Some 2020 MacBook Pro and MacBook Air Users Experiencing Issues With USB 2.0 Accessories

[germinator]

This used to be one of Apple's strength. It just (used to) work.

The current crop of Apple young engineers--who had never used or seen a Classic Mac-- managed to screw USB 2.0 up.

Sad.

 

[MikeS88299]

Having the same issue. Searched all over and found nothing so I am glad this article showed up. Brand new 13 inch 2020 MBP. Same Satechi side hub I used on a 15 inch 2016 MBP that worked for years without issue. I can still return this for a month so it may go back as this is literally the most basic requirement I have.

 

[Shinydesert]

It is not just the USB issue, it is also the high temps on the 2020 13inch pro, it runs very hot under a very normal load such as Safari. Therefore the fans star to run like crazy.

 

[ffaBR]

Not only with USB 2 devices and MB 2020.
Using MBA 2018 and same problems here.. and with USB 3 devices. All were working fine until 10.15.4... the nightmare begins. Sure is Catalina bug...

 

[trusso]

"It's not a bug, it's a feature."

Thanks for continuing to flush your good name down the toilet, Apple.

 

[Mike in SF]

Just happened to me when setting up my new MacBook Air from an external HD time machine. I initially blamed the external.

 

[throAU]

Don't blame the people. Blame Apple, the lack of consistency of the usb-c port, and the device manufacturers. We all knew device manufacturers as a whole would be slow to adopt. Also, USB-C ports have generally show inconsistencies with cables and dongles. The devices I develop for don't have USB-C on them. Apple themselves still have lightning despite pushing USB-C on their macs. It's a bit of a cluster**** right now, and they already announced the next iteration of USB-C.

That won't be the situation forever and by removing legacy ports Apple is forcing adoption.

You may not like it at the moment, but unless someone does this (and Apple is about the only vendor in the position to do so due to leverage with macOS), manufacturers will never migrate to USB type C. They'll keep pumping out USB-A stuff only and before you know it we're dealing with the brain damaged USB type A connector for ANOTHER 23 years.

Screw that. I'm willing to deal with some pain in the interim for a couple of years to get rid of the legacy crap.

The only reason USB-A took off in the first place is because Apple did the same thing with the iMac abandoning all the old legacy Apple ports; if they didn't do it we'd still be dealing with rs232, ps2, centronics, etc. ports everywhere.

Left to the rest of the industry (if Apple didn't force it), we'd still be buying PS2 keyboards and mice - because some PCs STILL ship with those ports.

 

[blehbear]

Had the same issue with the audio cutting out on my DisplayPort connected monitor with the Thunderbolt USB-C Pro Dock from CalDigit. The latest MacOS update appears to have fixed it but I did do a fresh install from apple's servers so that could be a possible fix. (2020 13" 10th Gen MBP)

 

[Bokito]

At our office a lot of people can’t even connect old USB Apple keyboards to a varied range of USB-C MacBook Pros and Airs most of the time. This is since Catalina. Those who are using Mojave are fine. This sounds like the same Catalina issue. Just wondering what took you guys so long to pick this up. I guess there are too many Catalina issues to report all. :/

 

[rezenclowd3]

As a shop that specializes in repairing macs (was a PSP but dropped working with apple as I spent 50% of my time dealing with getting paid and trying to keep the silly status), I will say, these USB-C Apple laptops are a royal pain. I am now moving away from Mac OS because they are quite unfixable at, with no reasonable cost to fix/replace.

 

[Tech198]

Power issue? Sounds like it.

 

[otternonsense]

Dunno if relevant but I have a problem with connecting to some external monitors (esp. Dell ones) via a hub since the last Catalina updates. The system recognises the monitor connection via HDMI, the MBP screen changes/extends, but the monitor remains totally blank. No matter how much I've fiddled with settings, performed SMC resets etc. nothing has helped. 2019 16" MBP here.

This all-USBC donglehell remains a total nuisance, can't describe how angry I am. From the butterfly to the Touch Bar and from the I/O purgatory to unacceptable macOS quality, Cook has been an absolute disaster for all things Mac and OSX. Hope some heads finally roll at Apple.

 

[lxmeta]

Returned my MBA 2019 under lemon law (full refund). The TB3 was broken by design, and I made it reproducible with either a TB Monitor or an eGPU. Looks like they fixed TB3 with the new chipset and new CPUs, but now messed up USB. I am not surprised. Waiting here on my 2017 MB12" for finally a trouble free MBP to come up again.
Apple clearly has an issue, and I think it starts from the very top!

 

[ksec]

And I have been criticising USB for years. At least Macrumors seems to be gaining traction that USB is not the solution to everything.

And why I have been vocal and supporting of Lightning rather than USB-C iPhone.

Leave my ( comparatively speaking ) simple iPhone alone.

 

[yurc]

I wonder if this have relation with OSX 15 ports USB limits restrictions.

 

[ducknalddon]

This used to be one of Apple's strength. It just (used to) work.

Only if you have rose tinted glasses. My original iMac used to kernel panic every time I unplugged a USB stick, even though it had been unmounted.

Last weekend I spent three hour getting my wife's Windows laptop to update and apply security patches. I am starting to think we make this stuff far too complicated.

 

[yurc]

I think for someone who had USB issue or such, you can digging Console and then eyeballing for any error with usb related for additional clue. Or simply do SMC reset.

In my old case, I have USB 2.0 device not detected but powered on, when checking I had find T2 chips was preventing device driver from loading. Took out them and attach on older Mac Pro which have no T2 and it detected properly.

I am afraid T2 on newer MBP are more aggressive in terms allowing which device can be mounted into system.No jokes, T2 can prevent some USB devices loaded into system.

 

[Brian Clifford]

As a related question, do better quality 3rd. party adapters (like Satechi as one example) support software updates to devices that Apple release periodically?

 

[clangers23]

This is the issue with shifting all your legacy interfaces to external devices. Welcome to a world of variable interconnectivity issues because we've introduced 3rd parties into the process and an additional connection step.

An easy way to avoid this would have been for Apple to always include an approved legacy dongle with your expensive laptop. Obviously Tim just saw this as a new revenue stream.

And good lord, sort out the T2 chip already. Apple becoming more like (old) Microsoft by the day.

 

[d0nK]

They saw sense to bring back the good keyboard. Now they need to bring back the good USB ports.... and MagSafe.
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the 2015 MBP had the perfect amount of ports. SD card and HDMI should be on a high end laptop!

A lot of things have been regressing whilst under the banner of "progression" since 2015. I'm half-thinking to just buy a 2015 model instead of the 2020.

 

[Purrged]

The only reason USB-A took off in the first place is because Apple did the same thing with the iMac abandoning all the old legacy Apple ports; if they didn't do it we'd still be dealing with rs232, ps2, centronics, etc. ports everywhere.

Left to the rest of the industry (if Apple didn't force it), we'd still be buying PS2 keyboards and mice - because some PCs STILL ship with those ports.

Yeah, that's some pretty strong revisionist history right there. I lived through that transition while working at a Mac/PC shop as a Mac specialist and then later at a Mac specialty store. I saw that transition happen firsthand, and it certainly didn't happen because of the iMac. There were a few companies that already traditionally catered to Apple users (Epson, Agfa, Lacie, Yamaha, Wacom) who came out with a few USB devices early on, but those were generally relegated to low-end products. The few who tried using USB on higher-end machines had a miserable experience (ask anyone who used a Kodak dye-sub printer in the early 00's. Hooked up to a PC using parallel, prints would come out immediately. A Mac using USB and you were waiting upwards of several minutes before the printer would even kick in). Higher-end devices started supporting Firewire, but it never did completely take over and for all intents and purposes, FW800 was a flop primarily because the PC world ignored it, and Thunderbolt was following that same tragectory and will only finally become ubiquitous because intel is finally opening up the licensing of the technology.

 

[Marx55]

macOS 10.12.6 (16G2136) Sierra (not previous versions) also fails sometimes to mount external USB (whatever version) disks. You must unplug and plug the disk for it to show. Or connect other extra disk (sometimes, more than one) to show the first one). No problem when booting from external disk. No problem with Thunderbolt 3; only with USB as said.

 

[Purrged]

Again, I can afford the $20 for a couple of USB cables and another $20 for an ethernet adapter. With over three decades as a systems and electrical engineer, mostly focusing on signal processing, I've needed to adapt to changing technology many times. Never has been a problem. If you want to cry about it, that's fine with me.

"I can afford" is different from "it is a good deal". I'm sure most people can "afford" to buy all the extra stuff that is needed to make a $3,000 laptop work with all your existing peripherals as well as a $900 laptop does, but that's hardly the point. Either the extra expense is providing a benefit to you, the user, or it is not. In this case, not only is it not providing you an actual benefit, it is actually costing you productivity thanks to a broken implementation. Hopefully for the sake of your own customers you don't follow Apple's lead in the systems engineering or customer service department. I know my customers certainly wouldn't stand for it, but hey, I guess I could just call them "crybabies" when they complain, instead of actually look at what I can do to improve their experience.

 

[JosephAW]

Good thing Apple doesn't sell new iPhone devices with a USB 2 cable, oh wait they do! Lightning cable!

 

[Ethosik]

"As a professional" sure sounds like your definition of professional is pretty narrow. Don't know if you realize this, but there is more to being "a professional" than sitting in your own home office with your copy of Photoshop and Final Cut Pro editing with your own hardware. Some of us actually have customers with their own offices and places of business to visit and do actual work at. Your customers might always have USB-C ethernet connections in every office, with a USB-C TV to hook up to for your presentation and a USB-C printer to print to when you have a deliverable to share. Mine, unfortunately, still use good old fashioned Ethernet, and HDMI and regular USB printers. Because, as much as Mr. Cook would like you to think that USB-A and Ethernet and HDMI are obsolete, they aren't. And by all accounts from this very forum, it sounds like those "old" on-board things have given a far better experience to "professionals" when they are on-board a computer than they do when they are wrapped up in the latest shiny dongle.

You, "as a professional" might be okay with spending more than you really need to in terms of both money and productivity and call it "the price of progress", but most professionals just call that spending money for the sake of spending money.

As a professional, I still deal with a client that has VGA setups, but I do not wish ANY laptop have VGA ports.