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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

#351

Post by wayneftw »

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?

It's not recent. Their software has always been second rate. So is their hardware - just look at their "Pro" lineup that came out in 2019 with a 2 year old GPU in it for $50k lol.

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

#352

Post by timzentu »

bdowling wrote: post #333
richrichardsson wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> a brick, it cannot be recovered. A bricked device usually can be recovered using only software tools and sometimes a special cable. Sometimes those tools or cables are only possessed by the manufacturer, which frustrates consumers and makes it seem like the devices are unrecoverable, but they’re not. A broken device, on the other hand, can’t be recovered using software tools or a special cable because it contains b…

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, or something more advanced.

This is from my experience dealing with non-technical people who are mechanically inclined, but not technically inclined. they will call with a "broke" device that just needs a reset since they have too many users in a system all attempting to run the same device on different things. (Sorry keeping vague to keep me out of hot water). They will also call in with something "bricked" because the device won't function due to a damaged USB port, and they don't have the skill set/components to solder a port on something electronic. And then further down the scale it is a paperweight when it won't boot and is a piece of hardware they hate.

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

#353

Post by toyg »

intopieces wrote: post #338
cowmoo728 wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have never worked at apple but I know a few people that do and did dating back to the 70s. They have a culture of team independence, which is good and bad. Every team gets to choose their own language, tools, and process. This leads to an enormous amount of fragmentation across Apple. Additionally, there's a lot of secrecy and territorial behavior around products and teams. Finally, a lot of Apple's resources are d…

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.

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

#354

Post by toyg »

pier25 wrote: post #317
DeathArrow wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ask some philosophers "what you need to do to have a good life?". They will start discussing: "What is life?" "What is good?" "What is need?" "What is you?" "What is what?" And those discussions will never end unless the time itself ends.

If you ask Conan he will have a definite answer though: > Crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentation of the women! (this is a philosophical joke)

This is why Conan is a king and a pirate, and the philosophers are all dead.

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

#356

Post by wkoszek »

Eh. I'm so happy to now be alone. I really hope they'll hear it. I just sent my brand new MBP 16" back to Apple, because I believe that's what happened to me too. 2 weeks ago Friday an update fetched overnight messed me up--upon starting I got an installer with "27 minutes to go", then a login screen, and upon a login with my password, I got a pure-white-screen for 2-5s, then 2s of max-fan speed, and an instant reboot.

And it went on to happen in the loop: login -> white screen -> reboot.

Recovery mode + macOS reinstall = "Can't install macOS on this computer"

To my that starts to match the definition of "bricked" already, because a normal person really can't probably recover from this at that point.

Recovery mode (booted via USB drive) = "Installer is missing assets" (tried 2 USB drives, after re-downloading Catalina installer

Recovery mode (booted via USB drive with Mojave) = this is not supported anymore

Recovery mode -> Disk Utility -> First Aid -> run a FS check, turned out APFS volume is corrupted ("fsroot tree is invalid")...

Target mode (went to BestBuy to get a special "SS+" certified USB-C cable, because of course a normal cable doesn't work) connected to my macOS Catalina Mac mini -> couldn't unencrypted the APFS partition enough though the password was correct. Read every possible target mode tutorial, and there's no mention about what Catalina did to Recovery Keys/User (other than them simply not being there), but you need to pass a UUID of a recovery used, and I only had some iCloud Recovery Keys there. Tried my MacBook password, my iCloud password etc. Nothing worked. Basically I couldn't un-encrypt the drive.

Ended up just starting Recovery Mode again, mounting a separate USB disk from the Terminal, copied valuable stuff over.

Removed all APFS volumes, tried to re-install on a fresh volumes. Nothing worked. Was getting the same issues from the installer. Gave up. Packed this $4k computer and sent it back to Apple. Writing this from my Mac mini, with Catalina, happily rejecting any updates. BTW, Catalina installer is a joke. It is broken since Catalina came out, and it's not getting any better.

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

#357

Post by [deleted] »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #300
microtonal wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Given that Apple released separate OS install discs and update packages for PPC vs Intel, why were they installing fat binaries of built-in software anyway? For 3rd party apps universal binaries made complete sense as a way of simplifying app distribution, but that doesn’t extend to the OS. Heck, do Intel Windows 10 installs include ARM copies of every binary now? I hope not...

[deleted]

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

#358

Post by mikecsh »

xenospn wrote: post #347
odshoifsdhfs wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have this issue. Computer went to sleep after the update. This was on Friday. Haven't been able to do any kind of thing on it. Trackpad 'clicks' but no screen, not touchbar, nothing (2018 Macbook Pro). Called apple, they tld me it had to go a store, unfortunately where I live, due to quarantine there are no shops available to pick it, and we aren't allowed to drive outside our district. Will try the apple configura…

If that had happened to me my entire startup would have to shut down. Not cool.

Better get cracking on some disaster recovery planning then!

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

#359

Post by sethammons »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #243
sethammons wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Press and hold on the spacebar. Wait a second. Then you can move the cursor left/right from the spacebar. iOS is generally quite good at these things. Like any new platform, you can't expect it the UX to be identical to an old platform that you're more familiar with.

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.

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

#360

Post by shadowCensor »

perardi wrote: post #324

I am quite the Apple apologist, but Catalina is awful. 1. As seen here, it's a bugfest. 2. For user-facing features, it brings…Sidecar? And a bunch of half-assed Catalyst apps, I suppose. 3. Such an exciting new set of security features—really met what I have to guess was their goal to quickly train me to click OK on every single dialog to get to work.

I highly recommend taking a marketing class.
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