Strangest problem which I can't figure out

this *is* as strange as it sounds.

if i have a clean USB drive, put it in any USB port of my Mac Pro 3,1 (mid-2008) running 10.6.8, and try to copy over a file that's 5Mb in size, no problem, done.

same for 10, 15, and 20Mb. BUT, when it comes to a file that's around or any larger than 25Mb, the copy operation will just freeze, and after about 1min30sec it halts saying error -36 "cannot read/write the file in question. i've also tried the manual copy operation ("cp") using terminal in OS X; same issue, just freezes.

this has happened for 3 different USB drives i've tried, and all 3 work to read fron/write to on other PCs and Macs. AND, since i use Bootcamp and Win7 Ultimate on this same machine.. tried it there.. *same exact problem.

wtf?! i am puzzled to say the last, and anxious to transfer files to my mp3 player :-/

Try writing a file directly to the USB stick from an application that is larger than 25MB and see if it works.

Have you tried formatting the USB drive?

VERY strange that it happens on the Windows side of things - what error does Windows produce?

You might have a bad USB controller. Hopefully not.

no kidding; how random would that be? but i've tried almost everything i can think of to rule out other possibilites. all of the (USB) drives work without issue on other Macs/PCs.

the one drive which i *really* need to work, my mp3 player, i don't want to risk bricking it by formatting .. though i could just create an image of the drive and restore it if need be, i guess.

in conclusion, ARGH.

  On 6/19/2012 at 4:48 PM, Joyrex said:

You might have a bad USB controller. Hopefully not.

Oh, it's an MP3 player? I got the impression it was just a USB stick. That actually might be good news, as the file system on the MP3 player might be corrupt, or it may have a limitation in the software that doesn't allow files over 25MB.

You could see if there is a firmware update for your MP3 player, or restoring it to factory settings instead of formatting.

But wait - you're saying you tried other USB (non MP3) drives, and they exhibit the same issue?

check the filesystem on the USB stick. if it's FAT32, that could be the issue. should reformat it as NTFS.

Fat32 will work fine with files less than 4GB, that isn't the issue. Not sure what is though.

Can you copy over a group of files that exceeds 25mb?

  On 6/19/2012 at 9:57 PM, Joyrex said:

But wait - you're saying you tried other USB (non MP3) drives, and they exhibit the same issue?

yes; first noticed it with my mp3 player, but now it affects any USB drive. so now i'm just trying other drives to resolve it before worrying about the mp3 player.

  On 6/19/2012 at 10:51 PM, kaini said:

check the filesystem on the USB stick. if it's FAT32, that could be the issue. should reformat it as NTFS.

yeahhh gonna try that.

  On 6/20/2012 at 12:19 AM, goffer said:

Can you copy over a group of files that exceeds 25mb?

yes, it's only when a single file exceeds (again, roughly) 25mb that it hangs and eventually fails.

If this is affecting multiple, unrelated USB devices, then it may very well be a bad USB controller (especially if under Windows it does this as well).

  On 6/20/2012 at 4:49 PM, Joyrex said:

If this is affecting multiple, unrelated USB devices, then it may very well be a bad USB controller (especially if under Windows it does this as well).

here's what happened last night (AWFUL). i'm going to test it, but the strange thing is, all other USB devices seem to be unaffected (going to test printing/scanning/camera) but last i checked, after this issue first arose.. they all worked.

---

USB-drama:

I was able to copy over a 41mb file (from my root on OS X boot HDD to USB), but a 107mb file still fails with the same error (-36, etc) before taking the following steps below.

When I try to copy the 107mb file to a USB drive (which was working normally w/no issues prior to this use) using "cp -r" via command line in Terminal, it fails/errors out, and reports "cp: /Destination Volume/Destination File:Device not configured" as the error message.. Destination Volume/File being actual location, etc.

Immediately after that, I booted into W7 Ult, and W7 reports the drive as unreadable and that I need to format it. However, the system reports that it is unable to format the disk. Same with diskpart, it just hangs.

Same thing happens when I now boot into OS X; the system reports it as unreadable, Disk Utility tries to create a partition on the USB drive, and just hangs. So basically, it seems the machine just corrupted my flash drive and is now unable to clear its partition map/write a new partition map, so the drive is unreadable.

AND I'm trying the drive now on another PC that is verified with no previous issues, and this PC is also unable to format/re-partition the USB drive,

---

Obviously I don't want to test this too much more if it's going to ruin the devices which I'm using to test... whatthefuck.

Good lord... never heard of that happening before.

I think if you have an Apple store nearby it's time to schedule an appointment at the Genius Bar...

  On 6/20/2012 at 7:30 PM, Joyrex said:

Good lord... never heard of that happening before.

 

I think if you have an Apple store nearby it's time to schedule an appointment at the Genius Bar...

yeah, after i try to see if the other USB devices are working, definitely going to be making a call or two..

other devices, scanner, etc have no problems. FLUMMOXED.