Nasty macOS flaw is bricking MacBooks: Don't install this update • Hacker News Board

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

#411

Post by sethammons » Mon, Apr 13, 2020, 2:10 AM UTC

Razengan wrote: post #399

sethammons wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think my gripes so far are around discoverability. How did you know to click and hold the space bar? Now that I know, I like it. Never would have know otherwise. Drag from the bottom left and up to dismiss an app, do the same but go sideways to get to history of apps, etc.

They have most of this in onboarding tips as well as the Tips app.

Not sure what to tell you. I did not dismiss any tips that I can recall. I recall how to create folders and drag apps to it from onboarding. Mostly, I have to ask someone or search Google to find out how to do the most basic of things.

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

#412

Post by caycep » Mon, Apr 13, 2020, 3:57 AM UTC

sethammons wrote: post #239

Razengan wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What bugs do you see in the iPad software keyboard? iOS keyboard input and text selection has been wonky for quite a while, and from what I've tried of Android, it doesn't feel much better on the other side of the fence either. Why can't Apple -or- Google get such basic interactivity right?

Recently moved from android to an iPhone. The one that gets me while typing: I can’t tap and place the cursor in the middle of a word! Say you mistype a word, you cannot edit that word. You have to delete the entire word or tap and hold to get highlighting and then drag the highlight together to cover one letter on the word and then you can delete and get your cursor in the middle of the word. Insane.

tap/hold spacebar then drag.

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

#413

Post by wisecoder » Mon, Apr 13, 2020, 4:23 AM UTC

Why i cannot find any ergonomic keyboard for mac?

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

#414

Post by ryanmccullagh » Mon, Apr 13, 2020, 4:27 AM UTC

brailsafe wrote: post #410

unloco wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2019 imac getting kernel panics when going to sleep. It seems silly if you're not affected. But now that it's hit me, i'm about to go back to mojave. If it was just a weird bug, I could deal with it. But to kernel panic is a big deal to me. I cant trust the computer to not break if I walk away from it for 10 minutes. I guess I could turn off sleep, but that doesnt seem like a solution to me. To keep it running all th…

This could very well be a hardware or deeper issue. I had a similar but more specific issue with my 2018 mbp, and managed to isolate the issue after quite a bit of trial and error. They replaced it with a 2019 model brand new. I think for me it was specific to letting the battery drain completely, then closing it and plugging it into power and waiting a while. I'd open to a computer that had kernal panicked. It could…

This happens to me, but only when I’m connected to my LG ultra fine. I can’t reliably reproduce it. Can you elaborate on how you did it?

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

#415

Post by SpelingBeeChamp » Mon, Apr 13, 2020, 4:48 AM UTC

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #285

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.

It’s likely that some of those people found this thread because they were having problems.

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

#416

Post by Joeri » Mon, Apr 13, 2020, 6:00 AM UTC

thu2111 wrote: post #365

kiwijamo wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Second the recommendation to stay on Mojave. I do this for my $WORK laptop and it still gets back-ported security updates. $WORK's IT department has advised Apple users to hold off upgrading to 10.15 and it seems they have good reason to continue dispensing that advice, still...!

Heck, I do that with my personal laptop. Feeling pretty happy having read these comments that I never took the leap to Catalina. I feel pretty sure this must be common because I still see apps and infrastructure, even last month, coming out with updates related to Catalina compatibility. It sucks though. I have a Google Pixel phone and never hesitate to apply updates, I even look forward to them. I don't think I've e…

FWIW I put ubuntu LTS on my thinkpad T460p and everything worked flawlessly except for the fingerprint reader. For thinkpads that seems to be the rule: everything works except for the fingerprint reader.

If you want good linux support on a laptop you need to do some research, but there are options. Thinkpads, XPS, ... They’re just not that much cheaper than a macbook if you want comparable specs.

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

#417

Post by p_l » Mon, Apr 13, 2020, 8:22 AM UTC

toyg wrote: post #353

intopieces wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regularly scheduled software releases makes no goddamn sense to me. Why are MacOS, iOS, iPad OS, and tvOS supposed to ship at the same time? Moreover, does anyone really care if these get updated once per year? Especially tvOS. I really wish Apple would move to releasing new software "about" once every 24 months and just use the extra time to test.

Every year, new tablets and/or phones have to be ready for Black Monday and Christmas. Every year, the phone OS has to keep up with new tablets and/or phones. Every year, the laptop OS has to keep up with the phone OS. That's basically it. At Apple, where the phone goes, everything else follows.

And for image reasons, it must be "major" release instead of minor release for hw support (like many commercial OSes did in the past, I think even macOS)

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

#418

Post by richrichardsson » Mon, Apr 13, 2020, 8:36 AM UTC

bdowling wrote: post #393

timzentu wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A physically broken device might still be functional though, so personally your terms are backwards. A bricked device has a slight chance of recovery, if you have the tools/skills/training. It is a brick until that repair with high applitude is completed. Something that is broke doesn't mean it is functional or not, just not at a perfectly working condition to worse. it might be repaired by doing a reset of a device,…

I disagreed with GP's use of the term bricked to mean unrecoverable. You seem to agree with me because you wrote that a bricked device can be recovered with the proper tools/skills/training. I hadn't considered partially-working devices, but I think you're right that they shouldn't be properly called bricked. The threads here show that even highly technical people disagree on what conditions should be considered bric…

I actually changed my mind a little after posting that comment. I think it was mentioned elsewhere also, but even something that I would consider "bricked" could still probably be recovered by someone with access to the right tools (ability to reflash via JTAG, replacing chips etc.)

I would refine my definition to be that a "bricked" device is something that has occurred via a failed software update making the device inoperable to all but the tiniest subset of users.

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

#419

Post by j4yav » Mon, Apr 13, 2020, 10:38 AM UTC

huffmsa wrote: post #321

j4yav wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience people call those sorts of things broken or not working, rather than (soft or hard) bricked. So people would say things like "the power went out in my house and soft bricked my TV until the power company turned it back on"? It's interesting how language evolves.

No, downloading a bad patch for your smart TV that puts it in a bootloop or won't let you change inputs would be a soft(ware) brick. Hardware errors are hard bricks. This isn't a difficult delineation.

That doesn't seem to align with where you said that any non-normal state is bricked, and that the difference between soft and hard bricked is your ability to repair it.

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

#420

Post by intense_feel » Mon, Apr 13, 2020, 12:15 PM UTC

I can confirm that the revive via DFU works. It also works over normal USB (instead of usb-c) connector as I used my gf older mac pro late 2015. Be aware that you need at least Mojave 10.14.6+ as the app configurator can't be run/installed on previous versions. There is also a big difference in App configurator 2.10 vs the latest 2.12. On 2.10 (you can find dmg file on internet, but be careful about running untrusted software) you can restore BridgeOS on the chip without wiping the data. In version 2.12 it will wipe all data!

Initially, I tried to restore the system via Virtualbox where I installed Mojave via Apple Configurator but that didn't work as it break during the revival of the last step because of the constant USB de-plugging from host/guest machine during the process. I think just the revival step in 2.12 should also work as it flashes also the bridge os and power it up which should avoid any data loss but don't take this for granted.