Mini 2 not showing up on Macbook 2020 with M1 chip running Big Sur

[Nakita Mosquita]

My new Mini 2 will not show up on my new Macbook (2020 with the Apple M1 chip) and running OS 11 / Big Sur. The mini shows up (mounts and opens Photos like it's supposed to) when plugged in to my older iMac. But will not show up on my new Macbook. I've tried two different sd cards....makes no difference. It's not the cable as the cable works when connecting to the iMac. Have searched the internet...the renaming of the sd card 'trick' did nothing. Help!

3 days later after some research and discussions with Apple.............Currently I can easily still connect the Mini 2 to my iMac (Catalina OS)and offload images / video to an external hard drive. While travelling, the ability to offload between my iphone and Macbook Air using air drop and or Quick transfer is easy and honestly doesn't seem to be that much slower. It does require battery power from the drone but I usually do my previews soon after a flight and trash material I don't want. I have learned I don't want to olug up drives and computers with tons of images / videos that can quickly use up space on iphones and laptops and eventually become so huge, I don't know where to start. My MBA has only a 256 gb drive so the external 2 TB works for me. I don't like pulling the sd card out each time I want to transfer. I'm quite sure the handshake issue between the two recently products (the MBA and Mini 2) will resolve itself.

 

[Howard70]

Hello Nakita:

I feel your pain & hope you get a resolution soon. I noticed that the cable you’re using works on the iMac. With your MacBook are you using a hub to connect or are you going directly to the MacBook’s USB 3 port?

In my case (an older MacBook and an MA2 so perhaps not relevant) I couldn’t get any cable to work directly to the slim USB 3 port, but when I used a hub and connected a cable with the older square end into the hub and then the slimmer USB 3 terminal into the aircraft everything worked well. Possibly not relevant in your case, but maybe worth a try if you have a hub and the other type of cable available. Just a thought.

Howard

 

[Nakita Mosquita]

Hello Nakita:

I feel your pain & hope you get a resolution soon. I noticed that the cable you’re using works on the iMac. With your MacBook are you using a hub to connect or are you going directly to the MacBook’s USB 3 port?

In my case (an older MacBook and an MA2 so perhaps not relevant) I couldn’t get any cable to work directly to the slim USB 3 port, but when I used a hub and connected a cable with the older square end into the hub and then the slimmer USB 3 terminal into the aircraft everything worked well. Possibly not relevant in your case, but maybe worth a try if you have a hub and the other type of cable available. Just a thought.

Howard

Not using a hub. Use the same Apple USB - micro cable for all my devices to connect to Macbook such as my Nikon camera. Almost certain it's a software bug.

 

[Chrislaf]

My new Mini 2 will not show up on my new Macbook (2020 with the Apple M1 chip) and running OS 11 / Big Sur. The mini shows up (mounts and opens Photos like it's supposed to) when plugged in to my older iMac. But will not show up on my new Macbook. I've tried two different sd cards....makes no difference. It's not the cable as the cable works when connecting to the iMac. Have searched the internet...the renaming of the sd card 'trick' did nothing. Help!

Is your older iMac running Big Sur as well? I don't have a newer MacBook Pro with the M1 chip so I am only guessing at the possible reasons why it won't mount. I do have Big Sur running on an older MacBook Pro and it works fine with all of my SD cards. My laptop has an SD card slot which I don't think yours does.

In your Finder preferences, General Tab, do you have 'External Disks' checked off for 'Show these items on the desktop:'? If not, check it off and see if that solves the problem. Otherwise the only other solution I can think of is to use an external card reader. Although, I can plug my drones into my laptop, I never do as it uses the battery power of the drone - I always remove the microSD card from the drone and use an external card reader in my laptop to dump the image files/videos.

Hope this helps.

Chris

 

[Howard70]

Not using a hub. Use the same Apple USB - micro cable for all my devices to connect to Macbook such as my Nikon camera. Almost certain it's a software bug.

With the Mavic Air 2’s those micro cables often won’t work due to some issue with how the DJI Assistant 2 program addresses USB connections combined with how the MacBooks and Mac OS access USB. If the same thing is true for the Mini 2, you might have success with the hub / hybrid cable solution - as you‘ve proposed it is a software bug, but one that involves “hardware“ as well. I use a hub with the cable that DJI supplied successfully but fail with every micro/micro cable I’ve tried.

Good luck & hope you find a solution soon!

Howard

 

[Nakita Mosquita]

Is your older iMac running Big Sur as well? I don't have a newer MacBook Pro with the M1 chip so I am only guessing at the possible reasons why it won't mount. I do have Big Sur running on an older MacBook Pro and it works fine with all of my SD cards. My laptop has an SD card slot which I don't think yours does.

In your Finder preferences, General Tab, do you have 'External Disks' checked off for 'Show these items on the desktop:'? If not, check it off and see if that solves the problem. Otherwise the only other solution I can think of is to use an external card reader. Although, I can plug my drones into my laptop, I never do as it uses the battery power of the drone - I always remove the microSD card from the drone and use an external card reader in my laptop to dump the image files/videos.

Hope this helps.

Chris

Thanks Chris. Imac is older and running Catalina. Items are toggled on in the finder. Thanks.

 

[Nakita Mosquita]

Thanks Chris. Imac is older and running Catalina. Items are toggled on in the finder. Thanks.

Hi Chris. The connection to the drone is via a USB-c cable as the newest Macbooks have 2 usb-c connections. I noted that my macbook has no internal card reader although it reads my garmin, extrnal drives, thumb drives and my camera, but no to the drone.

 

[DanMan32]

With the Mavic Air 2’s those micro cables often won’t work due to some issue with how the DJI Assistant 2 program addresses USB connections combined with how the MacBooks and Mac OS access USB. If the same thing is true for the Mini 2, you might have success with the hub / hybrid cable solution - as you‘ve proposed it is a software bug, but one that involves “hardware“ as well. I use a hub with the cable that DJI supplied successfully but fail with every micro/micro cable I’ve tried.

Good luck & hope you find a solution soon!

Howard

I can understand if Assistant doesn't work, as many protocols are used over USB with it, such as serial and network and Mac might not like it.

But without Assistant, accessing the storage should be standard, just like an external USB HD or thumb drive.

Sounds like a problem with the USB link layer itself.

 

[Jim Flannery K0UNX]

I noticed that my 2 year old iMac running Big Sur wouldn't see the card either, but that the card would work when plugged into a hub with my iPad Pro (2018). Since I had a working solution, I had put checking this out on the back burner, but will be watching this thread with interest. I'm inclined to think the problem might be with Big Sur, but it could be with the formatting of the card.

 

[Nakita Mosquita]

I can understand if Assistant doesn't work, as many protocols are used over USB with it, such as serial and network and Mac might not like it.

But without Assistant, accessing the storage should be standard, just like an external USB HD or thumb drive.

Sounds like a problem with the USB link layer itself.

Do you need to use assistant to support the mini 2? I have not. Is that the problem?

 

[Dale D]

My new Mini 2 will not show up on my new Macbook (2020 with the Apple M1 chip) and running OS 11 / Big Sur. The mini shows up (mounts and opens Photos like it's supposed to) when plugged in to my older iMac. But will not show up on my new Macbook. I've tried two different sd cards....makes no difference. It's not the cable as the cable works when connecting to the iMac. Have searched the internet...the renaming of the sd card 'trick' did nothing. Help!

Have you tried calling Apple Support? I find them tremendously helpful. If the first agent cannot help, kindly ask if a supervisor is available. call Apple Care. 1-800-275-2273. I think they may even be open on Sunday. Ask them to screen share with you. They are able to see your screen, and they can guide you to click here and there where needed to find the problem.

Dale
Miami

 

[Jim Flannery K0UNX]

PROBLEM SOLVED: This is a bug in Big Sur. Here is how to get around the problem until Apple fixes it:

1. Insert the SD Card
2. Open DISK UTIL
3. You will see the card, but it doesn't display a name
4. Name the card
5. Eject the card
6. Once named, the card will be visible, and your files will be accessible

 

[Nakita Mosquita]

PROBLEM SOLVED: This is a bug in Big Sur. Here is how to get around the problem until Apple fixes it:

1. Insert the SD Card
2. Open DISK UTIL
3. You will see the card, but it doesn't display a name
4. Name the card
5. Eject the card
6. Once named, the card will be visible, and your files will be accessible

Card is not visible in disk utility. Also, my new macbook air 2020 with the apple M1 chip shows no internal card reader on this mac. However, it still can read and access the sd cards in my digital camera....hmm. When I renamed the sd card on my iMac, it made no difference.

 

[Nakita Mosquita]

Have you tried calling Apple Support? I find them tremendously helpful. If the first agent cannot help, kindly ask if a supervisor is available. call Apple Care. 1-800-275-2273. I think they may even be open on Sunday. Ask them to screen share with you. They are able to see your screen, and they can guide you to click here and there where needed to find the problem.

Dale
Miami

Was on the phone with Apple yesterday. They concluded that while under warranty, I could send it back. Really wonder if it is normal that the MBA 2020 does not have an internal card reader. If I used an external card reader, would I be able to mount the sd card.

Card is not visible in disk utility. Also, my new macbook air 2020 with the apple M1 chip shows no internal card reader on this mac. However, it still can read and access the sd cards in my digital camera....hmm. When I renamed the sd card on my iMac, it made no difference.

My new MBA shows no internal card reader. Is that the issue?

 

[Jim Flannery K0UNX]

Card is not visible in disk utility. Also, my new macbook air 2020 with the apple M1 chip shows no internal card reader on this mac. However, it still can read and access the sd cards in my digital camera....hmm. When I renamed the sd card on my iMac, it made no difference.

Darn! Well, I don't have one with the M1 chip, so that could be the issue. Maybe there are two problems, one with Big Sur and one with the M1 chip.

 

[RoundaboutRider]

Hello all. I'v got a brand new MacBook Air M1 as well and tried connecting my Mini 2 and it didn't show up in Disk Utility, the Photos app or Finder. I tried the same drone and cable with my older MacBook Pro Intel i7 and it worked a treat.

As an experiment I tried using the same cable with my Mavic 2 Pro and connected it to my MacBook Air M1 and it shows up perfectly in Finder, the Photos app, and Disk Utility. I can only conclude that the issue lies with the firmware in the Mini 2 and will need DJI to fix compatibility with Apple's M1 chip for the Mini 2. Strangely though the Mavic 2 Pro shows up nicely as I said.

I also tried a Thunderbolt 3 hub and the SD card shows up perfectly so it's most likely the firmware in the drone.

Any bets if DJI or Apple will blink and come up with a fix first?

 

[reaperman]

I recently bought the M1 mini, my first Mac. I never had a issue with the M1 reading a memory card, even if it isnt named. However, I never plugged the drone into the computer to transfer data. On my Mac, the memory card will show up on the top, righthand side of the screen with a card icon stating "no name" as a name. I have used my 10 year old card reader on the mac, and recently bought a docking station with a card reader, both are recognized. However, I have a external hard drive that would show up, but not read. That was due to the file format being a Windows thing, ntfs. I admit, I'm not a computer guy, and there is a big learning curve with a Mac for me. For some reason Apple can make the simplest task, difficult.

 

[Nakita Mosquita]

Hello all. I'v got a brand new MacBook Air M1 as well and tried connecting my Mini 2 and it didn't show up in Disk Utility, the Photos app or Finder. I tried the same drone and cable with my older MacBook Pro Intel i7 and it worked a treat.

As an experiment I tried using the same cable with my Mavic 2 Pro and connected it to my MacBook Air M1 and it shows up perfectly in Finder, the Photos app, and Disk Utility. I can only conclude that the issue lies with the firmware in the Mini 2 and will need DJI to fix compatibility with Apple's M1 chip for the Mini 2. Strangely though the Mavic 2 Pro shows up nicely as I said.

I also tried a Thunderbolt 3 hub and the SD card shows up perfectly so it's most likely the firmware in the drone.

Any bets if DJI or Apple will blink and come up with a fix first?

Well that’s good to know! I wonder what cable I should purchase? What is being plugged in to your Macbook Air? Ie.... are you using a USB-c adapter? I am.

 

[Nakita Mosquita]

I'm contacting DJI to-day to determine if they are aware of this issue. 2 very new products released about the same time...understandable that they are not handshaking properly.

 

[RoundaboutRider]

Well that’s good to know! I wonder what cable I should purchase? What is being plugged in to your Macbook Air? Ie.... are you using a USB-c adapter? I am.

The best cable to use is a Thunderbolt 3 40GBps capable active cable at under 0.5m in length. Unfortunately the Thunderbolt 3 / USB 3 standards are a mess and incorrect cables (especially with the M1 as I've found with my hub) can lead to connection errors.

Note I used the above cable to connect the Mini 2/Mavic 2 Pro and only the Mavic 2 Pro connected. For reference the M1 Macs support USB 4 with Thunderbolt 3. I don't use any dongles so I am on a pure USB-C to USB-C connector.