Sequoia update has caused mounting issues with external hard drives. Ex: had one working and then all of a sudden M3 Max MacBook Pro stops recognizing the device. Now, it won't even find it when it's plugged in. Device works fine on other devices.
Same here: after Sequoia update, randomly I can't "ejects" external drivers (all types)
As for resuscitating drives, my fix has been to run the drive through Check Disk tool on my Windows laptop. Fixes whatever errors are on the drive. Of course this only works on FAT or NTFS, eg ExFat drives, which is what my problem drive is formatted.
I had success ejecting the drive after using AI (Grok) to troubleshoot. Not sure if this is all the issue is but I was able to kill the PID by using terminal commands to get my EHD to eject. This is the process that helped me:
1. Check for Hidden Processes with lsof:
• Open Terminal again.
• Type: sudo lsof | grep /Volumes/DRIVENAME (replace DRIVENAME with the exact name of your external drive as it appears in Finder).
• Enter your admin password when prompted.
• This lists any open files or processes using the drive. If something shows up (e.g., a random app or system process), note the process name or ID (PID), then quit it with sudo kill -9 PID (replace PID with the number).
• Try ejecting again after.
2. Force Unmount:
• If diskutil eject didn’t work earlier, try forcing the unmount:
• In Terminal, type: diskutil unmount force /Volumes/DRIVENAME (again, use the exact drive name).
• This is a stronger nudge than the regular unmount and might override whatever’s locking it.
3. Spotlight or Time Machine Interference:
• If the drive’s being indexed or backed up, macOS can be sneaky about it.
• Disable Spotlight temporarily:
• Go to System Settings > Siri & Spotlight > Spotlight Privacy, drag your external drive into the “Prevent Spotlight from searching” list, and click “Done.” Wait a moment, then try ejecting.
• Check Time Machine:
• System Settings > Time Machine—if it’s mid-backup, pause or skip it, then eject.
After reformatting my two Time Machine externals, both are working now. Strangely, the crashing of my Photos external drive (Mac OS Extended Journaled), which I decided not to reformat, has also stopped.
That said, the Photos external can't be ejected because some "processes are in use" or something to that effect.
But no more kernal panics or constantly crashing apps. I can live with this.
Since your problem is totally different from the Authors you should start your own topic with details of your Mac, system, drive, etc . as described in this Apple document: Writing an Effective Apple Support Communities Question - Apple Community
That will get responses from those who will be more familiar with that problem then those coming here.
AlWeir wrote:
Was reading this morning that HFS+ volumes are not supported in Sequoia.
According to Apple's documentation, Sequoia supports HFS+.
File system formats available in Disk Utility on Mac - Apple Support (CA)
Tinx_Lvs_JC wrote:
Same problem! Since Sequoia, none of my ports/drives work so can't back up, can't use separate mouse/keyboard, can't use Thunderbolt. Did some research and have attempted everything that is within my ability BUT I can't do anything to do with coding. Apple - please fix this bug! It's a crucial issue.
This is a user-to-user forum. Apple does not monitor the community. If you want to make a report contact Apple through this link: Contact Apple Support
I have had a similar issue where my new MBP 16" (m4) running 15.3.1 would appear to randomly lockup. After several instances I tried various things while it was happening. This is what I noticed:
I examined all logs after the system became responsive again and the only thing I could find was in the wifi.log and referenced the keyboard and usb port the keyboard was plugged into.
Wed Feb 19 16:22:00.852 Usb Host Notification hostNotificationUSBDeviceRemoved USB2.0 Hub seqNum 3026 Total 0
Wed Feb 19 16:22:00.857 Usb Host Notification hostNotificationUSBDeviceInserted USB2.0 Hub isApple N seqNum 3026 Total 1
With that in mind, the next time it happened I immediately unplugged the external keyboard and the problem went away almost immediately. Something about that keyboard was causing the MBP to shut down the USB bus it was plugged into. It appears, since I have not looked deeper, that the internal keyboard, trackpad, and wifi are affected when that bus is shut down.
I have swapped out the cable on the keyboard, and ordered a backup/replacement keyboard just in case. Waiting to see if this happens again. This keyboard while less than a month old did work fine with my previous Intel based MBP (late 2019).
My thoughts are that either newer MBPs are more sensitive to USB power issues, or, something has changed in OS X that makes it handle USB power issues differently. I do hope a software update is able to address this. This is also not the first time I have had a Matias keyboard exibit electrical issues, so this may also be my last one from them.
Advice: Try swapping out cables and keep raising this issue. Also take a look at the wifi.log, since it appears to be the only place where USB issues get reported.
-- Frank
Bring up the Info pane for the drive - Control (right) - click and select Get Info. That will tell you what the format is:
If it is an older HFS formatted drive or one formatted in some Linux filesystem (e.g. Btrfs, ext3, ext4) variant, then it won't be recognized by Sequoia.
I've got the same issu with my I Mac and an external HDD. It stopped at 47-48% of the backing or stopped by itself!
Bad news. I'm not able to get a entire Bckup for my puter .
Well this worked for me like a charm. I should go to the staples automatically...1. Reset SMC (System Management Controller) - made disk visible. Big relief.
This is a USB3 power problem and it's been in Mac OS since Sonoma. I have an M1 MBP and I normally keep an external LaCie dive plugged in to a studio display. Occasionally I take the MacBook on photoshoots and tether to it while simultaneously writing the shots to an external LaCie HDD. Before Sonoma, I never had any problems. After I upgraded to Sonoma the HDD stopped working when plugged directly into the laptop. I took the MacBook and drive to a remote location and suddenly the disk kept randomly disconnecting and disappeared from disk utility when plugged directly into the MBP. When I plugged it into an older MacBook Air with Monterey on it the drive worked perfectly. I connected it the drive to the MBP using a powered USB hub and again, no problems. Sonoma completely screwed up USB power and it sounds like Apple haven't fixed it in Sequoia which is really poor considering there are thousands of reports of this problem. The disk format is irrelevant. Same problems with ExFAT, APFS, MacOS Extended. The only sure fix is to plug the drive in via a powered monitor or USB hub. Just don't get stuck on a photoshoot on a scottish mountain with no mains power and no way of backing up your shots.
Interesting. I have two SSD's running for backups running with Time Machine and CCC (both are Samsung) and have no problem with either app backing up to them since I upgraded to Sequoia. I don't partition my backup drives.
Bad news. I spent several hours at an Apple store yesterday and the outcome isn't pretty. The problem is not Sequoia itself, not power issues, but Sequoia over some previous operating system. I brought to the store 1. my new MBA M2 sequoia, 2. my old MBP Monterey, and 3. my LaCie 8TB drive I'd been using for Time Machine. In the end, they found in the back room a laptop on Seqouia, plugged the drive in...and it mounted no problem. (Apparently this Apple store has kept all their laptops but one on Sonoma. Hmmm.) The best we could come up with is that in all my transitions (2007-2024) from a MB on Leopard to a MBP on Mavericks to a MBP on Mojave to a MBA on Sonoma and now Sequoia, and all the OS updates between, something broke and they don't have a way to find the conflict. Cupertino could fix it. Will they? The only solution I can think of now is to copy all files and applications, wipe my laptop, install Sequoia on the blank laptop, then copy and install all my stuff on the completely new install of Sequoia. Or buy a new desktop drive. Or just use various other drives I have that work to distribute things around. Sitting there in the Apple store with this realization, I felt warmer toward Windows than I have ever felt before. I wish Honda made computers.
I found this thread when my new M4 Macbook Pro would not recognize an external SSD. Works fine on Ventura on another Macbook Pro. Did not show up on Sequoia 15.1, nor did it show up in Disk Utility. This was the change that fixed it. Changed to Always and immediately it showed up. Plus 1000 for this tip. Thanks!
Edit: I replied to AlWeir who suggested in Settings: Privacy and Security > Allow Accessories to Connect. That was the tip that fixed it. Thanks!
Sequoia 15.0 bugs - external hard drives
