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macOS Sonoma Boot Failures

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Re: macOS Sonoma Boot Failures

#231

Post by SamuelAdams »

benreesman wrote: post #228

I don’t know what’s going on with Apple lately. They’ve built one of the world’s best brands after a near-death experience via a ruthless focus on and fanatical commitment to providing a holistically premium experience (for the people who want their version of that) to justify their premium pricing and huge margins. If you like what they do, it Just Works from purchase on. Or did until recently. Just today I had an e…

The Apple today is very different from the Apple of 20 years ago. The brand is the same, yes, but the people are all largely different. You see this all the time in the video game industry, ie Blizzard, Bungie, 343 industries.

Maybe the newest group of programmers and engineers are dealing with a very complicated code base? Maybe no one fully understands everything involved until something breaks?

Re: macOS Sonoma Boot Failures

#233

Post by pmarreck »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #128
lxgr wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I can only tell you what happens when you manually change the resolution from 60 Hz to "ProMotion" in macOS. Presumably ProMotion is a specific mode that the display/display controller/... first needs to be set to. If you start out in anything other than that and then switch to it later in the boot process, you'd get that blank screen for a second, and Apple avoids that by writing the startup mode to non-volati…

...so this is where I'm confused, and where I think GP is confused. Why is there a separate 60 Hz mode that requires blanking the display? Why not just keep dynamic refresh enabled on the panel, and then lock it to updating 60 times per second (which it can do, since it's dynamic) for people who prefer that for whatever reason? What is the difference?

> Why is there a separate 60 Hz mode that requires blanking the display?

I'm guessing it probably has to do with compliance with the original VESA standard, or whatever the completely basic support of multiple resolutions and refresh rates in all monitors is called.

The bootstrap of booting a system always ends up relying on the most basic supported things to start with (such as 640x480@60Hz using the VESA standard) and then upping it from there.

Re: macOS Sonoma Boot Failures

#234

Post by pmarreck »

FirmwareBurner wrote: post #116
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Where? Do you have any examples? The whole battery gate saga. Touch Bar. The 2013 Mac Pro [1]. [1] https://www.theverge.com/2017/4/4/15175994/apple-mac-pro-fai...

Yeah but that only proves my original point that Apple only admits mistakes when the public scandals are so violent it can't possibly deny them anymore as the shit pile broomed under the carped has grown so large it makes even them trip on it, so then they just enter damage control mode and PR recovery but not out of the kindness of their heart but because of media backlash. But they never have the common sense to re…

methinks you're the self-victim of some confirmation bias here, sir.

Re: macOS Sonoma Boot Failures

#235

Post by benreesman »

SamuelAdams wrote: post #231
benreesman wrote: post #228

I don’t know what’s going on with Apple lately. They’ve built one of the world’s best brands after a near-death experience via a ruthless focus on and fanatical commitment to providing a holistically premium experience (for the people who want their version of that) to justify their premium pricing and huge margins. If you like what they do, it Just Works from purchase on. Or did until recently. Just today I had an e…

The Apple today is very different from the Apple of 20 years ago. The brand is the same, yes, but the people are all largely different. You see this all the time in the video game industry, ie Blizzard, Bungie, 343 industries. Maybe the newest group of programmers and engineers are dealing with a very complicated code base? Maybe no one fully understands everything involved until something breaks?

Just my N=1 anectdote, but I’ve been having almost universally great experiences until maybe 2 or 3 months ago.

On the software side, I tend to tolerate more security risk (within reason) to delay updates until a consensus emerges that they’re robust, because I’m not a high value target to anyone north of “script kiddy” and run a tight ship on the easy stuff, so the EV of an abruptly unusable work machine vs. getting pwned weighs heavily relative to winding up in the crosshairs of anyone sophisticated enough to exploit a recent CVE. My online banking is properly 2-fac’d, if anyone wants to read my browser history or email and cares enough to go ti that trouble, I’ll want them that I’m not important enough for it to be worth the trouble.

This would clearly change if my work went back to having demanding security requirements, but it doesn’t just now.

It’s really the customer service, fulfillment, Apple Store experience (it used to feel like stepping into the least stressful room in the mall and now it’s a zoo).

Re: macOS Sonoma Boot Failures

#236

Post by Audiophilip »

bluescrn wrote: post #216
NavinF wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. I wonder why anyone would turn ProMotion off considering that 120Hz massively improves responsiveness. I've only encountered one app that doesn't work with variable refresh rate and that's Genshin on Windows. Even that's probably not an issue with newer monitors that can handle VRR down to 60Hz without my monitor's frame-doubling flicker as it keeps switching been 60Hz and 120Hz

Emulation is one case where specific refresh rates are desirable. Would be nice if I could force my MBP to run at 100Hz for PAL Amiga/C64 emulation - or even better if emulators could/would change the refresh rate at least when running full-screen. (Actually, since Sonoma, I can manually set it to 50Hz, but there's no fixed refresh rate options above 60Hz, just 'Pro Motion'. Previously, the refresh rate setting seeme…

Interesting, that could be a limitation to the internal screen of the MBP.

On Sonoma I can select 24, 25, 30, 50, 60, 100, 120 Hz, in addition to "Variable (40-120 Hz) refresh rates for my LG C2 display. When selecting 50 or 100 Hz, scrolling in (PAL) C64 emulation in VICE becomes much smoother, but not perfect. However, when I enable variable refresh rate and switch to fullscreen mode, VICE can perfectly synchronize the refresh rate and scrolling/animations become butter smooth.

Re: macOS Sonoma Boot Failures

#237

Post by nnf »

alsetmusic wrote: post #8
neilalexander wrote: post #3

Interestingly I ran into this exact problem with my work MacBook Pro M1 upgrading to Ventura 13.6 and assumed it was a totally isolated incident. I don't have a dual-boot setup either, just a single macOS install. The computer was connected to a Thunderbolt Display during the update which I assume had the same effect of changing the refresh rate to something other-than-ProMotion that the linked article mentions. I ha…

> I also wasted far too much time trying to get the DFU restore to work before discovering that you cannot use a Thunderbolt cable — it has to be done using a plain USB-C cable, otherwise the Apple Configurator simply won't detect the other Mac. I would have expected a Thunderbolt cable to be required, if either was. This is quite surprising to me. Usually, the more capable (higher bandwidth) cable works if one isn’t…

From Apple’s support page on how to revive or restore after a failed upgrade [1]:

> A supported USB-C to USB-C charge cable, such as the one sold by Apple (may not be available in all countries or regions) or a supported USB-A to USB-C cable

> The USB-C cable must support both power and data. Thunderbolt 3 cables aren’t supported.

[1] https://support.apple.com/guide/apple-configurator-mac/reviv...

Re: macOS Sonoma Boot Failures

#238

Post by fsflover »

coldtea wrote: post #220
fsflover wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> with more device incompatibilities, manual fiddling Did you read what I wrote above? " if you buy preinstalled " If you install Linux on an ordinary "Windows-certified" computer, you will have problems. If you install an alternative OS on a Macbook, you will have exactly the same problems.

> Did you read what I wrote above? "if you buy preinstalled" And did you understand my point? Buying preinstalled isn't a cure-all, only ensures that the bundled hardware drivers are compatible and configured. That's a pretty low bar. It doesn't cover doing stuff with third party devices (which on the Mac 99% of the time it works every time). Not to mention even the bundled-hardware doesn't always work even if you bu…

> Not to mention even the bundled-hardware doesn't always work even if you buy pre-installed (like the laptop not sleeping properly for example).

I agree that this is not tolerable. However my devices from Purism have a reliable sleep and other functionality out of the box.

> third party devices

Check Linux compatibility before buying and they will work reliably. Works for me.

Re: macOS Sonoma Boot Failures

#239

Post by ehutch79 »

Reading many of the comments here… I wonder if a lot of hacker news commenters have actually met real, everyday users of technology. Not other nerds and grognards, but like, the lady sitting over in a cubical, who only knows enough about computers to do their job.

Do you really think users want graphic mode selection on boot? What percent of Mac users have alternate bootloaders or even know what that means.

A lot of commenters need to do some time in the proverbial trenches and support a fleet of devices at a large company. See if users really care about the things you think they do.

Re: macOS Sonoma Boot Failures

#240

Post by sneak »

wannacboatmovie wrote: post #54
jwells89 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The messiness of resolutions during boot always annoyed me on PCs. It was understandable back in the days of BIOS, but ith the advent of UEFI it seems like it should be possible to run EFI config screens and the like at monitor native rez (or at minimum, native aspect ratio) but I’ve never seen this… it’s always 1024x768 or somesuch stretched to fit a 16:9 monitor which looks awful.

EFI config screens should be text mode only, full-stop. So they can easily be used over serial console redirection. Ran into one recently that was high-rez graphical. It needed a USB mouse to change critical settings because the tab order for the onscreen widgets didn't work. Anyone responsible for creating graphical EFI config screens should stop writing software for the good of humanity.

Text mode on my 8K monitor at any time, even in boot, is dumb and annoying and anachronistic. It’s 2023.
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