I formatted a USB flash drive with Disk Utility (Mac OS extended, journaled) and quit DU. I then copied two files to the drive. When I tried to unmount the drive, I got a message that a program was using it and I was given the option to Force Eject (with a warning that data might be lost) or cancel. I opted to cancel and then restarted the computer.

After restarting, I was able to eject the drive and physically unplug it. (Yes, I could have shut down and then unplugged the drive but I opted for a restart.) I know that I could look in Activity Monitor to see which program was using the drive (which shouldn't have been the case) but I don't know what to look for. BTW, the same thing happened awhile ago with a HDD in a dock.

What should AM say? I could have quit the process from there. I looked but couldn't find anything that seemed relevant.

MODS: I wasn't sure if I should post this here or in the Peripherals forum. Feel free to move it.

It might help us to know the contents of those files, Jon. (Any graphics, for instance?)

One file was the 10.11.2 installer and the other was Carbon Copy Cloner (zip file). I plan to use them when helping a friend install El Cap. (That will save a lot of time. I just upgraded my internet speed with RoadRunner and the El Cap download was relatively fast at 37 minutes.)

No graphics.

I've had to use similar workarounds in the past to unmount disks, without ever really knowing why. I opened Activity Monitor and was just confused - it kept jumping around so much I couldn't focus on anything.

I wonder if something that always runs in the background was scanning your flash drive? Spotlight? An anti-virus app?

I suppose that Spotlight is a possibility. This is the first time that I ever used the drive, so I never thought about excluding it from Spotlight. I don't have any anti-virus apps.

I seem to run into this quite a bit, and it regularly ticks me off. My biggest causes:
- documents open in editors (some editors lock files while open, others do not)
- a Terminal window CD'd to a directory on the device (I don't understand why this locks it)
- spotlight (MDWorker) is indexing it (recently spotlight has gotten much better at yielding and allowing ejects)
- Finder (for NO obvious reason, requiring a force-quit of Finder)
- hdiutil (for having a disk image opened that's saved on the volume I am trying to eject) Again this one has gotten better, I've seen these domino eject as many as three levels deep automatically on some occasions, and on other occasions I had to eject something manually.

In the end, I usually end up cracking open a terminal window to see who the guilty party is using LSOF. I have the exact same issues with trying to empty the trash when a locked file is in the can. Lets say I have a file XYZ123 or a volume XYZ123 that I can't eject/empty. In terminal:

lsof -nP | grep -i XYZ
Finder 1075 virtual1 16u REG 1,4 113904 132265544 /.Trashes/501/XYZ123.doc

lsof -nP | grep -i XYZ
hdiutil 1075 virtual1 16u REG 1,4 113904 132265544 /Users/virtual1/Desktop/XYZ123.dmg


If the image is mounted, it's probably best to find another way to dismount it or get Finder to do a "force eject". If some app has a document open for no good reason, you can just quit the app. If it's a hidden process (like mdworker) you can kill it with the KILL command to allow eject.

kill 1075
process terminated.

Spotlight can be annoying. It'll insta-respawn the worker and pick up right where it left off a lot of the time. Sometimes the only way to kick that particular dog is go into spotlight's privacy and privatize where the file is (even if only long enough to deal with the file)

Thanks, V1. Too bad I can't use the command "kill PITA process".

I tried an experiment: I copied two files from my internal drive to an external and then tried, unsuccessfully, to unmount the external. I quit and relaunched Finder with the same lack of success. Logging out/in also was unsuccessful. It seems that only a restart allowed me to eject the external.

This is not a big deal, since restarting takes about 15 seconds with my machine. I don't know if this information is useful, but there it is.

Did you download the OS 10.11.2 "update" from the App Store? The reason I ask is that if you already have the full installer version of OS 10.11 or 10.11.1, there is a faster way to upgrade. Just download the Combo Updater. In fact, OS 10.11.3 came out last week, and one can get the Combo Updater from here:

https://support.apple.com/kb/DL1859?locale=en_US

It will be WAY faster than 37 minutes. I always download the Combo Updater whenever I upgrade the Mac OS. In fact, for El Capitan, here is the sequence I went through to move from Yosemite:

1. Downloaded OS 10.11.1 from the App Store, and installed it (I actually did a Clean installation on both of my Macs, and then used Migration Assistant to "migrate"/copy all the non-Apple stuff from my SuperDuper! backup. Also, some folks might be wondering why I started with OS 10.11.1, instead of OS 10.11. Well, the first beta for OS 10.11.1 appeared in early August, 8 weeks before OS 10.11 was released, and thus even though OS 10.11 was released near the end of September (with some initial issues), I had decided to wait until OS 10.11.1 was released, which was at the end of October).

2. When OS 10.11.2 came out, I downloaded and installed the OS 10.11.2 Combo Updater.

3. When OS 10.11.3 came out last week, did the same thing (ie, downloaded the OS 10.11.3 Combo Updater).

In every instance that I have upgraded via the Combo Updater, I have never had any issues.

I updated to 10.11.3 via App Store, not the Combo Updater. The download took about 3 minutes from that source. Obviously, I don't know how long the Combo would have taken but I suspect that it would have been longer because the Combo is a bigger file. The incremental update file was relatively small.

The 37 minutes refers to downloading the entire installation of El Cap, which I will use to install it on my friend's computer. I re-downloaded the entire 10.11.3 version and trashed the older version: No point in installing 10.11.2 and then waiting to update to 10.11.3. I might as well do the whole shebang in one shot.

I have never updated via the Combo, although many people recommend it. In all the years that I have been doing this, I have never had an issue.

I've always used Combos to update, but my understanding is that the updates that come from the App Store are tailored to your specific Mac, and that would seem to make them the preferred way to go, reserving Combos for emergency use.

I had never heard about that "tailored" business, and I question how accurate that is. As I stated above, I have always downloaded and applied the Combo Updater, and never had any issues applying it. Yes, the download does take longer, but in my case, if I needed to recover back to OS 10.11.3, after installing OS 10.11.1, I would then just apply the OS 10.11.3 Combo Updater, and be back in business quickly. (While that download is going on, I just visit other sites).

I also keep all the updaters on a separate folder, and with having a copy of the initial, full OS 10.11.1 file. If instead I had downloaded and kept the two incremental updaters OS 10.11.2 and 10.11.3, after doing the OS 10.11.1 installation, I would then need to apply those two incremental updates. Imagine if there are more updates to the OS. I myself would rather just apply one updater file, and be done.

Like the Combo Update, one can download that incremental update without doing it through the App Store. Here is the link for that:

https://support.apple.com/kb/DL1858?locale=en_US

I'm just going to stick with the Combo Updater. By the way, OS 10.11.4 is now in its third beta for testing.

See Topher Kessler's Differences between update options for OS X which spells it out as far back as Snowy:

The Apple menu now contains only an App Store… command, not a Software Update… one.

For the quote about Apple's Software Update utility, you forgot to mention the next paragraph:

"While recommended for everyday updates, Software Update has a few drawbacks. The first is that it only provides you with the latest versions of updates, so if you want to upgrade a fresh OS X 10.6.0 installation to OS X 10.6.5, you cannot do this with Software Update because it will only provide you with version 10.6.7 (the latest version to date). In addition, since Software Update will only give you the files your system needs to be updated, then if you have experienced a problem with an update and need to reapply it, Software Update will read your system as already being updated and will not provide you with any more options."

Secondly, note that what the link says about the Combo Updater is the most positive of the 3 methods. Bur again, the important one for me is the ease of getting from the "base" OS up to the latest version.

Yes, that is so, so true. I prefer to control the download process on my own, and besides the other advantages I mentioned, the links I provided for the downloads give me that control.

I’m sure you and others here are aware of this, but for those who aren’t: strictly speaking, Software Update can be accessed via the Apple menu, albeit via the extra step of selecting About This Mac to bring up the relevant button on ATM's Overview tab.

Clicking Software Update from the Overview tab simply launches App Store. You might as well launch App Store and avoid the middleman.

For some applications, that is the only way to get the original app or any updates. But, for a number of others, there are alternate (and in some cases, easier) ways of obtaining them. Whenever that option is available, that is the way I go about obtaining them.

True, but I I quoted a piece that dates back to Snowy, at which time its nomenclature was accurate.

All of which fits nicely into your scheme but doesn't detract from the accuracy of my original statement about tailored downloads in the least.

Yes, that is true, but what I stated about the Combo Updater does not detract from my prior accurate statements about the Combo Updater. Also, when I upgraded from Yosemite to El Capitan, I first Erased and Formatted the internal SSD on both of my Macs, and then did a clean, "virgin" installation of OS 10.11.1. Such an installation was thus not tailored to either of my Macs, and thus it makes more sense for me to continue using Combo Updaters.

I wasn't aware that the Deltas were tailored prior to the App Store, so I stuck with the Combos, but in view of the tailoring and Apple's preference for the Deltas I'm going to use them from now on and keep the Combos as a troubleshooting reserve.

If, as you sound, you're an overstressed, strapped-for-time tech, I see the logic in you're scheme, but that doesn't jive with the time-consuming rigamarole you went through prior to upgrading, so I dunno.

Me, I've got plenty of time and nobody breathing down my back.


That gets us back to an unanswered question I posed when install discs gave way to App Store downloads, namely, is there still such a thing as a "retail", i.e. generic, version of OS X, or are the downloaded upgrades we get from the App Store tailored as are the Deltas?

My impression has been that they are, so I'll ask what types of Macs you used the same installer on?

And what has reformatting got to do with tailoring? (Edit:) If the App Store reads the specs of your machine, one would have nothing to do with the other.

First of all, I am not "an overstressed, strapped-for-time tech". You certainly sound like you are. I strive to keep my Macs "lean and clean", and that goes along with having them run smoothly. Using the Combo Updater is one unstressful way of doing that. You, on the other hand, are going ballistic (and thus stressed out) about the use of the Combo Updater.

Also, I have no idea whether the initial download and installation of OS 10.11.1 was tailored to both of my machines or not. I still use (and continue to use) the Combo Updater. I've always had success using it. As the saying goes, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Finally, I have plenty of free time, and thus just want to enjoy life. Sounds like that is an issue (and maybe some others!) for you.

I've been following this exchange, and I have to say that I don't really fully understand what either of you are saying. So please—both of you—consider the possibility that you each are failing to be understood by the other, and that that's the source of the mutual irritation, rather than two irreconcilable updating orthodoxies.

In any case, life is short. Stay cool.

Hey, I'm all for that! I truly believe in the KISS philosophy: Keep It Simple Stupid. Definitely applicable here. I certainly have no problem understanding the 3 different approaches to upgrading, with pros and cons of each one. But, such pros and cons need to be pointed out when having such discussions. I have certainly done that. Others, though, seem to forget to do that, and also get peeved when someone like myself points out that omission.

But yeah, life is short, and staying cool is always, always good advice. I am certainly cool with that. Not sure about other folks, though.

Thoroughly predictable!

You seriously need to stop using baseless, big words, tossing around innuendos, waffling on issues, and behaving like you're running for office, in general, and get over yourself, in particular.

Having descended into an exchange of ad hominem attacks totally unsupported by objective evidence, this thread is closed.

Congratulations on getting the last word!