Hmmm....I was also seeing where application windows would stay behind other windows and it couldn't be brought to the foreground. That was happening randomly.
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Sonoma won't mount external drives
- Thread starter netnothing
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I've been having this issue for the last few betas and RC1 & RC2.
As for my External Drives, I tried Disk Utility from Recovery Mode, and I am prompted for the Drive's Passwords, but when it looks as its accepted it and moves to "Unlocking Drive", I get a beachball. I don't have more time for this. It's bed time! lol
will follow this thread, hope ppl get it sorted out. and wondering why i've not experienced any of this (not complaining!), but have worked without issue since june. worth reporting to apple, and interested to see how this gets resolved...
I’ve not had this issue until this afternoon and I’ve been on the betas all Summer
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I had the same issue right after updating to macOS Sonoma 14.
External HDD (MacOS Extended) for time machine and SSD (apfs) for data, and booting from internal storage - all encrypted with FileVault.
To fix, I shutdown, disconnected both external disks, powered on, entered password to boot.
Then after logging in, I connect both external disks and they mounted as usual.
Mac mini (m2, 2023)
External HDD (MacOS Extended) for time machine and SSD (apfs) for data, and booting from internal storage - all encrypted with FileVault.
To fix, I shutdown, disconnected both external disks, powered on, entered password to boot.
Then after logging in, I connect both external disks and they mounted as usual.
Mac mini (m2, 2023)
So for those that got the drives to mount, did you try restarting and see if the drives auto-mount on the next boot?
That was another issue I had where, even if I could get a drive mounted, if I restarted, the drive would not mount again automatically.
Some of my drives did not mount. I tried rebooting to recovery mode and using disk utility I was able to mount the drives, but when I rebooted they would not mount once again.
What solved this for me is that in "Keychain access" I deleted all keys of type "encrypted volume password". Then rebooted and as system started it asked for encryption key for all drives and drives were succesfully mounted.
What solved this for me is that in "Keychain access" I deleted all keys of type "encrypted volume password". Then rebooted and as system started it asked for encryption key for all drives and drives were succesfully mounted.
Well, if anyone wants to mention their Feedback in anything they file, mine's FB13208436...
I've tried reinstalling from a bootable USB installer.
I've tried unplugging the drives & then deleting the saved Passwords in Keychain Manager and then reconnecting the drives, and I am not prompted to enter the Password.
I've tried running First Aid on the impacted drives after booting into Recovery Mode, no dice.
It's only happening for me to "APFS Volume • APFS (Case-sensitive, Encrypted)" formatted drives, and although this is happening on my 2018 Intel Mac mini, my 2020 M1 MBP has a couple External Drives connected via a dock and those are working fine. Although I've also not rebooted that thing in a bit. Kind of afraid to try lol
I've tried reinstalling from a bootable USB installer.
I've tried unplugging the drives & then deleting the saved Passwords in Keychain Manager and then reconnecting the drives, and I am not prompted to enter the Password.
I've tried running First Aid on the impacted drives after booting into Recovery Mode, no dice.
It's only happening for me to "APFS Volume • APFS (Case-sensitive, Encrypted)" formatted drives, and although this is happening on my 2018 Intel Mac mini, my 2020 M1 MBP has a couple External Drives connected via a dock and those are working fine. Although I've also not rebooted that thing in a bit. Kind of afraid to try lol
I'm in the process of copying data around on my externals to get things to work. Honestly, I have no idea what was even happening.
I finally got 2 drives working reliably in an external dock and I reformatted one to AFPS Encrypted. Copying data over to it now. I seems to be having the opposite of you thus far - AFPS drives are working more reliably.
All of my 4 drives worked fine on my Intel MacBook Pro (Ventura).
My issues though were just like yours, never prompted for the password. I tried the recovery and even reinstalling via recovery - neither worked.
What’s SUPER weird to me is that one of my External Drives that I’m not using for Time Machine on my Mac mini (where I’m having the problem) but DO have setup as a Networked Drive for Time Machine backups for my M1 MBP is working just fine. It mounts fine on my Mac mini and my MBP is still able to backup to it.
I’m convinced at this point that Apple has to fix this, that it’s not something I’m able to correct. I’ve unplugged the drives and removed the saved Passwords for the encrypted drives. When I reconnect them, they should mount and then I should be prompted for their passwords. In my case, they show up as being connected but then never mount. Hard to tell if it’s because they’re not being prompted for their password or if it’s something else.
I’m convinced at this point that Apple has to fix this, that it’s not something I’m able to correct. I’ve unplugged the drives and removed the saved Passwords for the encrypted drives. When I reconnect them, they should mount and then I should be prompted for their passwords. In my case, they show up as being connected but then never mount. Hard to tell if it’s because they’re not being prompted for their password or if it’s something else.
After switching drives to AFPS (still have one on HFS+), for some reason I managed to get them all to mount.
However, what is super weird is if I do a reboot, most of the time they will not remount when the machine comes back up. If I shut down fully and then boot up - they mount.
Same exact isssue—also on a 2019 iMac. And also using OWC hardware—except in this case, their 4-port Thunderbolt 4 Hub. With two disks, both encrypted APFS volumes.
I panicked a bit, because I'd had some power issues here during the upgrade, but then saw that my MacBook could see them fine. I rebooted into Safe Mode and tried to mount one using Disk Utility—which hung. Panicked again, I powered it down—and when I turned it back on, the drives mounted automatically!
Not sure if it was the Safe Mode boot that did it, but that seems the most likely explanation.
I panicked a bit, because I'd had some power issues here during the upgrade, but then saw that my MacBook could see them fine. I rebooted into Safe Mode and tried to mount one using Disk Utility—which hung. Panicked again, I powered it down—and when I turned it back on, the drives mounted automatically!
Not sure if it was the Safe Mode boot that did it, but that seems the most likely explanation.
Confirmed for me that shutting down and starting back up after a few moments brings up the Password Prompt for each drive...
I've also been dealing with the Lock Screen not actually logging me back in, too. Tries to log me in with my Watch and then fails and doesn't even take my password typed in manually. Not what I want to deal with while also dealing with External Drive issue.
Two drives and a USB drive connected to a hub, the hub connected to Mac Mini via USB-C after Sonoma install: the drives initially got a window saying they couldn't be accessed, then they would briefly appear, then a notification says they not ejected properly, and they'd disappear again. Then reappear again. And repeat.
Shutdown the Mac, unplugged everything from hub and re-booted. Then tried installing one at a time. Would seem to be fine, then t would all start over again.
Argh.
Shutdown the Mac, moved Hub input to regular USB. Rebooted. Then again, one after the other, I installed drives. Initially slow to acknowledge each drive, but all (eventually) accepted and seems fine now. Can access all of them, and they aren't disappearing.
Ain't tech grand?
PS: during all if this - and regardless of input method - two printers and camera also connected to the hub were seen and worked without issue.
Shutdown the Mac, unplugged everything from hub and re-booted. Then tried installing one at a time. Would seem to be fine, then t would all start over again.
Argh.
Shutdown the Mac, moved Hub input to regular USB. Rebooted. Then again, one after the other, I installed drives. Initially slow to acknowledge each drive, but all (eventually) accepted and seems fine now. Can access all of them, and they aren't disappearing.
Ain't tech grand?
PS: during all if this - and regardless of input method - two printers and camera also connected to the hub were seen and worked without issue.
might be worth getting a powered hub. SSDs or spinning drives? those drives need more power than the printers or a camera...
Just an update on my situation - I have taken the time to make sure all 4 of my HDDs are AFPS (Encrypted) instead of HFS+. No idea if this mattered or not, as so far nothing in this adventure makes sense, as nothing has worked reliably.
Since switching to AFPS for all drives, so far things are working better. They all mount now, and usually appear shortly after boot. If it's a restart, sometimes they don't appear and a hard boot is required.
I found it interesting during this time while still having 1 of the drives be HFS+, even with it mounted, if I went into System Settings -> General -> Storage, and viewed all attached storage, the HFS+ volume never appeared. Not sure what that means, but for now, I'll deal with recopying things to get all drives back using AFPS.
Since switching to AFPS for all drives, so far things are working better. They all mount now, and usually appear shortly after boot. If it's a restart, sometimes they don't appear and a hard boot is required.
I found it interesting during this time while still having 1 of the drives be HFS+, even with it mounted, if I went into System Settings -> General -> Storage, and viewed all attached storage, the HFS+ volume never appeared. Not sure what that means, but for now, I'll deal with recopying things to get all drives back using AFPS.
Sorry - missed that. Powered hub. Even tried unplugging it during one of the aborted efforts to see if that made a difference. Nope. Plugged in again. Meanwhile all drives are SSD.
Same issue here on a 2021 16" M1 Max MBP :-/ External LaCie 20TB 2big Dock 2-Bay RAID Array Thunderbolt 3 with an encrypted HPFS+ RAID 1 mirror. Reboot, shutdown, and (successfully) mounting it in Recovery Mode haven't made a difference.
UPDATE (found via Reddit): There seems to be something to a logout/login cycle for me. Other stuff didn't work, but doing that at least lets me mount it for a session.
UPDATE (found via Reddit): There seems to be something to a logout/login cycle for me. Other stuff didn't work, but doing that at least lets me mount it for a session.
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Same problems with 2021 M1+ processor, and 2 chained Lacie 10TB external drives mounted through a Caldigit 3+. This set up has work perfectly for almost 2 years, until I installed Sonoma - and then all the same problems described here. I can (usually) force them to mount using the recovery-mode disk utility as others have described, which initially fixed the problem and was what we came up with talking to a senior tech advisor from Apple (apparently I was the first person to report it to them, but now it seems a lot of people are having trouble). We thought it was fixed, but as soon as I undock the Mac or unmount a drive, it doesn’t come back; same with a reboot. Have also tried deleting the passwords as other described, but no joy. Called Apple back and they are having me reinstall Sonoma (sigh), and if that doesn’t work I can call back and talk to a senior again. Who has time for this?
Will update on my progress. A note to folks who aren’t having problems: I’m happy for you (really) but it doesn’t really help and the implication that the rest of us are doing it wrong doesn’t help either. Specifics might help Apple figure it out, but clearly this is something with Sonoma 14.0 in at least some systems.
Will update on my progress. A note to folks who aren’t having problems: I’m happy for you (really) but it doesn’t really help and the implication that the rest of us are doing it wrong doesn’t help either. Specifics might help Apple figure it out, but clearly this is something with Sonoma 14.0 in at least some systems.
Thank you for your work in troubleshooting.
How are your drives formatted? Encrypted?
Yes, encrypted, I should have said. Tonight they had me use terminal in recovery mode to repair Home Permissions, and the reinstall Sonoma (yes, again). It's working better, but still not foolproof or consistent. Tomorrow I'll get back on the phone.
Note to self - always wait for the first update, never install the first version
HFS+ or APFS?Yes, encrypted, I should have said. Tonight they had me use terminal in recovery mode to repair Home Permissions, and the reinstall Sonoma (yes, again). It's working better, but still not foolproof or consistent. Tomorrow I'll get back on the phone.
Note to self - always wait for the first update, never install the first version
No idea if this matters but after switching mine to all APFS things are a bit more stable. Again like you, not foolproof yet. Although even under Ventura some of my drives were slow to mount.
I mentioned where even in System Prefs, it didn’t want to even list HFS+ drives, so not sure if that is an issue.
It appears that, from reviewing posts, that an overriding theme is encryption. How many WITHOUT encryption have actually experienced this?
It kinda seems like this is some kind of a keychain and/or system caching issue... This definitely gives one pause when thinking about upgrading with or without encrypted volumes.
It kinda seems like this is some kind of a keychain and/or system caching issue... This definitely gives one pause when thinking about upgrading with or without encrypted volumes.
I came here as I just experienced this problem with my encrypted HFS hard drives. This method worked for me and my drives mounted.