studio running Monterey.

I feel it almost must be Studio or Monterey because I have already taken RAID plus cable back to Intel Mac and another Intel Mac and test, test, tested. All fine there. Same back to Studio and it will unexpectedly eject within about 3 hours.

Or is this chron thinking somehow further narrowing the possibilities TO Monterey? I think you might be suggesting a task to wake the RAID ahead of waking the Studio. However, I don’t need a script to do that when connected to Intel Macs. Would Apple have changed something about pace of wake from Intel to M1 Ultra or from High Sierra and Catalina to Monterey?

Besides, this isn’t only my problem. Lots of people with presumably lots of HDDs doing this are experiencing the same. Common variables Monterey (and some with Big Sur) and M1 vs Intel.

And one more thing: while it dependably ejects on sleep, it also ejects without sleeping… including during exchanges of files from RAID to Studio, so neither is possibly asleep.

Honestly, I don't know what Apple has done. I have other issues with M1 / Monterey as relate to monitor refresh rates. However, I was suggesting something as a possible temp/interim fix. The goal is to keep a handshake between your RAID and computer. I know that various handshakes have been issues with past systems including Mini to TV where a device in between that relayed and "EDID" to Mac would allow for the resolution of the TV to remain and easy output to the TV. Again, never can tell what is going on with Apple. I have seen issues with USB 3.1 and Thunderbolt connectivity in the past with Intel systems where devices would mysteriously drop off (disconnect) with Windows.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

I appreciate the idea. What would it be then: run some kind of view directory call every 10 or 15 minutes? It’s mostly a media RAID feeding AppleTVs, so I would need it to not randomly “eject” while someone is watching something streaming from it. That has been completely non-dependable to date.

It’s also a media scratch drive when making video. So I may draw from it for a while, then not need anything on it for a while, so it seems I’d have to “ping” it pretty regularly to prevent any rest/sleep potential on its part. If I’m writing some edited video TO it, it would be bad to eject without that transfer completing. The biggest concern with unexpected ejection is incomplete file writes, as I'm under the impression that those can corrupt Mac-connected drives.

I have Studio auto wake each morning at 7am, so that is the one predictable wake from sleep that is nearly in stone. All other unexpected ejections happen throughout the day, while I’m mostly using the Studio. So I could run some script at 7:28am to be sure it fully wakes first but there would be no way to time anything similar throughout the day when it will also (seemingly randomly) eject... other than some kind of pretty regular "ping."

Consider it’s also ejecting while definitely awake (transferring files on it to Studio)… so it’s not exclusively about it or Studio sleeping (too deeply).

My bandaid has been to give up and switch to a Single drive in Ministack STX... and then re-check with point upgrades to Monterey or perhaps this waits for the next version of macOS entirely. The concern there is that some of what is online about this is blaming it on Big Sur (too), so if it is a 2-generation issue, why have much confidence that maybe the next generation upgrade fixes it? I suspect that I connect it again after some future macOS update and it "just works" again. The question is how many upgrades until I get back to that kind of dependability? I'm not even sure Apple would know that right now.

 

[phrehdd]

I appreciate the idea. What would it be then: run some kind of view directory call every 10 or 15 minutes? It’s mostly a media RAID feeding AppleTVs, so I would need it to not randomly “eject” while someone is watching something streaming from it.

It’s also a media scratch drive when making video. So I may draw from it for a while, then not need anything on it for a while, so it seems I’d have to “ping” it pretty regularly to prevent any rest/sleep potential on its part. If I’m writing some edited video TO it, it would be bad to eject without that transfer completing.

I have Studio auto wake each morning at 7am, so that is the one predictable wake from sleep that is nearly in stone. All other unexpected ejections happen throughout the day, while I’m mostly using the Studio. So I could run some script at 7:28am to be sure it fully wakes first but there would be no way to time anything similar throughout the day when it will also eject... other than some kind of pretty regularly "ping."

Consider it’s also ejecting while definitely awake (transferring files on it to Studio)… so it’s not exclusively about it or Studio sleeping (too deeply).

My bandaid has been to give up and switch to a Single drive in Ministack STX... and then re-check with point upgrades to Monterey or perhaps this waits for the next version of macOS entirely. The concern there is that some of what is online about this is blaming it on Big Sur, so if it is a 2 generation issue, why have much confidence that maybe the next generation upgrade fixes it?

That is what a chron/cron set up would be for .... to execute the script at intervals. You can test how long you must wait before running the script again (and again) etc.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

Yes I understand. I might give it a try. For now, I'm in give-up mode and getting by with the solo-drive alternative. I really think it will magically work again as it does with Catalina or earlier on Intel Macs after either a Monterey point upgrade or perhaps in the next version or two of macOS updates... which would then imply it was never the external but actually a bug(s) in macOS (as I mostly suspect now).

But thanks for the idea of one more thing at least I could try myself to bandaid it until the custom bandaid would no longer be needed.

 

[Joobs333]

I did use Apples bug reporting form to report this. Whether they actually do anything with that or not is unknown.

From what I've deduced by trying to solve this problem relentlessly since Studio arrived, the problem seems mostly centered in HDD-RAIDs, not one-drive setups and not SSD-RAIDS. Get 2 more more hard drives working as one in a box and you may have this problem. It MAY be hit or miss, meaning some boxes work and some don't... or perhaps in cases where some seem to work, their owners are only having them hooked up for short enough periods of time to not notice. For example, if I was turning mine on, using it for up to as much as about 3 hours and then ejecting it myself, I might not perceive I have a problem at all. Its the continuous connection scenario where this shows, especially if the Mac goes to sleep.

I've had at least ONE person assure me that they have a HDD-based LACIE RAID box that doesn't do this. However, Lacie won't sell that enclosure empty and I don't want to buy hard drives when I already have good-sized ones to use.

I have seen some posts here and there where people may be having this problem with single drive HDDs too but I could never tell that for sure. Perhaps some people have 2-drive boxes that they think is a single drive because that's how some RAID setups appear on screen (like they are one big hard drive). Many of them WD boxes are like that- 2 drives inside instead of one big drive.

For the most part, I feel like I've ruled out Studio hardware... mostly shining the light on Monterey as most likely culprit. I wish I could try a pre-Big Sur version of macOS on this Studio to fully put that to the test. I suspect my own RAID box would resume normal operations with Catalina or earlier.

It "feels" like this solution fully belongs to Apple squashing some bug(s) in Monterey (prob Big Sur too given some of what I've seen around the web).

I've since reached the "give up" point, purchasing OWC's Ministack STX and using one big HDD inside. Besides the otherwise useless expense of this extra hardware, I also paid by giving up about twice as much storage by stepping down to a single drive setup. However, for a full 7 days now, that one-drive Ministack STX connected via Thunderbolt has not unexpectedly ejected. So if someone can "get by" with an up to 20TB single drive setup, I can vouch for that box definitely working well.

For a new Mac geared to video production, if this problem manifests with many HDD-RAIDs, I think it's a big problem. Video production begs for big storage, much bigger than will fit on even 8TB inside and up to 20TB in a single HDD box outside. I'm guessing the really big houses would probably store the bulk of their projects on big NAS-based storage which does NOT seem affected (for example, my own Synology RAID remains consistently connected but that's linked by Ethernet instead of USB or Thunderbolt). So I suspect the pain will be felt by the independents leaning on one computer with big HDD-RAID DAS setups instead of NAS.

For anyone interested, the Ministack offered one more test I could try: I connected the RAID to one of the spare USB-C jacks on the Ministack to see if perhaps it as "middleman" powered hub might solve the problem. It did not. RAID box would still eject after up to about 3 hours of usage while the single drive HDD inside the Ministack would remain consistently connected. I had already tried a few powered hubs before but what was unique in this experiment is that this hub was connected with Thunderbolt 4 instead of USB-A or USB-C.

Best I can tell, I've tried EVERY user option available other than buying a bunch of HDD-RAID enclosures to see if I'm able to find ANY (other than maybe that Lacie) that can stay consistently connected with this Mac. Maybe one of the Mac-focused YouTube celebs will read this thread and break out a bunch of theirs to do some tests of this issue. For video and other big file users, there is probably an important story here that seems covered only by piecing together many tidbits spread all over the web.

Thanks for the responses everyone. There is also a thread on apple forums talking about this issue as well. https://discussions.apple.com/thread/253434491?r_s_legacy=true

I have 3 WD elements drives (single platter drive) and all three of them have the same constant spinning up and down behavior on a 14 inch macbook pro m1 max with Monterey........I connected all three of them to my old macbook air 2015 intel with monterey, and the sleep wake cycling does not happen, the drives behave normally.....Based off of my experimenting im inclined to believe it might be an M1/Monterey issue.

Also, I downloaded amphetamine off the app store (which others have recommended) and it does appear to be a temporary solution as my drive stays awake.

I guess we can hope enough people are reporting this issue and sharing this thread and the aforementioned apple one so enough apple techs see it.

 

[ZomBee]

I’m a little late to the party, but having the same issues. My iMac now takes 20 mins to start, doesn’t recognize any external drives and can’t install any .dmg. I’ve tried just about everything to get it working. Then I went to roll back to BigSur as that’s what I have on my M1 MacBook and it works fine. Went to disk utility in recovery mode and my hdd isn’t there. Can be seen in disk utility when normally loaded, however. Diagnostics says everything is working fine but clearly something is wrong. Drive was replaced by Apple last year. Now they want me to drag my 27” in to a Genius Bar again. 🥲

 

[Fishrrman]

zombee:
"My iMac now takes 20 mins to start, doesn’t recognize any external drives"

What happens if you:
1. DISCONNECT all external drives
and
2. THEN try to start...?

 

[WinterWolf90]

There are huge problems with Monterey and external SSDs - especially 4TB.

I had to revert back to big sur which cleared up all problems. I have a 2019 iMac i9 booting from a 4tb Samsung EVO 860 in oyen enclosure.

Monterey 12.1 hangs formatting these external USB drives and installing to them. Also it cannot mount many external drives. A lot of issues with G drives. Some have had some success using a USB 2.0 cable - that is too slow and there is no guarantee that your data integrity is good. USB3C and USB3A don't make a difference.

Western Digital has announced there is a compatibility issue

This is a big problem - not sure why it has not been broadly recognized. Search web and you will find lots of people have this issue. Unstable mass storage is the death of a computer system. It is clearly the OS.

Monterey cannot erase external SSD

I am on Monterey 12.01 with my new 14" Macbook Pro M1 Max. I tried to use disk utility to erase 2 of my external SSD from exFAT into APFS. I tried the GUI Disk Utility and Terminal command, basically tried everything that I could search on Google but was not successful. Every time MacOS just...

forums.macrumors.com

Monterey struggling with External SSD - Apple Community

discussions.apple.com

Trying to decide if i need to revert my MBP2019. It runs on Apple internal 2TB SSD and appears to be working fine.
It couldn't format the EVO either or install to it.

Strongly suggest you do not upgrade.

Where did you see that WD released a press release about it? I had a lot of trouble with my external hard drives. Eventually I had to get a USB SSD due to the amount of problems I had with my 4TB drive. I even got a 5TB drive and brand new there were issues. It was beyond irritating they have not fixed or even done a release about these issue for this long.

 

[haddy]

One of those Satachi 'fit under the bottom of the iMAC hobbies. Have used it for years without any problems, so much so I don't so much consider it a hub but an integral part of my iMac.

I presume from this quote you have used it with MacOS 10.x?
If it worked why upgrade the OS?
I have a 2020 (20.2) iMac on 10.15.7 (Catalina) running 4 external T3 SSD drives. 3 attached to a OWC powered TB hub. 2 USB A connected SSDs and a NAS (10TB).
This setup works as it should (touch wood).
I have decided never to upgrade an OS from one that works.
I also think that the threat of not getting Apples security updates is a non issue full stop.

 

[EssentialGadget]

Where did you see that WD released a press release about it? I had a lot of trouble with my external hard drives. Eventually I had to get a USB SSD due to the amount of problems I had with my 4TB drive. I even got a 5TB drive and brand new there were issues. It was beyond irritating they have not fixed or even done a release about these issue for this long.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/disk-utility-wont-format-external-ssd.2322179/post-30698107

 

[phrehdd]

Just adding to the mix - of last several weeks, from time to time when locking the screen or putting the computer to sleep I end up with a pop up for a couple of drives with the usual notice they were not ejected properly. The challenge is that the USB drive returns but the Thunderbolt does not most of the time return. both are connected through a dock. I can do whatever I want with the dock with power down and disconnect but the TB drive does not return. To date, I have only found that a reboot of the Mini will then mount that TB drive.

 

[cboxgo69]

I have similar issues to what is being described by many of the folks in this thread. For me, it's random hangs and things like sidebar items being no longer there (not hidden sidebar... just items gone.) Sometimes I can run Python scripts overnight and no issues occur, and sometimes I can just try to access files on my computer and go through a long headache of trial and error until eventually shutting down through terminal, unhooking everything, and then restarting.

Here are my system details:

Model Name: MacBook Air
Model Identifier: MacBookAir10,1
Chip: Apple M1
Total Number of Cores: 8 (4 performance and 4 efficiency)
Memory: 8 GB

My OS is Monterey 12.4. I have two devices on a USB hub that never had issues before one or two recent Monterey upgrades. Both drives are 5TB external drives with exFAT filesystems and I think they're hybrid or some time of compact spindle but I don't think they're SSD.

A few steps I've taken include:

1. Tried maintenance scripts using Onyx with no improvement
2. Deleted finder preferences and sidebar preferences, rebooted with no improvement
3. Searched for an cleaned up old software, including removing unnecessary login items, with no improvement
2. Ran Time Machine and backed up to a 3rd drive which is MacHFS
3. Formatted my MacIntosh HD completely
4. Reinstalled Monterey 12.4 fresh from the recovery partition
5. Reapplied user preferences from Time Machine backup

And, pretty much nothing has fixed the intermittent Finder hangs.

 

[WinterWolf90]

I have similar issues to what is being described by many of the folks in this thread. For me, it's random hangs and things like sidebar items being no longer there (not hidden sidebar... just items gone.) Sometimes I can run Python scripts overnight and no issues occur, and sometimes I can just try to access files on my computer and go through a long headache of trial and error until eventually shutting down through terminal, unhooking everything, and then restarting.

Here are my system details:

Model Name: MacBook Air
Model Identifier: MacBookAir10,1
Chip: Apple M1
Total Number of Cores: 8 (4 performance and 4 efficiency)
Memory: 8 GB

My OS is Monterey 12.4. I have two devices on a USB hub that never had issues before one or two recent Monterey upgrades. Both drives are 5TB external drives with exFAT filesystems and I think they're hybrid or some time of compact spindle but I don't think they're SSD.

A few steps I've taken include:

1. Tried maintenance scripts using Onyx with no improvement
2. Deleted finder preferences and sidebar preferences, rebooted with no improvement
3. Searched for an cleaned up old software, including removing unnecessary login items, with no improvement
2. Ran Time Machine and backed up to a 3rd drive which is MacHFS
3. Formatted my MacIntosh HD completely
4. Reinstalled Monterey 12.4 fresh from the recovery partition
5. Reapplied user preferences from Time Machine backup

And, pretty much nothing has fixed the intermittent Finder hangs.

I might try the Ventura beta to see if this is fixed

 

[valerama]

Hi. Sadly no. It even doesn't mount .dmg images when I double click them.

What could be the fix?

I am having this same problem, starting this morning I cannot mount:

• USB hard drive, neither SSD or SATA
• USB thumb drive
• SD card
• DMG files

I can mount shared drives, so whatever the problem is, it is related to the USB functionality.

All of the above work just fine on my laptop, and they all worked just fine yesterday.

All of the devices show up in the system report, but don't display in Disk Utility or Terminal using diskutil list command.

I have periodically had problems with my external drives randomly unmounting, but not in a month or so.

iMac 27" quad-core i7 with 32gb of ram. Monterey 12.3.1

Next up booting in safe mode to check to see if that works.

 

[valerama]

Thankfully after suffering for 4 months with no external backup, nor ability to mount dmg or any image files (so not way to install things, unless the download is auto extracting and mounting from the site owner), the new update 12.2 (just released today) seems to have fixed it, it's all working now- praise be Jesus, Mother Mary & St. Joseph!

I hope the networking to the PC printer has been fixed as well, so I can print from the Mac to the Windows 11 PC's printer (which doesn't have AirPrint, it's all CAT5, old school connected to the PC and the PC in turned if CAT5 connected to the fiber internet modem).

This'll still be observed, the report to the Feedback App seems to be very worth it.

My problem only started this morning, after upgrading to Monterey in March. I updated today, it did not fix the problem. All of the drives worked flawlessly yesterday and don't today (still). Now I'm regretting buying my recent Macbook. I'm just done. My local backup is now useless, and I can't restore or revert anything without being able to connect a drive.

Can I whine any more. *sigh*

 

[bogdanw]

Next up booting in safe mode to check to see if that works.

If that doesn’t solve your problem, try to restart automountd & autofsd with

sudo launchctl kickstart -k system/com.apple.autofsd
sudo launchctl kickstart -k system/com.apple.automountd

 

[Alvin777]

If that doesn’t solve your problem, try to restart automountd & autofsd with

sudo launchctl kickstart -k system/com.apple.autofsd
sudo launchctl kickstart -k system/com.apple.automountd

If that doesn’t solve your problem, try to restart automountd & autofsd with

sudo launchctl kickstart -k system/com.apple.autofsd
sudo launchctl kickstart -k system/com.apple.automountd

Thank you so much, that worked but after booting from Windows Bootcamp then back again to macOS Monterey, it won't mount again even if I use those two codes again. I hope macOS Ventura fixes all these. Also my tabs and windows were gone in Safari after coming from Windows Bootcamp. I wonder if these all have to do with Windows Bootcamp, perhaps it's locking the external drives and thinks Windows is still using it (like with a Virtual Machine. I don't use Window in a virtual machine though). Even my .dmg won't mount- I have to use a program called fastDMG to mount .dmg that I have downloaded to mount it and get to install it.

I also reset the SMC and NRAM to no avail.

If I get it to mount again using all the codes for Terminal I can find related to it and the two code above launchctl kickstart, whenever I boot either from Windows Bootcamp or macOS Monterey, I probably should eject all external drives first and close Safari.

 

[Alvin777]

I might try the Ventura beta to see if this is fixed

Hi. Did Ventura fix this mounting issue? Thanks.

 

[johnmcboston]

Started running into this today (Updated form BS to Monterey 12.4 about a month ago. Have one drive that still won't "mount", but mount is a big word.

The drive never shows up in Finder. But Disk First Aid sees it just fine. So does CarbonCopyCloner, so I can technically still do backups. Even funnier, when I click on the drive in CCC there is a 'show in finder' option - clicking on that will indeed show the volume contents in a finder window - even though the drive still doesn't show up in the finder left menu.

Still annoying though

 

[dk2ck]

Sorry for bumping an old thread but I've been having this issue for 12.3 and 12.4. Has anyone tried 12.5 or the Ventura beta yet and has it solved the problem with external drives?

 

[cboxgo69]

Sorry for bumping an old thread but I've been having this issue for 12.3 and 12.4. Has anyone tried 12.5 or the Ventura beta yet and has it solved the problem with external drives?

I can tell you how you will most likely actually get it fixed, and it does not involve upgrading to any beta OS, but it does involve rebuilding your user home directory. Here is how I did it:

1. Go to "Users and Groups" under System Preferences
2. Click the padlock to unlock
3. Right-click on your account having the issue
4. Choose "Advanced Options..."
5. On the line labeled "Home directory" select "Choose"
6. When Finder comes up, go up one level so you're in "Users" and not in your home directory. From there just create a new folder and choose that folder. For me I called it "<username>.delete" where <username> is my actual account name.

After changing it causes your system to reboot. Then you can rename your old user folder to <username>.keep. You can do this once more to create a folder called <username>.

In summary, you'll have

<username>.delete
<username>.keep
<username>

You can delete the one called "<username>.delete" and keep the original (<username>.keep) as a backup until you restore all of your needed files. You might even put it on an external drive.

Sounds painful, but yo probably have years or decades of old preferences and add-ons, some might be obsolete Finder extensions causing Finder to have issues.

Anyway, I hope this help...