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Nasty macOS flaw is bricking MacBooks: Don't install this update

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Re: Nasty macOS flaw is bricking MacBooks: Don't install this update

#281

Post by crazygringo »

Is there any actual quantitative evidence this update is any worse than any average update? The article presents three forum posts as evidence... which isn't evidence.

I assume every update ever has messed up a handful of people's computers, even if just coincidentally (e.g. the computer was going to die on the next reboot no matter what).

If thousands of people were complaining on Twitter that would be one thing. But since there aren't, and considering that Apple hasn't pulled the update...

Is this just much ado about nothing?

Re: Nasty macOS flaw is bricking MacBooks: Don't install this update

#282

Post by floatingatoll »

FireBeyond wrote: post #128
Shank wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. It’s essentially an ARM A-series chip — it has firmware (BridgeOS) and does have a DFU mode. See https://help.apple.com/configurator/mac/2.7.1/#/apd0020c3dc2

Best have your spare MacBook available to do it!

Desktop Macs should also be fine.

I wouldn't be surprised if Apple ships Configurator iOS someday, but today is not that day.

Re: Nasty macOS flaw is bricking MacBooks: Don't install this update

#284

Post by egypturnash »

at_a_remove wrote: post #224
gregmac wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Bricked" is relative, depending on your skill level. For some consumers, if recovery mode doesn't work that might be the end of line. However, there are more advanced users that can access the storage via another system and fix it there, hook up via serial port or JTAG and flash new firmware, or even desolder and replace chips. On the far other end of the spectrum, there's going to be people that consider "doesn't s…

If you go that route, "bricked" is now indistinguishable from "broke," and we already have a word for that. Broke. We would have then gone from a situation where we had two different states and names for each of those states to a situation where we have two words for the very same, very fuzzy state and no way to talk about the other state. It makes a mockery of the idea of advice. Imagine your parents calling you and…

Bricked, to me, means it is physically just fine, but it doesn’t work due to some kind of software issue.

“I bricked my phone and had to spend a whole day reading obscure guides to three different levels of embedded software before I could get it working again” feels like a perfectly valid sentence. You can fix a bricked thing, just like you can fix a broken thing, but both require some investment of time and possibly the use of tools that you won’t usually find outside the hands of specialists.

Re: Nasty macOS flaw is bricking MacBooks: Don't install this update

#285

Post by Wowfunhappy »

crazygringo wrote: post #281

Is there any actual quantitative evidence this update is any worse than any average update? The article presents three forum posts as evidence... which isn't evidence. I assume every update ever has messed up a handful of people's computers, even if just coincidentally (e.g. the computer was going to die on the next reboot no matter what). If thousands of people were complaining on Twitter that would be one thing. Bu…

What's "qualitative" in this context? No one (outside of Apple, who isn't sharing) is in a position to run a true assessment of the failure rate of every update.

I think it's fair to say this issue is relatively rare, but there are definitely more than three reports of it happening. Heck, some people in this thread chimed in to say they got bit the update.

Re: Nasty macOS flaw is bricking MacBooks: Don't install this update

#286

Post by richrichardsson »

egypturnash wrote: post #284
at_a_remove wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you go that route, "bricked" is now indistinguishable from "broke," and we already have a word for that. Broke. We would have then gone from a situation where we had two different states and names for each of those states to a situation where we have two words for the very same, very fuzzy state and no way to talk about the other state. It makes a mockery of the idea of advice. Imagine your parents calling you and…

Bricked, to me, means it is physically just fine, but it doesn’t work due to some kind of software issue. “I bricked my phone and had to spend a whole day reading obscure guides to three different levels of embedded software before I could get it working again” feels like a perfectly valid sentence. You can fix a bricked thing, just like you can fix a broken thing, but both require some investment of time and possibl…

I don't agree.

imo "Bricked" means you turned your piece of electronics into a brick, it cannot be recovered. Otherwise as mentioned before, it's just "broken", which can be recovered from in most cases.

Re: Nasty macOS flaw is bricking MacBooks: Don't install this update

#287

Post by microtonal »

mekster wrote: post #252
microtonal wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the high-impact changes (which broke Nix as the grand-grand parent mentioned) was moving / to a read-only volume: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210650 Although this change may not be immediately visible it does increase security a fair bit (malware cannot embed themselves or replace system files) and also prevents accidental deletion. Apple made large strides in the last few years improving security, e.g.…

I was using since 10.3 and my, 10.5 introduced Quick Look, Time Machine, Boot Camp, Spaces and folder popup in dock which made me feel it has become totally good enough for daily use. Then 10.6 optimized the entire OS when I was surprised that a new OS release actually required less disk space to install and more performant on a same hardware. I agree some of those security features are good to have but it's like the…

Then 10.6 optimized the entire OS when I was surprised that a new OS release actually required less disk space to install and more performant on a same hardware.

This was nice, though it has to be said that the disk space reduction was not because of real optimizations. They removed support for PowerPC in 10.6, so the included applications are not fat/universal binaries anymore. They also removed printer drivers and Rosetta (binary PPC emulation) from the default install (which became an add-on).

Of course, still nice nonetheless if you didn't have a PPC Mac or didn't use PPC applications.

Re: Nasty macOS flaw is bricking MacBooks: Don't install this update

#288

Post by dagenix »

GrumpyNl wrote: post #195
ObsoleteNerd wrote: post #4

It's not "bricked" if you can fix it in Recovery Mode. Still bad that it's happening, but the term "bricked" is thrown around so flippantly these days. If a piece of tech is bricked, it's not recoverable at all.

Only the HN community cans tart a discussion over the term brick while the issue is a non functioning mac book after a update.

Is your theory that if this thread didn't exist in HN that the problem would be less severe? I don't think it works that way.

Re: Nasty macOS flaw is bricking MacBooks: Don't install this update

#289

Post by pinkahd »

I've updated my MacBook Pro 2019 before I saw the HN post, the updated went smoothly without any issues (so far).

I've done the same update on my Mac Mini 2018 and now the fan has stopped working after reboot. Tried to reset NVRAM and SMC without any luck... the fan is still unresponsive. Apple diagnostics even confirms this by giving an error code PPF003

Re: Nasty macOS flaw is bricking MacBooks: Don't install this update

#290

Post by Udo_Schmitz »

mmxmb wrote: post #227
xcalibre wrote: post #199

This has been mentioned quite a few times but Apple's software quality seriously has taken a turn for the worse in the last few years. I've usually updated my macs to the latest OS's within a couple of weeks of release, but Catalina is the first time where I still have yet to update. Stories of bugs such as this as well as mail messages getting blanked out and unrecoverable makes me actually scared to upgrade.

Does anyone know what might have caused this recent downturn in Apple's software quality?

Steve picked the wrong guy. Again.
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