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Monterrey MacOS 12.3.1 upgrade causing errors reading external drive used by 3rd party applications

I own a MacMini running Monterrey. After installing upgrade 12.3.1 two applications I regularly use and that have worked correctly for 2 years (OM Workspace and Nikon NX Studio) now cannot access the external hard drive on which the files they manage are located. An icon for the external drive appears on both applications but there are no directories or files visible. If it were one application only I'd suspect the application, but not 2. I'd appreciate any suggestions for resolving this problem.

Mac mini, macOS 12.3

Posted on Apr 19, 2022 9:32 AM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Apr 21, 2022 5:00 AM

while you cannot access files directly from the app, if you right click a file and do an "Open with..." and select the problem app do the files open?


This could indicate if there is a deep file system issue or an application API issue (Application Programming Interface) that the developers use to access the file system.


Also, is System Preferences->Security & Privacy under "Privacy", check the "Full Disk Access"and "Files and Folders" to see if the apps are properly enabled for external drive access. If they do seem to be enabled, try disabling and ten re-enabling. A preference file may have got borked.

13 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Apr 21, 2022 5:00 AM in response to whosiwhatsis

while you cannot access files directly from the app, if you right click a file and do an "Open with..." and select the problem app do the files open?


This could indicate if there is a deep file system issue or an application API issue (Application Programming Interface) that the developers use to access the file system.


Also, is System Preferences->Security & Privacy under "Privacy", check the "Full Disk Access"and "Files and Folders" to see if the apps are properly enabled for external drive access. If they do seem to be enabled, try disabling and ten re-enabling. A preference file may have got borked.

Apr 19, 2022 11:01 AM in response to Matti Haveri

Thanks for the reply. Definitely not encrypted. I've used the external drive for 3 years, it has only been connected to my MacMini, and honestly I don't remember formatting it or not. It displays correctly in Finder with all the files and directories visible and accessible, but in OM Workspace and NX Studio only the external drive itself is visible and none of its contents. Both applications show an error when double clicking on the external drive. Again, this has worked correctly for 2 years until 12.3.1 was installed, including with previous versions of Monterrey.

Apr 19, 2022 5:27 PM in response to whosiwhatsis

Yes, I've just discovered the same issue running a 27 inch 2020 iMac (3.6 GHz 10-Core Intel Core i9)


I have a WD Elements SE 5TB portable drive that has worked fine up until upgrading to 12.3.1 last week. The drive still mounts and shows in the finder and files are accessible through the finder but when I use other apps to view any files located on the drive it doesn't recognise them.


The apps I've tried are GoPro Quik (not really supported), Adobe Bridge, Illustrator and Premiere Pro, iMovie to name a few.


I've disconnected the drive and hooked it up to my new MacBook Pro 16 inch 2021 (Apple M1 Pro chip) and have had no trouble and am able to access the files using Adobe Bridge. Didn't try others.


Seems to me that the upgrade has messed something up with file permissions on external drives running off older machines.

Apr 27, 2022 9:59 PM in response to whosiwhatsis

After upgrading to Monterey 12.3.1 my external drive is not mounting and is no longer accessible. I was also using that drive as a Time Machine backup. I also tried to upgrade (same day) Photo Mechanic, a 3rd party photo program which I've used and successfully upgraded for years, and the Safari download worked properly but the .dmg file didn't mount in order to complete the upgrade.


Please advise.

Monterrey MacOS 12.3.1 upgrade causing errors reading external drive used by 3rd party applications

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