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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

#431

Post by zwily »

teilo wrote: post #82
baryphonic wrote: post #59

This is interesting. I sat down at my machine on Thursday morning, and it was entirely unresponsive. It had warned me about installing updates the previous evening, but I've done this many times without an issue, and regardless, they are always complete by morning. I waited a minute or two for any sign of life (beyond the fans running), and then held power. I heard the unpleasant sound of the fans spinning up to high…

I had a similar issue to yours when I manually ran this update on my 16". It froze on a black screen, after doing the BridgeOS part of the update. I had to force it down. When it started, it continued the update and, thankfully, everything worked. However, I'm still having kernel panics after the Supplemental update. But interestingly, they only happen when the machine is supposedly sleeping, with the shell closed. I…

Same thing was happening to me recently. I turned off Power Nap and it hasn’t happened since.

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

#432

Post by jplayer01 »

floatingatoll wrote: post #366
jplayer01 wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it possible to export a recovery key? Because this kind of failure simply due to a bad update shouldn't be acceptable.

No, it’s not possible to use a FileVault recovery key at this stage of repair. It’s not failure, it’s secure by design to prevent attackers/governments from stealing your files without consent. Under DFU brick and reset circumstances, the private key is gone, because otherwise an attacker could just upload a hacked firmware via DFU and access all your files. I assume the installer uses a different process that perfor…

Not sure what DFU means as I'm not familiar with Mac. With any other encryption, it doesn't matter what the state of my system is. As long as I have the key, I can always decrypt it. And it's not a vulnerability. Without the key, the data is effectively inaccessible for everybody else (except maybe somebody with a quantum computer).

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

#433

Post by thu2111 »

apple4ever wrote: post #429
thu2111 wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not a fundamental issue though. Chrome pushes new features every six weeks. Android updates every year and doesn't suffer these kinds of problems. You absolutely can do regular updates that are high quality. You just can't do them in an environment that's deadline driven, or which gives PMs too much power over what dev teams work on.

You are comparing a browser to an entire operating system (and I believe Android does have those problems). But you do have a point: it should be product driven not feature driven.

Browsers get closer to operating systems all the time, for better or worse.

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

#434

Post by brailsafe »

ryanmccullagh wrote: post #414
brailsafe wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I reproduced it by eliminating aspects of the scenario and combing through logs. For example, for a long time I only knew it was happening sometime after the laptop went to sleep, but that's all. After paying attention to my patterns, I isolated out the case where the laptop would sleep only for a few minutes on or off power. Then I did the same thing but either pulled the power cable or plugged it in after it went to sleep. Then I tried variants of those after letting it sleep for a long time. Nothing was reproducible for a very long time until I noticed that the specific case of first using it till the battery was dead, then letting it sit for a while, then plugging it in and then opening the lid caused the kernel panic. It persisted through two screen replacements and one motherboard replacement if memory serves. Not totally sure how that happened, but it could have been a faulty SSD or something.

It was extremely satisfying to finally isolate it to 100% reproducibility. Peak of my career right there.

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

#435

Post by ashtonkem »

freehunter wrote: post #428
ashtonkem wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obviously depending on a laptop for runtime code would be bad, but plenty of early stage startups depend heavily on a small number of machines for customer support and continued development. Probably a bigger issue isn’t that they’re a single laptop failure away from collapse, the bigger problem is that replacing a laptop right now would be unusually difficult.

In the world of git and cheaply available easy to use backup software, there is zero excuse to not have backups of everything to load on another machine. Even if you want to avoid the cloud and keep it local, a 128gb USB3 drive is under $50. “A small number of machines” is not what we are talking about. We’re talking about one single consumer-grade laptop that would collapse the entire business forever.

Giving the benefit of the doubt; it’s entirely possible they have that setup, with the tacit assumption that if their machine died they could buy another same day.

Now, you really can’t buy another laptop same day.

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

#436

Post by latexr »

verisimilitude wrote: post #272
dzhiurgis wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And it won’t do CRON because reasons

Bugs me too. Your best bet is launchd which solves the problem, but it is a bit of pain to write job definition property lists. More here: https://www.launchd.info

> it is a bit of pain to write job definition property lists

http://launched.zerowidth.com/ makes it easier.

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

#437

Post by LilBytes »

harikb wrote: post #307
diebeforei485 wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not true in Catalina. 1. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210650

Thanks for the pointer. I hadn’t heard about this at all!

Well, I lost all my data. I have an empty relocated items dir on my desktop.

Edit: there's a Configuration dir in Recovered Items which has two other dirs, a private dir which contains another etc dir which contains a shells default file. Nothing else.

Unsure why this didn't help me at all.

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

#438

Post by fortran77 »

iaml wrote: post #306
nothis wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With Catalina, I'm also not seeing any major benefit to upgrading. The features list is thin and no 32bit programs kills a lot of random stuff that I can't find a quick replacement for. This is the first time I'm not upgrading macOS in 15+ years.

Unfortunately if you want a good keyboard, you don't have a choice - new mbps can't downgrade lower than catalina.

I love my new Lenovo laptop and it has a great keyboard. There is a choice.

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

#440

Post by phs318u »

Wingy wrote: post #425
phs318u wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure myself though I’m sure books will in future be written about “the early signs of Apple’s demise”. My MacbookAir 6,2 (mid-2013) was screwed after the 10.15.4 update (not the supplemental). The SSD was totally not recognised. I’ve tried SMC and NVRAM resets numerous times and remote Recovery. The drive is now invisible. I opened it up to reseat it (cleaning pins and socket) to no avail. Fortunately I’ve got a…

Please let me know if replacing the drive works, my friend has the same issue.

Hi Wingy. Sorry this is two weeks late. Life intervened. I swapped mine and my daughter’s SSD’s and it’s definitely the drive and not the logic board in my case. That’s no guarantee for your friend but you never know your luck.

I was kind of hoping it would be the logic board to self-justify a new laptop. Now I’m thinking I’ll get the cheapest 256 I can get and nurse the laptop along for as long as I can.

But I’m committed to switching to Linux. Still exploring distros.

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