USB hub failing under Monterey

Anyone seeing trouble with external USB hubs after installing the Monterey developer beta?

I have an ikling FX-1940E hub that I've been using with my M1 MacBook Air. Everything worked fine under Big Sur, and still does on another machine still running Big Sur, but I can't connect a trackball or keyboard via the hub's USB 2.0 or 3.0 ports to the Air since installing Monterey. The hub's VGA port still works on Monterey; I haven't been able to test the other ports yet. Also, a different hub (with fewer ports, so it can't simply replace the ikling) does work.

I've reported the issue to Apple using the feedback assistant. Any suggestions for anything else I can do at my end?

My USB hub keeps disconnecting and reconnecting intermittently. This is on Monterey 12.3.1 on a Macbook Air with the M1 chip.

Same for me with a M1 MacBook Pro 13" - since 12.3.1 I can't connect to my kindle or other e-readers, regardless of cable - I've tried several cables and adaptors. All of them have been working fine before upgrading. This is really a big problem.

M1 Macbook Pro 13", same here, external hubs are broken ...

I have the same issue with original Apple hardware:

  • MacBook Pro 14 M1
  • USB Apple Keyboard
  • USB-C Ethernet Adapter with 3 Port USB 2.0 Hub

After updating to 12.3.1 Monterey the keyboard worked fine at first. Later, sometimes, it would not be recognized after sleep mode. Unpluging and pluging it in again fixed the problem. But now this trick does no longer work. The keyboard is not recognized anymore.

Funny thing, the same keyboard works fine on another Laptop and another USB Apple Keyboard works fine as well.

This issue got much worse after I upgraded to 12.3.1 on my MBA M1. I have a Belkin Thunderbolt 3 Pro Dock, even though it was fiddly to get USB working sometimes and the monitor I used to manage after reconnecting a cable here and there, now I simply don't get anything from the dock except for power.

SD card reader isn't available, none of the USB devices I have connected are detected (my studio mixer, MIDI interface, etc.), nor my external display works through the dock, no amount of restarts, shut downs and ordering of when to connect what has helped, it's been rendered completely useless.

MacBook Air (13-inch 2020) M1, running Monterey 12.3.1 and a Belkin Thunderbolt 3 Pro Dock. The issue got much worse with 12.3.1, my dock is not detected at all, no USB ports work and neither does the SD card reader. USB-C connection to my Dell U3419W was already very fidgety before but now it's not working as well.

What a mess.

I can't believe this is still a problem.... WHAT ARE YOU DOING, APPLE!?!

My 2019 Macbook Pro is basically not connecting any of my USB hubs properly anymore after upgrading to Monterey 12.3.1 (which I couldn't regret more if I tried).

Weird thing is my Startech USB 3.0 hub works with 3 of my RAIDs, but pluggin in a simple external 1 TB WD passport doesn't draw any power. The hub is connected using a USB 3.0 to USB-C cable.

I have several USB hubs and docks (USB hubs with things like card readers, HDMI output, Ethernet ports, USB-PD (Power Delivery) pass-through, etc.) All of these hubs and docks work fine on an Intel MacBook Pro running Big Sur, never had any issues with any of them. Yet all of them are failing in one way or another on an M1 MacBook Pro running Monterey (12.3.1).

What usually doesn't work is USB-3, no matter if USB 3.0 (5 Gbit/s, aka 3.1 Gen 1, aka 3.2 Gen 1) or USB 3.1 Gen 2 (10 Gbit/s aka USB 3.2 Gen 2). These ports do have power but no device is working plugged into them. If they do have USB 2 ports (480 Mbit/s), these do work most of the time (a bit unreliable but I can always get these to work). What sometimes does work are USB-C ports, yet it's kinda random if they will support USB 3.x speeds or just USB 2 speeds. HDMI output seems to always work for me, card readers and Ethernet usually works but I found both to be unreliable (e.g. sometimes Ethernet seems to work but cannot ever obtain an IP address using DHCP and when assigning one from hand, nothing is ping-able).

It makes no difference if these are active or passive hubs/docks. If they are active, they fail, no matter if powered by an external power supply or not. It also makes no difference if the PD pass-through is being used or not to pass power to the MacBook.

When plugging an USB 2 stick into an USB 3 port and then un- and re-plugging the hub/dock to the MacBook multiple times, sometimes it starts to work as expected, as the port correctly works at USB 2 port in that case but even that is random. It always works well for real USB 2 only ports.

So my conclusion is, that the USB 3.x implementation in Monterey is somehow seriously broken and cannot correctly support USB 3 hubs. It explains why USB 2 only ports are working correctly as an USB 3 hub must include an USB 2 hub for USB 2 functionality (these two USB versions are strictly separated Hub-wise, see USB 3 standard). It explains why HDMI works, as it's not transported via USB protocol at all (it's transported via USB-C cable but uses dedicated lines on that cable just for that purpose). It explains why sometimes card readers work (as they are internally connected via USB 2 in some cases) and why Ethernet is unreliable (it is using USB 3 but may be able to fallback to 2, yet this can be an issue if you have a Gbit-link but the port is only connected via 480 Mbit/s). And it explains why plugging devices directly into the USB port with any hub in between does work just fine, as in that case no hub support is required.

As the MacBook has internal hubs, apparently the implementation can handle some hubs correctly and if you are lucky and your external one behaves exactly like the internal one, it seems to work, so very few hubs seems to work okay but the majority of hubs does not. And again, these hubs work perfectly fine on older MacBooks, often even on newer ones if the still run Big Sur, as well as on all PCs with Linux and Windows I've tested them with.

Yet 3 major Monterey updates later and almost a year after the first Monterey Beta that already showed this problem, Apple has still been unable to fix this serious issue. Note that this is the second time in the history of macOS where Apple totally messed up the USB stack of the system. There has already been an update (I don't remember which macOS it was) that broke USB 2 functionality in such a way, that many devices completely failed after the update, especially multimedia devices (sound cards, video sticks, and so on). I remember that incident as I was developing USB device drivers myself at that time.

Same issue as everyone. I have three different OWC docks to play around with and have seen different things. It was stable for awhile but kept ejecting external drives. After installing 12.4, it's totally game over. It won't keep any dock active for more than a second before ejecting. I've already been through OWC support, I've installed the software they've asked to install and followed their steps. I currently have no ethernet which is mandatory for my job and the computer is useless for me without external harddrives.

I had a similar problem with a Macbook Air m1, after installing Monterey 12.3 , with one USB port, the other was working. I tried almost everything and nothing solved the problem. Finally, what worked for me, withouth any explanation, was to take the USB charger cable from the power supply, change its position, and suddenly it worked. The crazy thing is that after, I connected another hub to the same port that was not working, and now works everything ok.

That this issue persists is a huge eff you from Apple to its customers. $4000 for a computer that won't let me plug in my $29 keyboard.

I've had the same issue on 2018 MBP 15" with the latest Monterey 12.5 Beta. I have two 32" Samsung monitors connected via usb-c and a wavlink dock which were immediately no longer recognised after upgrading to this beta. I have tried all forms of restarts but without success.

Omg, I am just in hysterics! I've learned how to deal with a monitor, I bought type-c cables to connect directly to mac. Today I updated my mac to version 12.4 and guess what? It just stopped charging via usb-hub. Are you kidding me, Apple?

On top of this bullsh!t, if a USB device (like an audio interface) loses power while connected, the whole computer has to reboot. f!ck this, f!ck you apple.

I faced the same issue today with my company macbook M1 pro Monterey 12.4 . I'd contact Apple support, and they send me a "troubleshoot guide" which basically says :

  1. power off and boot on Safe Mode. Test if everything works, otherwise reinstall OS.
  2. If everything works on previous step, it should be resolved if you do a restart. If don't get resolved with a normal restart, try to use a different user. so I created a local user and boot using that one, and surprise surprise it worked fine!.

Then restarted again and logged with my own user (company one), and everything was working as expected. Monitor, keyboard, pendrive, mouse, and it is charging normally.

It looks like it was "stuck" , I hope this comment helps someone

USB hub failing under Monterey
 
 
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