Disk has lost its icon?

Post by Brian Gordon
I have an external 2TB disk I use for backups. The backups are going just
fine, as is its use by Time Machine, so it is obviously mounted and
reasonably happy.
However, no disk icon for it appears on the desktop [MacBook Pro (Retina,
13-inch, Early 2015) running macOS 11.4] That's not something I am familar
with, and I don't know what is missing or how to fix it. Disk Utility
doesn't seem to cover it.

check finder prefs to see if external hard disks should be shown on the
desktop.

Brian Gordon

2021-07-14 03:41:22 UTC

check finder prefs to see if external hard disks should be shown on the
desktop.

Thanks for the tip - I shoud have mentioned that Finder Preferences are set
to show them and that when I plug in a different disk, its icon appears as
expected. This one seems unique.

nospam

2021-07-14 13:55:54 UTC

check finder prefs to see if external hard disks should be shown on the
desktop.

Thanks for the tip - I shoud have mentioned that Finder Preferences are set
to show them and that when I plug in a different disk, its icon appears as
expected. This one seems unique.

did it ever show?

Brian Gordon

2021-07-14 14:06:03 UTC

check finder prefs to see if external hard disks should be shown on the
desktop.

Thanks for the tip - I should have mentioned that Finder Preferences are set
to show them and that when I plug in a different disk, its icon appears as
expected. This one seems unique.

did it ever show?

Unfortunately, not yet. I just had Disk Utility check it, and it found
nothing wrong.

nospam

2021-07-14 14:23:12 UTC

Post by Brian Gordon
However, no disk icon for it appears on the desktop [MacBook Pro (Retina,
13-inch, Early 2015) running macOS 11.4] That's not something I am familar
with, and I don't know what is missing or how to fix it. Disk Utility
doesn't seem to cover it.

check finder prefs to see if external hard disks should be shown on the
desktop.

Thanks for the tip - I should have mentioned that Finder Preferences are set
to show them and that when I plug in a different disk, its icon appears as
expected. This one seems unique.

did it ever show?

Unfortunately, not yet.

i meant in the past. did it previously show up and now it doesn't, or
it never has shown up, ever?

Post by Brian Gordon
I just had Disk Utility check it, and it found
nothing wrong.

disk utility checks for directory issues, which isn't why it's not
showing up.

finder is not showing it for some unknown reason.

Jolly Roger

2021-07-14 18:43:00 UTC

With the drive connected and mounted, open a terminal window and execute
this command:

ls -lO /Volumes

What is the output?

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Brian Gordon

2021-07-15 01:36:28 UTC

With the drive connected and mounted, open a terminal window and execute
ls -lO /Volumes
What is the output?

drwxr-xr-x 36 root wheel sunlnk 1292 May 20 11:44 Backup
drwx------ 3 brianggordon wheel - 96 Jun 6 22:51 STICK2
drwxr-xr-x 3 root wheel - 96 Jul 13 22:18 com.apple.TimeMachine.localsnapshots

"Backup" is the disk under discussion.

After two hours on the phone today, Apple support said to call the disk
manufacturer (Seagate). That's ongoing and continued tomorrow.

nospam

2021-07-15 01:40:05 UTC

Post by Jolly Roger
With the drive connected and mounted, open a terminal window and execute
ls -lO /Volumes
What is the output?

drwxr-xr-x 36 root wheel sunlnk 1292 May 20 11:44 Backup
drwx------ 3 brianggordon wheel - 96 Jun 6 22:51 STICK2
drwxr-xr-x 3 root wheel - 96 Jul 13 22:18
com.apple.TimeMachine.localsnapshots
"Backup" is the disk under discussion.
After two hours on the phone today, Apple support said to call the disk
manufacturer (Seagate). That's ongoing and continued tomorrow.

translated: 'i don't know and there's a lot of calls waiting in my call
queue'

seagate won't have any clue, nor should they since it's not their
problem. the drive functions properly. data can be read and written.

Jolly Roger

2021-07-15 22:10:34 UTC

Post by Jolly Roger
With the drive connected and mounted, open a terminal window and execute
ls -lO /Volumes
What is the output?

Thanks. I was wondering if it had the "hidden" flag set for some reason,
which would prevent Finder from displaying it on your desktop. It
appears that is not the case.

Post by Brian Gordon
After two hours on the phone today, Apple support said to call the disk
manufacturer (Seagate). That's ongoing and continued tomorrow.

I doubt they will be able to help, but it's worth a shot.

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JR

Ant

2021-07-16 03:27:12 UTC

Have you tried a brand new macOS user account yet in the same Mac? Also
try another Mac (don't back up though) if you have access to one?

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Brian Gordon

2021-07-16 14:42:37 UTC

Post by Ant
Have you tried a brand new macOS user account yet in the same Mac? Also
try another Mac (don't back up though) if you have access to one?

BINGO. I switched to another user account that is left over from years ago -
and the icon appeared! Let's see Apple blame that on the disk manufacturer!

Jolly Roger

2021-07-16 15:23:26 UTC

Post by Ant
Have you tried a brand new macOS user account yet in the same Mac? Also
try another Mac (don't back up though) if you have access to one?

BINGO. I switched to another user account that is left over from years ago -
and the icon appeared! Let's see Apple blame that on the disk manufacturer!

There's probably a corrupt preference file or cache file in your normal
account. You could start by deleting the contents of the
~/Library/Caches folder in your normal account. If that doesn't work,
try removing preference files for Finder, Dock, and so on. These files
are rebuilt from scratch when they are missing.

For best results, log out of your normal account first, log into an
administrator account, delete the file(s) in question, then log
into your normal account again to have them rebuilt from scratch. If you
want to isolate the problem files, you'll do this in stages rather than
all at once.

--
E-mail sent to this address may be devoured by my ravenous SPAM filter.
I often ignore posts from Google. Use a real news client instead.

JR

Ant

2021-07-17 01:46:55 UTC

Post by Ant
Have you tried a brand new macOS user account yet in the same Mac? Also
try another Mac (don't back up though) if you have access to one?

BINGO. I switched to another user account that is left over from years ago -
and the icon appeared! Let's see Apple blame that on the disk manufacturer!

There's probably a corrupt preference file or cache file in your normal
account. You could start by deleting the contents of the
~/Library/Caches folder in your normal account. If that doesn't work,
try removing preference files for Finder, Dock, and so on. These files
are rebuilt from scratch when they are missing.
For best results, log out of your normal account first, log into an
administrator account, delete the file(s) in question, then log
into your normal account again to have them rebuilt from scratch. If you
want to isolate the problem files, you'll do this in stages rather than
all at once.

I wonder if booting safe mode would still show this issue in the
problematic account. IIRC, macOS' safe mode purges caches.

Jolly Roger

2021-07-17 02:03:55 UTC

Post by Ant

Post by Ant
Have you tried a brand new macOS user account yet in the same Mac? Also
try another Mac (don't back up though) if you have access to one?

BINGO. I switched to another user account that is left over from years ago -
and the icon appeared! Let's see Apple blame that on the disk manufacturer!

There's probably a corrupt preference file or cache file in your normal
account. You could start by deleting the contents of the
~/Library/Caches folder in your normal account. If that doesn't work,
try removing preference files for Finder, Dock, and so on. These files
are rebuilt from scratch when they are missing.
For best results, log out of your normal account first, log into an
administrator account, delete the file(s) in question, then log
into your normal account again to have them rebuilt from scratch. If you
want to isolate the problem files, you'll do this in stages rather than
all at once.

I wonder if booting safe mode would still show this issue in the
problematic account. IIRC, macOS' safe mode purges caches.

I can't recall whether it deletes caches or temporarily disables them.
Either way, it's worth a shot.

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I often ignore posts from Google. Use a real news client instead.

JR

Ant

2021-07-17 05:15:32 UTC

Post by Ant