
Nasty macOS flaw is bricking MacBooks: Don't install this update - Corrado
https://www.tomsguide.com/news/nasty-macos-flaw-is-bricking-macbooks-dont-install-this-update
======
xcalibre
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.

~~~
mmxmb
Does anyone know what might have caused this recent downturn in Apple's
software quality?

~~~
phs318u
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 256GB SDXC card which I’ve installed Pop!_OS on - which
has convinced me that now’s as good a time as any to extricate myself from the
Apple ecosystem (which I’m all in on - iCloud, Apple Music etc). My next
laptop will be non-Apple. First non-Apple hardware in this house since 2003.

I’ll try swapping the drive with my daughter’s - she has the same model. At
least I’ll know whether it’s the drive or the logic board. Then I can sell the
bits.

~~~
hpkuarg
The screen on my MacbookPro13,1 (late 2016) recently gave out. I needed a
replacement but I was not convinced by any of the current Apple offerings -- I
can't stand the stupid touch bar on the Pros, and the new MBA didn't
sufficiently excite me.

The usual build-to-order options like Dell or Lenovo being backordered due to
the pandemic, I walked into a Costco and bought a LG Gram 17[0]. This is the
first time I bought a laptop off the shelf, and the first time my primary
laptop has not been a Mac, in over a decade. I installed Xubuntu 18.04 LTS on
it with no fanfare and have been quite happy with it since.

The early signs of Apple's demise, indeed.

[0] [https://www.lg.com/us/laptops/lg-17z90n-r.aac8u1-ultra-
slim-...](https://www.lg.com/us/laptops/lg-17z90n-r.aac8u1-ultra-slim-laptop)

~~~
throwlaplace
what did you do with the dead macbook? i'd be interested in purchasing it

------
baryphonic
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 RPM and then shutting off rapidly. I waited a
few seconds and then held power again. The machine showed a slow progress bar,
but then finally I saw "26 minutes remaining" below it. I was pretty surprised
that the update was running, but I figured it had just started late or hung,
and ran a bit later into the working hours.

This article makes me reevaluate that thought.

Coincidentally, one of my colleagues had warned the team about installing
macOS updates, since he was having repeated issues with kernel panics on the
original 10.15.4 update.

I hope Apple can get some of this together a little better going forward.

~~~
FireBeyond
For added irony, my Hackintosh installed the update without missing a beat.

~~~
Wowfunhappy
I have been a Hackintosh user since 2010 and I’ve never had a system break in
point release. If you set it up right, it’s not that common.

Major version upgrades are an entirely different matter, although even they
sometimes just work with Clover.

~~~
FireBeyond
I just moved my system from Clover to OpenCore last week. A couple of hours of
paying attention and reading and voila.

------
diebeforei485
I think companies are pushing updates way too aggressively to those who have
auto update on.

Is there some reason why phased release isn't more common among OS/firmware
updates?

Auto update does not have to mean "update my device the day new versions are
out".

Edit: Is this related to public disclosure of security bugs? If so, the
community should change their standard so that public disclosure doesn't
happen until a week after the update is available. This would allow for phased
rollouts.

~~~
encom
What OS X and Windows, IOS, Android and probably lots of others need, is Long
Term Support releases. I'm so sick and tired of my phone and computer
switching up major features and UI every year, because some UX person wants to
not get fired.

Releasing a new major version of your OS yearly is insane.

~~~
Joeri
On windows you can choose to get feature updates with a 4 month delay if you
have windows pro (set updates to "Semi-Annual Channel" instead of "Semi-Annual
Channel (Targeted)", and yes microsoft are indeed terrible with naming
things). I never had issues with windows updates on that branch. There is also
windows enterprise long term servicing branch (LTSB), which gets feature
updates every 3 years (but is meant more for things like point of sale
systems, not for regular PC's).

On macOS you can stay one major release behind. So, stay on mojave until the
successor to catalina is released, then upgrade to catalina. You still get
security fixes and full software ecosystem support, but far fewer issues with
buggy updates.

On android and iOS you don't really have good options to my knowledge.

~~~
kiwijamo
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...!

~~~
thu2111
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 ever had an Android
phone experience the sort of severe regressions that occur regularly with
Apple updates.

I've been a MBP user for a long time, but I'm really starting to wonder if
it's time to take a leap soon. I've been using this laptop for maybe a year
and:

1\. I'm scared to upgrade to the latest OS

2\. The screen's coating has been damaged and has key-print impressions on it.
This _always happens_ and Apple seem incapable of fixing it.

3\. The latest butterfly keyboard has at least not broken on me for 8 months
or so, but the options, C and A keys have worn through and now have holes in
them. This started happening a few generations ago and now seems like a
regular problem that I'm just supposed to accept.

4\. Very soon after getting it something happened to the metal such that it
has a large discolouration on the bottom left, of a type I've never seen
before. Nothing seems to fix it.

5\. The screen routinely gets a yellow splotch in one of the corners if the
laptop has been in my backpack for a while.

The problem is that despite not even really having improved for years, macOS
is probably still the best OS out there. Linux on laptops has never worked
well - my colleagues who try to use it routinely have issues with webcams not
working properly. Windows laptops seem to vary wildly in quality and many of
them have stupid design flaws like putting the webcam at the bottom of the
screen instead of the top, coming loaded with crapware, anti-virus products
that cripple performance, Windows is still a rats nest of weird problems under
the hood. And their way to make it better for developers is to just bundle
Linux?

I really wish there was more competition in the laptops-for-technical-people
space.

~~~
Joeri
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.

------
edapted
2018 MBP, Using it on battery, saw I was at 20% plugged it in, noticed it was
running like crap so I started closing applications, restarted it. Still
running like crap after reboot, also noticed fans were not spinning figured
maybe an SMC reset is in order when I realized it was at 2% battery, had not
been charging, status said it was plugged in but not charging. Powered it off
to do the SMC reset and I can get nothing from it now, not a thing, no sounds,
no signs of life, no fans, no apple logo, no clicks from the trackpad. I think
this qualifies as a brick.

------
rammy1234
Timing of this cannot be more wrong. WFH and no store opened will make this
more worse.

~~~
rootusrootus
I'm actually a little surprised they're pushing out updates at all right now.
They have to be aware of the risk.

~~~
saagarjha
Supplemental updates usually fix serious bugs or ones that impact a lot of
people. They're fairly rare.

~~~
danieldk
Indeed. The problem was 10.15.4 to start with. One reason to roll out the
supplemental update was because 10.15.4 broke Facetime compatibility with
older iOS and macOS versions (which is particularly bad in the current
crisis).

Maybe they shouldn't have released 10.15.4 right now, but instead only the
security fixes in this release. But they had to push out that release to
support the new MacBook Air.

Another problem with such reports is that it is hard to get an idea of how
widespread this problem is. And whether the problem (perhaps) already occurred
with previous Catalina updates, but is now picked up more.

------
perardi
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.

~~~
freehunter
For 3, what it's taught me is that I have to load a video conference, go into
the privacy settings, allow use of camera and microphone, then _exit the video
conference_ and load it again before anyone can see or hear me.

I'm a consultant and talk to multiple clients all with their own video
conference solution and having to do this every time I join a call where a
client is using a different video conference solution is very unprofessional.
The worst was using Teams where I had to close my browser before I could join
the conference, after I had already queued up everything I needed for the
call. So now everyone is waiting on me to re-open everything and reset the
state for the demo.

I never thought I'd miss Windows UAC.

~~~
bobbylarrybobby
Surely this is the fault of the app and not macOS? I have plenty of apps that
asked for those permissions once, got it, and never asked again.

~~~
freehunter
They’re not asking again but asking for the first time is what is disruptive
because it forces you to close whatever application is requesting permissions.
It’s sucks when WebEx does it but at least that only makes you close WebEx.
Still a really poor design choice but not nearly as disruptive as browser-
based tools that make you close your browser.

------
crazygringo
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.
But since there aren't, and considering that Apple hasn't pulled the update...

Is this just much ado about nothing?

~~~
unloco
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 the time so it doesnt break? nah.

~~~
brailsafe
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 be related to deep
sleep/hibernate, where the contents of ram is written to the ssd and then
restored on wake. You can test this probably by setting a hibernate timer and
then testing what happens if it sleeps for just under and just over that time.

~~~
ryanmccullagh
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?

~~~
brailsafe
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.

------
bangonkeyboard
I thought this would be about the 10.15.4 update, which had known problems,
but instead it's the supplemental hotfix that was supposed to address them:

 _" This supplemental update for macOS 10.15.4 Catalina, released Wednesday
(April 8), was meant to resolve issues created by the 10.15.4 update in late
March."_

------
zhenyakovalyov
My 2019 mbp was bricked with the previous update. Apple support said that they
need to take a physical look, but all of their stores are closed until further
notice.

¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

And by “bricked” I mean - no signs of life whatsoever

------
oneplane
Odd, this seems to be happening across the industry and is now either reported
better or just more prevalent. Besides bricks (well, is it a brick if you can
recover?) we have seen post-update BSOD's, data loss, browsers going bad,
settings getting reset on various operating systems of the big vendors out
there. I know that it isn't like software 'used to be perfect' but this type
of defect feels bigger than it used to be.

~~~
kbumsik
I guess two reasons:

1\. The OS update policies became more "agile". Both Windows and macOS starts
to update the OS more often than ever. macOS moved to an annual update from
biannual, Windows 10 switched to a subscription-like model.

2\. They laid off the testing team and stopped testing on actual PCs in favor
of VMs. [1] It makes sense considering the broken updates are often more low-
level bugs that cannot be caught by VMs.

[1]: [https://www.techradar.com/news/windows-10-problems-are-
ruini...](https://www.techradar.com/news/windows-10-problems-are-ruining-
microsofts-reputation-and-the-damage-cant-be-underestimated)

~~~
Florin_Andrei
> _They laid off the testing team_

Must be good for the bottom line.

The cost is absorbed by the unlucky users.

~~~
chaos_a
It's another case of focusing on the short term to save money. In the long
term it damages their reputation and some frustrated businesses/users might
start to consider moving away from their products if a viable alternative
exists.

~~~
the_other
Unfortunately there’s only two players in this game (I doubt mass consumption
of linux any time soon). So, if they both suck, neither loses the reputation
game.

------
cutler
Well, that's it for Catalina then. Although I really want full Xcode
11.4/Swift UI/Swift 5.2 and my MacBook Pro a Catalina upgrade is just too much
of a risk. On top of all the previous Catalina woes Apple should be hanging
their heads in shame.

~~~
andrekandre
> Xcode 11.4

your probably not missing much, there are some serious regressings in that
release, for example [0]

[0] [https://forums.swift.org/t/swift-5-2-struct-property-
wrapper...](https://forums.swift.org/t/swift-5-2-struct-property-wrapper-
didset-defect/34403/3)

(for me, cant make release builds because the compiler crashes... sigh...)

~~~
trevyn
You’re missing the ability to connect to and debug on iOS 13.4 devices, I
believe:

[https://forums.developer.apple.com/thread/130988](https://forums.developer.apple.com/thread/130988)

So now I’m stuck on 10.14.6 _and_ iOS 13.3.1, one of which is not getting
security updates.

Really hoping Fuschia or someone steps up and displaces Apple.

~~~
apple4ever
What??? Xcode 11.4 requires Catalina now?? That’s nuts.

~~~
plorkyeran
Over the last few years Xcode has dropped support for older versions of macOS
very aggressively. It requires upgrading to a new major version within the
year that the new version came out, and quite often requires the latest minor
version as well.

------
sakisv
I think that Apple should take advantage of the lockdowns and focus just on
fixing things.

They don't need to ship anything new and they have the perfect excuse to focus
on improving both their OS and their processes that allowed such flawed things
to reach their users.

~~~
deergomoo
I wish macOS would just drop back to major releases every 2-3 years. Sure,
drop a point release in September to add compatibility with whatever new
feature iOS has gained, but my Mac is the computer I do work on. I need it to
always be reliable.

Right now it seems the only way to do that is wait a long time before
installing any update they push.

~~~
apple4ever
I absolutely agree. The action of pushing out major updates every year has
lead to a drop in quality. They never get a chance to fix last years bugs
because they are working on next years features.

~~~
thu2111
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.

~~~
apple4ever
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.

~~~
thu2111
Browsers get closer to operating systems all the time, for better or worse.

------
Avi-D-coder
Why is Catalina so unstable, were there major architectural changes? I know
they broke Nix, ssh and a few others, but why?

~~~
saagarjha
Depends on what you’re looking at, but on the whole Catalina probably has more
aggressive changes than Mojave did.

~~~
mekster
And what has users gained by that? For the past 5 years or so, I don't exactly
know anything worth it from users' perspective. Getting third party app
updates are enough to increase productivity.

~~~
danieldk
One of the high-impact changes (which broke Nix as the grand-grand parent
mentioned) was moving / to a read-only volume:

[https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210650](https://support.apple.com/en-
us/HT210650)

Although this change may not be immediately visible it does increase security
a fair bit (malware cannot embed themselves or replace system files) and also
prevents accidental deletion.

Apple made large strides in the last few years improving security, e.g. by
introducing SIP, but also by offering fine-grained permissions for camera,
mic, etc. access. APFS created its own road bumps, but was a long overdue
replacement of HFS+.

IMO there were also some nice user-visible changes, such as dark mode,
replacing iTunes by several separate applications, and dynamic desktop.

I agree that there are also superfluous changes or steps back, I am still
grumpy that they replaced Spaces by Mission Control. I don't care for all the
deep iCloud Drive integration and think it is unfair to the competition.

I strongly disagree that there are no useful new features the last five years.
The problem is more the lack of quality control. That said, I started using
macOS when 10.5 came out, which also had its fair share of ugly bugs (e.g.
serious problems with maintaining WiFi connections).

~~~
anentropic
> I am still grumpy that they replaced Spaces by Mission Control

Can you elaborate? This terrifies me as I rely a lot on Spaces to organise my
desktop between different projects

Is this a change in Catalina?

Is seems like Spaces is still a thing: [https://support.apple.com/en-
gb/guide/mac-help/mh35798/mac](https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/mac-
help/mh35798/mac) [https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/mac-
help/mh14112/10.15...](https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/mac-
help/mh14112/10.15/mac/10.15)

I'm pretty happy with how this works in Mojava, apart from the major gripe
that the apps don't restore to the Space they were in after you reboot.

~~~
apple4ever
> Is this a change in Catalina?

No this was done years ago in 10.7. Spaces was awesome and super configurable.
But they combined it into Mission control and made it much simple but less
useful.

------
saagarjha
Is this something especially prevalent in this update? Pretty much every
single one borks _someone 's_ Mac, so I'm curious if there's something new:
this article seemed light on details.

------
b15h0p
I had a problem with the latest iOS update too: after installing 13.4.1 it
booted to a white screen with „swipe up to upgrade“ at the bottom. Swiping up
crashed the device. Every couple of minutes it would reboot and be back to the
white screen.

I did a factory reset via finder and that worked. As soon as I restored the
iCloud backup: back to the white screen.

I had to revert to 13.4 and could then restore the backup. Now I’m afraid to
update again … I guess I’ll have to wait until 13.4.2 or 14 are released.
Luckily 13.4.1 does not seem to contain security relevant fixes.

~~~
cageface
13.4 failed on my phone and I had to do a manual clean restore via my Mac.
Then 13.4.1 did the same thing and this time I had to do a DFU restore to get
it functioning again. Not fun when taking it in to get it fixed is not an
option.

I'm still getting freezes on my brand new 2019 MBP due to the still unfixed
GPU switching bug and I don't dare install any macOS updates now.

Apple has had a lot of software quality issues in recent years but this is a
new low.

------
intense_feel
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.

------
7ewis
Wonder if this update could be related to an issue I had.

Installed Snap Camera a few days ago, was on a video call and when I came off
it the green camera light stayed on. Even after quitting Hangouts and Snap
Camera.

I restarted and the green light persisted throughout the whole reboot. I then
shutdown, and it finally turned off.

After turning it back on, the camera didn't work at all. I uninstalled Snap
Camera, reset PRAM, SMC. Nothing seems to fix it. Now thinking it must be a
hardware fault, but think I was on the latest update already and just seems
like a strange coincidence that it happened almost immediately after I used
Snap Camera for the first time.

------
pinkahd
I've updated my MacBook Pro 2019 before I saw the HN post, the updated went
smoothly without any issues (so far).

I've done the same update on my Mac Mini 2018 and now the fan has stopped
working after reboot. Tried to reset NVRAM and SMC without any luck... the fan
is still unresponsive. Apple diagnostics even confirms this by giving an error
code PPF003

~~~
getpolarized
My mid-2015 mac (last REAL MacBook IMO) won't install it at all.

It says it's installing, I reboot, it does some stuff, then I come back and
the update isn't applied.

Quality stuff!

~~~
asdff
If it's any consolation, I really like the keyboard on this latest air. Gave
me reason to move off my 2012, the REAL last real macbook imo with everything
replaceable/upgrade-able with a Phillips head screwdriver and 20 minutes of
your time.

------
forgingahead
Side poll: Do people automatically download OS updates for their computers? A
lesson from my Windows days way back when was never to update anything unless
absolutely needed -- computer, phones, etc. "Needed" is loosely defined as
"key software that you need to work is no longer working on your older OS,
hence you need to upgrade your OS to keep using this key software (sorry!)."

I'm aware of security patches etc, but risk of regular things breaking for
little apparent upside has always led me (and most folks I know) to avoid
upgrades except in the above-mentioned case.

 __Edit, not just asking about Windows, but all operating systems, OSX, iOS,
Android, Linux, etc.

~~~
eru
> A lesson from my Windows days way back when was never to update anything
> unless absolutely needed -- computer, phones, etc.

Windows 10 seems to be pretty good at keeping its users on the latest version?
(Unless you actively tell it, not to?)

~~~
nicolas_t
Yes and because they have a bug with egpu they introduced in August, I had to
go in Group policy to disable updates until they finally release a fix or my
eGPU won't work (it's in beta apparently and will come out after 11 months)...
And I was complaining about Apple but this is even worse...

~~~
zamalek
> And I was complaining about Apple but this is even worse...

So a driver bug, affecting a single external device, is worse than completely
bricking an entire machine?

Microsoft have had their share of controversies with updates (recent memory is
deleting user data folder before they halted the rollout), but they have never
made a machine unresponsive to the degree of the multiple anecdotes in this
comment section.

HN has some smart folks, but the leeway those folks afford Apple despite their
continuous hostile and incompetent behavior is incredible.

------
gerardvivancos
I'm not sure this is an issue specific to this update. The very same
description in the Apple forums matches what happened on my work Macbook Pro
(a 2018 one if I'm not mistaken) while installing a different update a few
months ago.

I won't say this is not an issue specific to this supplemental update, but I'm
not buying it is _yet_.

It looks like one of the usual consequences of a system update going wrong.
See that the user reports that after fixing this through Recovery Mode, they
were asked to install the very same update again, as if nothing had happened.
This looks like a rollback.

I wish MacOS was more transparent about what actually happens on those cases.
If you had to roll back, let me know. If you could not install because of any
reason, let me know.

~~~
sleepless
Apple has historically been lacking on proper documentation. Be that on errors
happening during updates or proper documentation of what exactly they have
changed in software updates. They have slightly improved, but still not great.

------
msie
This really sucks. Can’t use the new Xcode without Catalina but this release
sounds so buggy.

~~~
cutler
Yes, there's no way Catalina is ever going on any of my machines. Apple has
hit a real low-point with this release.

~~~
tonyedgecombe
Just an anecdote but it's been rock solid for me and fixed a number of issues
I had with Mojave.

~~~
aganame
Ditto. My worst problem has been that some games on Steam claim they don’t
work on Mojave... but they do.

~~~
adanto6840
This is due to Steam adding a new checkbox that requires the game's developer
to specifically click an extra checkbox to signify compatibility with Catalina
(and optionally, specify if the binary is notarized and/or signed [don't
recall which, or is possibly both]).

Steam almost always already knows if the game has a '64-bit macOS depot'
configured -- ie ships 64-bit binary for macOS -- though in some cases the
'depot' may be configured as "macOS - All" in which case Steam may not know
for sure.

When Catalina released, they defaulted the checkbox to "No" regardless of the
game depot configuration. Any remotely recent game that supports macOS almost
certainly is shipping a 64-bit binary (been quite a while since OSX was 32-bit
only) -- so odds are very good that games supporting macOS will work with
macOS Catalina, at least likely for anything in the last 5 years if not
longer.

In our case, it took several weeks to find the checkbox to update our store
page. In all fairness, Valve sent out an email alerting of the concern ahead
of time; we just didn't read it thoroughly enough to realize that the default
setting would be "No" even when explicitly having a 64-bit macOS binary
configured.

~~~
toyg
You clearly over-estimate your competitors. Plenty of games I have, will not
work on Catalina - they are 32bit apps and devs have long moved on.

------
CrLf
Well, I've upgraded my personal macbook to Catalina (this update) and nothing
seems wrong... yet.

OTOH, my work machine (a 2016 Macbook Pro) is stuck on Mojave (due to
incompatible third-party software) and the latest "Security Update 2020-002"
broke video conferencing. Right in the middle of a pandemic forcing everybody
to work from home!

Of course, this being Apple, I'm not holding my breath for a fix anytime soon.
They don't seem to release individual updates anymore, and even these bundled
"Supplemental Updates" are few and far between.

Apple really needs to get its act together regarding macOS. People need macOS
to actually be productive, unless they'd rather lose this segment completely
to Microsoft.

------
ObsoleteNerd
It's not "bricked" if you can fix it in Recovery Mode.

Still bad that it's happening, but the term "bricked" is thrown around so
flippantly these days. If a piece of tech is bricked, it's not recoverable at
all.

~~~
gregmac
"Bricked" is relative, depending on your skill level.

For some consumers, if recovery mode doesn't work that might be the end of
line.

However, there are more advanced users that can access the storage via another
system and fix it there, hook up via serial port or JTAG and flash new
firmware, or even desolder and replace chips.

On the far other end of the spectrum, there's going to be people that consider
"doesn't show the normal UI after I press the power button" as bricked.

~~~
at_a_remove
If you go that route, "bricked" is now indistinguishable from "broke," and we
already have a word for that. Broke. We would have then gone from a situation
where we had two different states and names for each of those states to a
situation where we have two words for the very same, very fuzzy state and no
way to talk about the _other_ state.

It makes a mockery of the idea of advice. Imagine your parents calling you and
telling you that their machine is bricked. Well, I guess they must buy a new
one and the old must go to electronic recycling. No need for a diagnostic of
any kind, it's bricked.

Linguistic descriptivism will be the death of communication and standards.
Only pushing back at the creep will allow people to discuss anything
technical. Imagine the trend should it overtake medicine. If a certain kind of
stroke is suspected, the patient should take aspirin right away. No, _aspirin_
-aspirin, not ibuprofen. Then you have someone who says, "Well, ibuprofen is
an aspirin sure!"

~~~
egypturnash
Bricked, to me, means it is _physically_ just fine, but it doesn’t work due to
some kind of software issue.

“I bricked my phone and had to spend a whole day reading obscure guides to
three different levels of embedded software before I could get it working
again” feels like a perfectly valid sentence. You can fix a bricked thing,
just like you can fix a broken thing, but both require some investment of time
and possibly the use of tools that you won’t usually find outside the hands of
specialists.

~~~
richrichardsson
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.

~~~
bdowling
> 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 broken parts that must be repaired or
replaced.

~~~
timzentu
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.

~~~
bdowling
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 bricked versus broken. To a non-technical
person whose device isn't working, however, there is no practical difference.

~~~
richrichardsson
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.

------
d99kris
I have a MacBook 12" 2017 and have not encountered any serious issue with
10.15.4 supplemental update, yet..

I do however note that when adjusting volume in the status bar the UI dragbar
position is very jumpy, which gives a rather unpolished impression.

~~~
davidweir
> when adjusting volume in the status bar the UI dragbar position is very
> jumpy

I've noticed this as well. Qualitatively, it seems to be worse when external
audio output devices are selected, than for the Internal Speakers.

------
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.

------
abartl
For me the installation got stuck. Had to try twice

------
szczepano
They're earning billions yet can't afford to keep 5 mac books of each type in
different configurations in one room and person or computer who will launch
update before release and report green light. As always whatever size of
company testing is a bottleneck because having roughly 25 computers and
testing room is a problem. What a wonderful world.

~~~
mthoms
As I understand it, not all components are sourced from the same manufacturer
for the entire run of any one model.

But you're still absolutely right. They should be testing every possible
configuration.

------
neo1691
I am having serious problems with WiFi. I have about six apple devices and my
home wlan works perfectly for all of them except my MacBook Pro. It connects
and then in some minutes there is no internet. No packets in no packets out.
Tried everything.

Tomorrow I do a hard reset. Nice way to spend my Easter holidays.

------
LordFast
The quality of Apple's Apple's and software has been on a gentle downward
trend since about 2015.

I still prefer them for now, but eventually the cost/benefit ratio just won't
make sense anymore. If I'm paying for crappy quality, I'd rather just buy
cheap.

------
neycoda
This is what happens when you focus on features over functionality, get
excited over "delighting" your customers over providing reliable products, and
put visibility over stability. Steve Jobs had a nice balance of this, Tim Cook
is just a numbers guy.

------
bdcravens
I installed it on my 16" yesterday - haven't seen any of the issues in the
article yet.

------
appleflaxen
Since my power cord frayed (no strain relief due to aesthetics) to the point
that it will no longer charge, my laptop has been off for a week.

I've been protected from a major flaw by another, equally major flaw.

I guess it's better than the alternative of getting hit by them both.

------
abootstrapper
Ugh. My 2018 i9 has been freezing randomly recently. I actually rushed to
install the most recent update hoping it would fix the freezing. It hasn’t and
now I gotta worry about this. I regret upgrading to Catalina. Nothing but
problems since.

------
MrMacintoshBlog
I am tracking the issue here.

[https://mrmacintosh.com/10-15-4-supplemental-update-
bricking...](https://mrmacintosh.com/10-15-4-supplemental-update-bricking-
small-number-of-t2-macs/)

------
pier25
None of our 5 macs at home have Catalina installed. We will stay with Mojave
for the foreseeable future.

It seems Apple is finally getting their shit together on the Mac hardware
front. Now they need to do the same for macOS.

Moving to yearly macOS releases was a bad idea.

------
xyst
I have been lucky thus far, I suppose. Before I run the updates, I disconnect
all peripherals (Bluetooth devices, external monitors) and even close out all
active applications.

The two events are likely unrelated but so far has not failed me.

------
duttaoindril
I had to send my mac in for repair. Horrifyingly painful during Corona. And
they stole my graphics card (repair removed the graphics card), and reset back
to Mojave. I had to chance re-installing Catalina myself.

------
cavisne
Truly terrible time with everyone working from home without tech support.

------
rukshn
I just installed the update yesterday and now I'm seeing this.

Mine is working so far

------
kd22
Was going to update today, I guess I am going to be on my current 10.15.2 for
a long time. 10.15.2 is quite stable and runs smooth enough with occasional
freezes happening maybe once a month.

------
DrGeek
Does it have any impact on the display? Well, roughly the lower half-inch
portion of my display gets crazy randomly. Mine is a 13 inch 2017 MacBook Pro.
Any remarks guys?

------
denimnerd42
Apple killed my 2015 macbook pro like this. Rebooted for update and never
turned on again. No smc or recovery options worked. Completely bricked and
also out of warranty.

------
Scheris
New 2019 16in MBP, luckily worked fine on my machine (and an old 2013 13in
MBP).

Sounds like a real pickle for those affected, though. v_v

------
darepublic
It's a good thing I always click later on these updates.. has Apple retracted
this patch?

------
awzeemo
One data point here - my late 2013 MacBook Pro (ME864LL/A) is fine with
10.15.4

------
t0ughcritic
I thought it was just me!

------
GnarfGnarf
Yesterday my MacBook Pro (2018, Model "MacBookPro15,1") updated itself, and
I've had no problems. I'm at macOS 10.15.4 (19E287). Is this the latest
version?

------
qplex
I've never seen an OS update brick a PC.

Linux or Windows, doesn't matter - you can always recover via BIOS.

How can Apple users live with crap like this?

------
bluedino
Are people not using auto-update?

~~~
ravenstine
Why would I want to wake up in the morning to find my laptop not working?

This issue is exactly why I only occasionally install updates, and if I do I
wait a while for the canaries to leave the coal mine. I've been a user of
macOS, distros of Linux, and Windows for years, and in every one of them there
was the inevitable update that made the OS unusable. It happens rarely but,
when it does, it's a miserable experience.

~~~
wuunderbar
Interested in hearing about a Linux update that made the system unusable.

~~~
therealx
Are you kidding? I've had config files overwritten, x11/wayland/whatever just
break after an update, wirelesss/power drivers just...change, sometimes to the
point of having to recover it from a mono-screen tty, or updates fuck up the
fs or something else that requires me to hit up single user mode.

~~~
ravenstine
Yeah, I got a black screen on boot on more than one occasion because of some
change to either X11 or its config after updating. It's probably a rite of
passage for a seasoned Linux user to figure out how to undo the damage to
their `/etc/x11/xorg.conf`. (then again, I stopped using linux about 4 years
ago, so maybe that's changed)

~~~
teddyh
It has changed, yes. Most people don’t even have an /etc/X11/xorg.conf file
anymore; it’s all autodetected now.

------
auggierose
Still on 10.15.3

Just disabled auto-update. Phew.

------
vondur
Well, not bricked you just lose your data. That data that most people don't
have backups for.

~~~
saagarjha
Where does it say that you lose your data?

~~~
LilBytes
I was hit by this bug, my entire unit was fucked and I had to use Recovery
over the Internet to reinstall a fresh OS on my 2019 MacBook Pro. Nearly
everything on my Mac was dot sourced, on Git or using my local NAS'
TimeMachine share. All the same, all my data on the Mac was still lost and had
to be restored using backup.

~~~
saagarjha
Reinstalling the OS shouldn't wipe your data partition…

~~~
harikb
At least in the default install, it is all one partition. Moreover, if you had
disk encryption or something, getting the recovery keys would be a risk even
you had followed all the right steps. Granted, none of these are good excuses
for not doing TM backups since those are so easy. But just saying people could
lose data and not have an easy way to recover it.

~~~
diebeforei485
This is not true in Catalina.

1\. [https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210650](https://support.apple.com/en-
us/HT210650)

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

~~~
LilBytes
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.

------
wisecoder
Why i cannot find any ergonomic keyboard for mac?

------
stblack
I suspect [http://n-gate.com/](http://n-gate.com/) is gonna roast this post’s
comments.

~~~
stblack
LOL n-gate trolls referrals from here. That’s brilliant.

------
sv9
I'm consistently amazed by HN's ability to take the most meaningless,
inconsequential part of an article (the scroll behavior, the whitespace, the
usage of the word "bricked"), and nitpick it to hell and back instead of
actually discussing the article.

Bravo.

~~~
cygned
Brown M&Ms
([https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/232420](https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/232420)).
How am I supposed to assume your content is of any quality if you cannot get
the details right?

~~~
mmcnl
Typical HN response, there is no multi-million dollar exchange going on here.
How about filling in some of the blanks or correct the wrong parts yourself?
This is such an unnecessary defensive response.

~~~
ozim
Great I love this response!

People go into Karen mode here, yes they bought expensive piece of hardware
with expensive operating system. Though site is rather technically minded they
still underestimate how complex are those things.

It just another "Dropbox? Who needs that I can do the same in an hour", but
somehow they don't realize when you have a budget, timelines and as always not
enough developers who understand this specific thing - it is different than
sitting on your own and making perfect thing. (which then if scrutinized by
some other dev would be labeled as crap :D)

~~~
raverbashing
Especially when it's a developing story and probably published in a rush (in
less than ideal situations). Mistakes happen and the informative side is more
important at these times.

------
sillyconvalley
I'm consistently amazed by HN's ability to take the most meaningless,
inconsequential part of an article (the scroll behavior, the whitespace, the
usage of the word "bricked"), and nitpick it to hell and back instead of
actually discussing the article.

Bravo.

------
philshem
I was bored, so after reading the thread here, I did the update anyway. iOS,
too.

No problems, still bored.

------
nottorp
I thought they were bricked from the factory because of the shit keyboard that
only works in clean room conditions.

And I’m not talking hearsay here, I own one and the keyboard is as shitty as
the entire internet says. Comparing to my previous MacBooks that had no
keyboard problems when used outdoors too.

