USB flash drive occasionally won't mount

[mac_in_tosh]

I have an encrypted USB flash drive that I use often. Every once in a (great) while, it won't mount when I insert it. Rebooting seems to fix the issue but here's what's puzzling - when it won't mount, if I launch Disk Utility it shows the drive and if I click on the mount icon it will mount it. So what would cause the OS to not mount the drive if it knows it is there?

 

[chown33]

Does the non-mounting behavior occur only on a specific computer? If so, might it also be a specific USB socket?

USB connectors do wear out, and an intermittent connection can lead to infrequent failures.

 

[mac_in_tosh]

Does the non-mounting behavior occur only on a specific computer? If so, might it also be a specific USB socket?

USB connectors do wear out, and an intermittent connection can lead to infrequent failures.

It's just one computer and in the past I believe I have tried a different USB port. In any case, rebooting always seems to fix the problem so my inclination is that it's more of a software than hardware issue. And as I mentioned, the OS knows the drive is there and I can manually mount it using Disk Utility, but the OS won't automatically mount it.

By the way, it's an encrypted flash drive so when I say "mount" I mean put up the window asking for the password. I wonder if the encryption has something to do with the issue.

 

[Fishrrman]

You might start using a DIFFERENT flash drive for the encrypted storage.

Then take the problem drive, erase it, and use it for UNencrypted stuff.

Flash drives can just be flaky and unpredictable some times...

 

[NoBoMac]

What OS version? There is a thread for Mojave where some people are seeing this with encrypted USB drives (flash, spinners, SSD). Hit/miss of it occurring it seems, as I have yet to run into this with my encrypted media.

 

[mac_in_tosh]

You might start using a DIFFERENT flash drive for the encrypted storage.

Then take the problem drive, erase it, and use it for UNencrypted stuff.

Flash drives can just be flaky and unpredictable some times...

When this happened most recently, another encrypted flash drive also did not mount.

What OS version? There is a thread for Mojave where some people are seeing this with encrypted USB drives (flash, spinners, SSD). Hit/miss of it occurring it seems, as I have yet to run into this with my encrypted media.

High Sierra, 10.13.6.