External DVD on Macbook Pro 2018 with multiport adapter This model/OS does not support connected CD/DVD drives, it can only use remote devices.

I need to read and write optical media for medical reasons, so being able to use a directly connected drive is more than useful.

An external (generic) DVD connected to a Thunderbolt port is not recognized and it's even not powered, but connecting it to the multiport adapter powers the DVD that is recognized by the Thunderbolt bridge in USB mode, but the device does not really work, nor for audio CDs, nor for video DVDs, nor for data.

I'm half the way on, but I cannot really use it.
Is there a suggested way to get my Mac recognize this peripheral?
It seems solved by updating Mojave to 10.14.6.

Audio CDs work and most data CDs/DVDs work as expected.

Only RW disks seem difficult to read, but this seems a completely different problem.
So it seems that using a multiport adapter can help connecting a USB CD/DVD drive.