Some Vernier devices that connect by USB may show connection failures in macOS 11 and 12 (and newer). This rare connection issue is seen on both Intel and Apple Silicon computers.
We have seen the USB connection drop momentarily, so that the device appears to be connected, but the host software has lost its data connection to the device. The failure manifests itself as readings that freeze or drop to zero. It happens when macOS checks for updates in the background.
The connection failure can be reproduced by manually requesting a check for new OS updates. For example, while collecting data, choose About this Mac from the Apple menu. There choose Software Update.
macOS checks automatically for updates on a once-a-week schedule. As a result it is very rare to have this happen during data collection. We have seen some managed Macs configured to check for software updates as often as every two minutes. In this case the USB connection will be dropped every two minutes.
We are working with Apple to resolve this interaction between a purely system operation and an external USB connection.
Affected software includes
- Logger Pro
- Graphical Analysis
- Spectral Analysis
- Instrumental Analysis
Affected devices include
- Go!Link
- Go!Temp
- Go!Motion
- Vernier Mini GC Plus
- Go Direct Mini GC
- Vernier SpectroVis Plus Spectrophotometer
- Go Direct SpectroVis Plus Spectrophotometer
- Vernier Emissions Spectrometer
- Go Direct Emissions Spectrometer
Workarounds include
- Disable network connections to pause update checks.
- Manually disable software update checks.
- Do not configure frequent automatic checks for updates.
- Do not manually check for software updates while collecting data.