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macOS Catalina 10.15.5

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Re: macOS Catalina 10.15.5

#241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm hitting the stupid SMB bug everyday but the symptom seems to be different. I tried to manually connect to `smb://nasbox.local` in Finder and it works with `nasbox.local` appearing in the sidebar. I can also click `nasbox` (without `.local` and this is advertised by the avahi-daemon on the nasbox I believe) and it opens the network shares fine. However, if the Mac goes to sleep for a while and then later wakes up,…

> This is so damn frustrating. Agreed. And then there's that extremely childish "Windows 95 blue screen" icon representing SMB shares... Really professional.

I think that icon was meant to be bait for Microsoft.

The host metadata, as it shows up in the macOS Finder/open dialogs/etc, is configurable by having your host publish an mDNS _device-info._tcp service record. You can publish a display name (as arbitrary unicode), an icon (as a machine model name), etc.

I'm guessing Apple figured that if they made the default icon insulting, that might incense Microsoft into building mDNS support into their SMB stack, just in order to use it to broadcast that _device-info service, to make Microsoft SMB present more professionally on macOS clients.

Sadly, Microsoft never bothered. But at least I get to use it to make my Linux homeserver look like an Xserve! (See https://www.tumfatig.net/20170607/let-mac-os-auto-discover-y...)

(Though, sadly, this exact combination of mDNS-announcing-SMB is what is broken in the newest macOS, so I can't recommend you follow the above guide right now. Maybe we'll get support for this back in a few releases...)

Re: macOS Catalina 10.15.5

#242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tons of people: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/constant-kernel-panics-... https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/16-mbp-gpu-panics.22210... There's like a dozen threads on MacRumors and the Apple discussion forums on various crashes, mostly related to sleep, but also to the watchdog timing out for WindowServer due to GPU lockups.

I don't even let my screens turn off anymore; these days I get this weird thing where after waking the monitors up the monitor does not get a signal, but if it is plugged in, the mouse jumps around at like 2fps on the main display as if there's some weird interrupt denial of service going on. To fix this, I have to restart just to use my monitor again.

I have that problem too and I tried that, but then the OS forgot the setting during an update, and now I'm back to unplugging and replugging my adapter every time I grab a coffee or take a phone call.

Re: macOS Catalina 10.15.5

#243
post #10

It's crazy that even dot releases are a full 3.6G download

Binary patching hasn't been a thing for years unfortunately. Even bigger wreck on consoles these days, where an update can be 50+ gigabytes...

Yes it has, just not for Apple. Chrome/Chromium do Courgette (binary diff) updates to great effect. Those 8GB Xcode minor release monsters could definitely use some binary diff love.

https://www.chromium.org/developers/design-documents/softwar...

Re: macOS Catalina 10.15.5

#244
post #3

> The battery health management feature in macOS 10.15.5 is designed to improve your battery's lifespan by reducing the rate at which it chemically ages. The feature does this by monitoring your battery's temperature history and its charging patterns. > Based on the measurements that it collects, battery health management may reduce your battery's maximum charge when in this mode. This happens as needed to ensure tha…

I just had a MBP fixed (it was quick!) due to it swollen up one day. It would not lie down flat on a table and the trackpad was useless. Obviously could not close the screen either. How common is this?

I've had this exact thing happen with my 2012 15" retina. Won't lay down flat and clicking the trackpad required pressing really hard. Had the battery replaced, works like new now — on Mojave, I'm not updating to the dumpster fire that is Catalina.

Re: macOS Catalina 10.15.5

#245
post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Binary patching hasn't been a thing for years unfortunately. True, and it's fair to say binary diffs aren't worth the complexities they introduce anymore, yet the concept of only pulling updates for individual packages has been a thing for over two decades in the *nix world. It seems like a poor choice for Apple to not bother making updates more discerning while also removing binary diffs... certainly a shitty move…

> binary diffs aren't worth the complexities they introduce anymore Noob question: Why are binary diffs impractical? Is it because the (compiled) object code layout dances around too much? If true, isn't that fixable? Meaning: make the order more stable, to minimize the size of the diffs? I recall a recent story/post about boosting runtime performance by optimizing object code layout. Sorry, I can't refind that artic…

Yep, and they use Courgette for all of their Chrome/Chromium updates. It's why no one ever sees long "Downloading update..." progress bars in that browser anymore. 100KB binary diffs are typical. Blink (no pun intended) and you'd miss the download.

Re: macOS Catalina 10.15.5

#246

> ”Addresses an issue that may prevent password entry on the login screen” I’m still on Mojave 10.14.6 and this hits me from time to time, maybe once a month or so. Very annoying bug. Great if they have finally fixed it!

But if you update, you'll get nagware on upgrading to Catalina. Damned if you do...

Re: macOS Catalina 10.15.5

#247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Definitely frustrating for anyone not on broadband. There are more of us than you'd think. It's a giant 'fuck you' from the software industry, real world efficiency be damned.

Totally agree. Updated to Catalina recently and on top of the huge patch size the update client doesn't seem to have any retry mechanism built in. Connection drops 9.9G into a 10G download? Too bad, start over. Just a simple wget -c would do. Incredible.

I wonder how many real word resources are wasted over this. It costs money to serve that data, it costs money to download that data, it congests the network wherever that data is being routed, it consumes energy however that is generated in the region.

Windows Update does this too, if the transfer fails it starts from zero. Multiply this by... what, a couple million times for each update?

I assume they run the numbers and it's cheaper to just dump all the data and run things inefficiently, compared to having teams deploy it correctly. It's just a waste though, and it pisses off your customers.

Re: macOS Catalina 10.15.5

#248
post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Btw does anyone know how to test-install a newer OS other than with Mac OS' upgrade option burning through 6gb+ downloads supposedly also replacing the OS rather than installing it onto an external disk? I've got an unused old mini that's still on the OS it came with - way out of date. I even went to an Apple dealer to get Mojave onto an SSD drive last year, only to find out that the mini needs a firmware update for…

Can you not just back up the current SSD and repeatedly OTA it to the last supported version? That would be my solution.

Exactly what I had hoped to avoid. I only keep the Mac for cross-platform builds, site testing on Safari, and for hypothetically being able to open old 3D assets, but the old apps almost certainly won't work on newer Mac OS anyway.

Re: macOS Catalina 10.15.5

#249

> Major new releases of macOS are no longer hidden when using the softwareupdate(8) command with the --ignore flag. This change also affects macOS Mojave and macOS High Sierra after installing Security Update 2020-003. As a Mojave user, not happy about this.

I do not understand why they did this, and I say that as a Catalina user. Jeff Johnson seems to have some thoughts (and a sort-of solution) on it, though: https://lapcatsoftware.com/articles/software-update.html

that solution didn't work for me but this one did

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/system-preferences-soft...

Re: macOS Catalina 10.15.5

#250
post #86
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This destroys battery. You do need to charge and discharge the battery frequently.

That's the opposite of accurate. Battery life is measured almost exclusively in charge/discharge cycles. More cycles == more reduced battery life.

Not true. a battery left 4.2v at over 100F will degrade very fast.

Degradation happens most severely if at high voltage and high temperature.

Without high temperature it is completely fine to leave a battery at high voltage.

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