The new MacBook Pro 14-inch (2021) and MacBook Pro 16-inch (2021) reportedly have problems reading SD cards. This is reported by MacRumors readers on the website’s forum.
Not all SD cards are affected by the issues. In addition, the complications are different. Some memory cards are not read at all, others suffer from slow transfer speeds.
“I tested nine SD cards. Six of these work fine in the MacBook Pro’s SD card slot, three of the memory cards don’t. When I use Apple’s USB-C SD adapter, they all do it. For some reason, the dongle works better than the built-in card slot. The three cards that are not read have a size of 128 GB. The six that do work are 64 GB,” said a user on the forum.
Another reader added: “My 32 GB Sandisk cards (two) both work, but the process is slow. My 64 GB Sandisk card, on the other hand, works like lightning. I bought two new 64 GB memory cards and they work perfectly. There must be a software problem somewhere.”
The original forum post is now nine pages long. There seems to be a large number of users experiencing this issue with their MacBook Pro. Similar posts have also been found on Reddit.
Analysis: Apple may already be working on the solution
It appears to be a software issue in macOS Monterey, which is the best case scenario. If there’s something wrong with the SD card slot hardware, Apple has a bigger problem.
These are only user findings, so the exact complication has not yet been determined. Since there have been so many reports, we expect Apple to have noticed too.
One of the MacRumors readers reported on the forum that an update to a beta version of macOS may be the solution. He noticed that in version 12.1 beta 4 of the operating system, his SD cards are working normally again, despite being a problem in an older version of macOS. The solution may already be in the testing phase.
The user says the following: “I have no more issues. I tested two memory cards that were not working properly before. Now the read and write speed is back to normal. Let’s see if other people experience this too.”
This is just one mention of a solution, as the user says. So we can’t say yet if this is a definitive fix. However, the early signs are favorable.
