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

[benb]

This setting kind of drives me nuts. I almost always eject stuff and unplug it as soon as I'm done syncing data because of issues, so I haven't run into this with any garmin device. I keep regular old charging blocks at the desk so that I can charge stuff without it being connected to the computer.

But this setting isn't that old in Mac OS. And it drives me up the wall with the Thunderbolt docks. I have one dock at work and one at home and I am constantly having trouble with this accessory security stuff making one of the monitors not turn on or something.

At work I am constantly getting up from my desk and going to meetings, then plugging in again. So I might have to plug and unplug stuff a couple times.

"Always trust accessories" still seems to be the least annoying.

On top of this my work computer has Crowdstrike installed (mandatory). It interferes with accessories too, because it disables functions on some of your devices.

For example I cannot do a firmware update on something like a Garmin on that computer because Crowdstrike blocks it.