Semi-OT: Garmin Varia – "disk not ejected properly" on Mac

[smontanaro]

I often use my computers to charge my bike devices, one of them being my Garmin Varia. I was mystified why my Mac kept popping up the "disk not ejected properly" message when I unplugged my Varia (even after "ejecting" the disk).

Today, I tracked down the problem. If I go to the desktop and "eject" the Garmin "disk," MacOS (Sequoia 15.1) will automatically remount it after a couple seconds. The workaround is to quickly unplug it after ejecting it, but it seems this auto-remount business shouldn't even happen. Poking around in System Settings I found "Allow accessories to connect." I changed the setting from "Automatically When Unlocked" to "Ask Every Time." I then plugged in the Varia. Yay! It asked. I allowed it to connect. Then I ejected the disk, and... Instead of asking again (isn't that what "every time" means?) it auto-remounted it again.

Any other Mac users experiencing this behavior? Is there a fix? A better workaround?

[Spaghetti Legs]

I’ve gotten so I just unplug it and x out the dialog box. I’ve never noticed a difference between doing that and properly ejecting.

[thwart]

No expert here, that’s for sure…

But having used a Mac for 30+ yrs, it seems there’s a very low threshold for popping up that particular error message. Knock on wood, I cannot recall one episode of the data on the disc involved becoming compromised/un-readable, or the disc subsequently refusing to mount. So at least from one user’s experience, while you do want to use ‘correct practices’ here, I wouldn’t get too concerned.

If you changed the system settings and it’s not acting as it should by preserving that change, a restart might be worth a try. But you likely already thought of that.

[unterhausen]

Not ejecting properly would be a problem if data transfer was going on. If you are just charging, nothing will happen. 20 years ago they might have left some data in a cache on the computer waiting for just the right time to write it to the removable device, but no system does that nowadays. I have never looked at a varia as a disk, so I'm not sure what data it might have. But it also occurs to me that the garmin app might be looking at it and that is causing you this problem