Sequoia 15.0 bugs - external hard drives

In my case, since I installed Sequoia, I can hardly ever eject any flash memory. It always tells me that I can't because they are in use by some other program. I have to force eject or shut down the laptop. With every upgrade I see Apple's quality and confidence drop a lot!

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 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.

The exact same thing is happening to me since installing Sequoia! As a photographer it’s a critical bug that needs fixing!

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.

Hi to all.

After working ( almost 8 hours on phone) with a senior Apple “GO”, restarting my puter, external hard disk; removing VPN, TrendMicro, FileVault,; searching for a virus, the problem stay:

my external disk ( a new one) never pass through the 60 Go even if the percentage go from 0 to 56.7%, 56,8% etc!

the conclusion of the Apple Senior: the problem is on the Sequoia itself. People’s working with Apple have to “ vote” , depending of the problem’s calls, for putting a kind of problems on the top of the pile, as the problem of TimeMachine, for working on the resolution! So the 15.1.1 version won’t help us. So wait for an Apple upgrade that saying: It will help the bug of Time Machine. Don’t try a third party essay, Don’ t buy a new external HD, your old one will eventually function as normal after!

So: be patients!!

I have finally found you!!! After years of searching, going to several Apple and repair stores, being utterly frustrated on line with tech support and most importantly, losing several external drives as well, this thread with others in the same position finally revealed itself. As we are into 2025, and I have owned two 2022 MBP's that have both corrupted ex drives with no explanation or fix. I have stopped using any traditional ex drives on it and use only thumb drives or air drop to transfer files to a 2013 MBP w/ two USB ports that connects all other drives. I have had to duplicate backups on several drives after permanently losing more than 5Ts of photo/video/web content after connecting drives to this MBP - regardless of hub use or not. They have failed catastrophically and I haven't understood Apple's deafening silence or lack of ability to assist us. We are mostly all long-time users who have come to expect a high level of compatibility between our readers, drives, editing programs and phones and have invested significantly in Apple products from the late nineties till now. The product cost has not decreased, while you deliver something that causes irreparable damage to our valued output, with no solution??? You must do better. Considering using a cloud service before I lose the refurb 2013 that has remained a work horse far longer than it should. But thank God I have it or I would really be screwed. Have been scared to plug in a drive since this last update since the one before, after successfully using 2, 1T ex drives to jump between my mac's for several months, they too suddenly stopped working and only one has successfully resuscitated!! I am ENRAGED what gives?? Just tell me what not to do and I won't, but please ACTUALLY ACKNOWLEDGE THIS IS A PROBLEM, say something AND FIX THIS PROBLEM.

[Edited by Moderator]

FINALLY FIXED THIS PAIN IN THE *%$£$*

Heres how:

Update to sequoia 15.3.1

Then reset SMC.

Resetting SMC (System Management

Controller)

The SMC controls low-level hardware functions, including:

• Power management (battery issues, random shutdowns)
• Sleep/wake behavior
• Fan speed and thermal management
• LED indicators and display backlight
• External device detection (including SSDs)

How to Reset SMC

For Macs with Apple Silicon (M1/M2/M3)

• Just shut down your Mac and wait 30 seconds before turning it back on.
• SMC resets automatically on startup.

For Intel-based Macs

1. Shut down your Mac.
2. Press and hold Shift + Control + Option +
3. Power button for 10 seconds.
4. Release all keys and turn your Mac back on.

Then Reset NVRAM

Resetting NVRAM (Non-Volatile RAM)

NVRAM stores small but crucial system settings like:

• Startup disk selection
• Sound volume
• Display resolution
• Time zone settings
• Kernel panic logs (sometimes causing crashes)

How to Reset NVRAM

1. Shut down your Mac.
2. Turn it on and immediately press and hold
3. Option + Command + P + R.
4. Keep holding the keys for about 20 seconds.
5. Your Mac will restart, and NVRAM will be reset.

I use Logic Pro and use an SSD and run my projects from it. Every day since updating to sequoia it would eject itself at random times, Logic would crash. Then when I did want to eject my drive it wouldn't do it. Was driving me CRAZY. Hope this helps some of you!

R

Same here: after Sequoia update, randomly I can't "ejects" external drivers (all types)

Adding my voice--I have been having the same problem where disks both will sometimes not mount (doesn't appear in disk utility either), and once they finally do, will not eject (dialog saying the disk is in use by some other program). Apple, please fix this! I'm having to shut down my laptop every time I want to unplug a drive to avoid force ejecting, and it's making me nervous that something is going to get corrupted. This is on my M1 MacBook Pro.

Unfortunately, I learned about this issue all too late. I had attempted to let apple sync my music and realized the company was deleting my files from my computer. I tried to restore everything to no avail and my backup has been corrupted and is inaccessible. Now, trying to restore music with my CDs and my external CDROM drive does not work. Fantastic. Thanks, Apple...

I want to add my voice to this.

Since updating to Sequoia in November, 2024, neither of my external USB-C drives have functioned normally: spontaneously unmounting; Photos (my library lives on an external drive) having to quit, rebuild or restore from iCloud; Time Machine backups via USB-C taking FOUR HOURS to complete, even when no files have been changed or added.

But the kicker is that since these problems began in December I've had EIGHT kernal panics, including three in the last 24 hours. I thought it might be an incompatability issue with the external drives' HFS+ journaled extended file systems vs. APFS, so I chucked five years of Time Machine backups, and erased and reformattted the Time Machine drive to to APFS—and halfway through the first backup the process simply quit, and then crashed my iMac simultaneously, too.

I've run Diagnositcs ("No issues found"), and started up in Safe mode. I've reset the SMC and zapped the PRAM. I ran EtreCheck, and it was clean. The only thing I can think of is that something is causing the OS to not play properly with USB-C. (FYI, the drives are both G Tech G-Drive mobile, 2TB and 4TB.) I've unmounted and put both drives aside to see if the panics continue.

I'm currently backing up—flawlessly—to an ancient Seagate USB 2.0 drive. I can't be sure, of course, but it seems that USB-C is the culprit.

iMac, late 2020 (last Intel model)

Sequoia 15.2

32G RAM

I can tell you this is still happening even with wall-powered USB hubs. I plug in a perfectly fine SATA drive, and the screen freezes after 2 minutes, and my M4 mini restarts. I had similar issues with my mom's M2 Mini, but luckily, she's still on Ventura. So the problem at least can be mitigated with apps like Amphetamine. I do really believe this is a Mac OS problem. At first I thought it was something with the M processor and power sharing issues, but I don't think that's the case. Something changed since Ventura onward. I still haven't seen Apple address it in any way. I can get external NVME drives plugged directly into the thunderbolt ports to work. But it's not economical at the moment to shift my entire SATA storage over to SSDs. I have about half and half right now. The fact that we've had 3 full complete versions of Mac OS with this issue and it still hasn't been fixed is mind-boggling. And the fact that we can walk over to my dad's old Intel iMac running Monterey and plug in whatever hard drive we need to access and have zero issues is a large problem. I'd really like to know what other photographers are doing? Do you just spend the cash and go for really expensive large-capacity SSDs?

My Mac Mini M4 came with Sequoia pre-installed so there was never any other OS on it. Yet my external drives are still randomly disconnecting. It happens several times a day. It has nothing to do with how many previous versions of the OS you have had installed. Most people did not have this issue until updating to Sequoia.

Last night:

Three drives that work fine on my 2016 MBP (on Monterey: too old to upgrade) are not mounting on my New MBA M2 Sequoia. Two Lacie disks ask permission then don't mount. Lacie 8TB asks permission repeatedly but does not mount. Both Lacie drives are several years old. A Seagate just spins for a while with no recognition. Lacie: 8TB powered HDD and 2TB rugged non-powered HDD; Seagate 2TB pocket HDD.

I used MBP to copy drive to drive. I had problems copying data over from one drive to another bc of old format (wrong format. Reformatted on MBP those drives with problems). All are now APFS case sensitive (to accept old files with case sensitive files). All drives, regardless of age or format, mount with no issues on my MBP Monterey.

Today:

Lacie rugged 2TB mounts in Finder and in DU and identifies as APFS. First Aid runs. Unmounting in Finder does not unmount in DU. Formatted on MBA to APFS case sensitive to see whether that fixes the APFS/Mac Journaled weirdness. As it formats the drive, DU says it's formatting to Mac Journaled. When format is done, DU then identifies the drive as APFS. Lacie 8TB still asks permission over and over and does not mount in DU or in FInder. Seagate unchanged--then tried again; see below.

All problem drives continue to mount without issue on MBP Monterey. Seagate also formats on MBP as Mac Journaled then reports as APFS.

Final state: 2 TB Lacie Rugged works. 8TB Lacie powered asks permission but does not mount in DU or Finder. Seagate now mounts without difficulty--I discovered that the USB cable was not pushed fully in. When formatting the Seagate yet again as APFS on MBA, DU reports it is formatting it as Mac Journaled. When format is complete, DU reports it as APFS.

All drives were plugged every time directly into both MBP and MBA. Seagate uses a USB A to USB C adapter. All others are USB C. Somewhere in this mess I followed Apple support instructions to upgrade from Sonoma to Sequoia. But whatever problems I was having on Sequoia happened on Sonoma as well.

Clearly Drive age is a factor. Both the 8TB and 2TB Lacie drives are at least five years old. Seagate is probably older. Power also a factor as the Seagate that mounted in MBP but did not in MBA was only half plugged in at the drive end. When fully plugged in, it mounted immediately.

I'd like to have all of them work, since they do actually work, just not with this MBA on Sequoia. The 8TB is my TM drive. Having just spent over $1k on a MBA, I don't want to buy a new desk drive as well.