macOS 15.2 breaks the ability to copy the OS to another drive

https://www.shirtpocket.com/blog/index.php/shadedgrey/youre_a_mean_one/

by zdw • 2 years ago

359 301 2 years ago

shirtpocket.com

lxgr5• 2 years ago

What is this about? I seem to be missing a lot of context.

Apple broke the replicator.

What's the replicator?

What this means is this: until Apple fixes the bug, you'll have to use "Backup - all files" with "Smart Update" to copy everything but the OS.

Use that where? Is that an option in some macOS tool?

jamestnz• 2 years ago

The article's author seems to be part of the team behind the Mac disk-cloning/backup utility, SuperDuper.

https://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescriptio...

dtgriscom• 2 years ago

shirt-pocket.com and shirtpocket.com lead to the same company's website.

a2tech• 2 years ago

This is from the SuperDuper backup folks. SuperDuper is a tool that you can use to make bootable backups of your macOS system. Apple took away the ability for 3rd party tools to manipulate the OS and copy it to another partition/drive and took it upon themselves to provide that functionality via a utility. That utility is apparently non-functional in 15.2. So that breaks SuperDuper's ability to make a nice, clean, bootable backup of your Mac.

sam1r• 2 years ago

Is this something intentional that Apple has publicly stated in some realm?

AFAIK, in that case, maybe it's just a bug that they're planning to fix...

incompatible3• 2 years ago

Maybe boot a Linux USB drive and use dd to copy the drive? I assume this is too easy, but I'm curious about where it fails.

echelon• 2 years ago

took it upon themselves to provide that functionality via a utility. That utility is apparently non-functional in 15.2.

Apple turning our devices into jail cells.

These tech titans need to be regulated. We should be able to install whatever we want on Mac, iPhone, and Android. To be able to back up whatever we want, install from web, not be forced to use app stores, not be forced to sync with the cloud, and not be forced to use first party software.

owlbite• 2 years ago

Do we know if this was a bug in the beta releases of 15.2, or did it manifest only in the final version?

j454• 2 years ago

I wonder if Carbon Copy Cloner is affected.

Having bootable backups was the only reason I ever moved to a Mac.

This means, a backup of my computer created using something like Carbon Copy Cloner, or SuperDuper backup when plugged into any other Mac, and it would boot as my computer. Also known as Target Disk Mode booting off this backup.

Indispensible when or if my laptop was in for repair with Apple.

griomnib2• 2 years ago

Apple’s built-in backup solution is called Time Machine. It was dogshit when it launched a decade ago, never got more reliable despite many OS releases, and is still largely dogshit.

The author of the blog makes an application that is very good at making backups on macOS and now their app is broken due to skullduggery by Apple.

So the issue is threefold: a) Apple further turning MascOS into iPhone, b) this harms competition, and c) users ultimately suffer because Apple has no incentive to get better.

threeseed2• 2 years ago

Or it's the same thing that has been happening for 15 years.

People install .0, .1 or .2 release. Complain about bugs. Bugs get fixed. Repeat.

lxgr5• 2 years ago

Time Machine is really quite good, all things considered.

I’d be very happy if Apple were to bring it to iOS, but obviously they’ll never cannibalise their iCloud storage subscription business.

therein2• 2 years ago

It also kernel panics if you power down external monitor but keep HDMI connected or have an HDMI output device that is powered off.

It was a great out-of-the-box experience for my new MacBook Pro.

unsnap_biceps• 2 years ago

FWIW, I don't have the same behavior. I have a large tv hooked up to my caldigit TS3+ that is turned on and off when I want to watch a movie and I just tested it and it continues to work just fine.

teaearlgraycold• 2 years ago

From the other commenter it sounds like it’s an issue with the built in hdmi port on the pro laptops.

sleepybrett• 2 years ago

I do not have this problem, I do this every night.

radicality2• 2 years ago

It obviously shouldn’t panic, but have you looked at the dumps for what could be the cause? Or perhaps try a different cable and/or different hdmi device? It’s still a bug, but perhaps it’s a non-spec-compliant hdmi cable or device?

tonyedgecombe7• 2 years ago

Interfacing with external monitors (or at least 3rd party ones) seems to be a weak point for Apple.

randyrand2• 2 years ago

Being 'upgraded' to macOS 15 is the worst part of buying a new macbook pro.

I counted 12 bugs during the first hour of use.

Makes we want to start a computer company.

xyst• 2 years ago

Apple just can’t add features to their OS without breaking existing ones. Probably used Apple Intelligence to QA the OS release.

Steve Jobs would be disgusted at what his company has become. “Just works”, my ass

nerflad3• 2 years ago

I understand why you're getting downvoted but I also am in some form of agreement with the sentiment/hope they don't lose sight that they are pretty much keeping the dream of the consumer UNIX vendor alive.

kevin_thibedeau2• 2 years ago

You don't matter to them. The "What's a computer?" ad shows what they care about. Do what they want and stay on the happy path. Otherwise, you're holding it wrong.

FredPret2• 2 years ago

On the one hand, it looks like they're getting MBA'ed slowly: the product lineup is getting more tangled every year (just try picking an iPad) as they search for more ways to slice and dice the market.

On the other hand: they created Apple Silicon in recent years.

imbnwa• 2 years ago

Didn't they originally buy PA Semi while Jobs was on watch?

eviks5• 2 years ago

The myth of Jobs would be disgusted, the real guy shipped the same

tonyedgecombe7• 2 years ago

Or worse even. Early versions of OS/X were very buggy. I think people look back at that era through rose tinted glasses.

rollcat• 2 years ago

macOS has been in a slow, steady decline for many years. Every major (or even minor) release brings new bugs, that often go unaddressed for months; the yearly mad push for new features leaves no room to fix things.

At this point, I've installed an MDM profile to block major updates - planning to stick to 14.x until it's EOL, or only upgrading to an x.7 or x.8 when it's out.

I really, really wish someone high up at Apple took a long hard look at OpenBSD release notes <https://www.openbsd.org/76.html>, and used that as a compass for planning the next macOS release. But apparently it's more important to chase the trends now.

SSNLF• 2 years ago

tldr; sudo asr restore --source and all tools that just call that are no longer viable.

jeffbee2• 2 years ago

Gotta be honest, I find the idea of a bootable backup disk to be defective. What if it was an OS bug that wiped out your volume, and booting the backup does the exact same thing to the backup, because of the same bug?

perfectra1n• 2 years ago

The hope there would be that the backup is from before the OS bug reared its ugly head, so you can get what you need off of it. (or hope it doesn’t happen again)

codazoda• 2 years ago

Yeah, I don’t understand system backups anymore. I keep everything I care about in a single directory and clone that to the cloud. I no longer need to worry about backups outside of this. It’s easy enough to install a fresh OS and restore my directory. I’ll need to install a few apps but I’ll also have a nice clean system to work with.

eviks5• 2 years ago

And if you have many apps and don't treat your carefully edited configs as dirt, you'll understand it'd be a giant waste of time to recreate from scratch

sonofhans• 2 years ago

Oh, I’ve used SuperDuper for years, and I adore it. Several years ago I had a spinning rust HD die in a Macbook. I plugged my backed drive into it, booted, and had access to all my stuff. Without that drive I would have needed another computer.

I could keep going making a list of all the ways I’ve found a bootable clone of a MacOS machine to be useful, but damn, I’d hate to live without it.

radicality2• 2 years ago

I’m thinking similarly.

I’ve been using normal Time Machine backups, together with iCloud (not really backup), occasional copies of data I care about to external SSDs, and occasional encrypted backups to remote storage (rsync.net)

But it never even occurred to me to want a bootable backup or include the OS in it. In fact whenever I upgrade my MacBook, I choose to set it up as a fresh device and don’t use any of the tooling to copy everything-and-anything.

alwayslikethis5• 2 years ago

You can roll back to a backup right before the OS update that caused the bug. For example I have hourly snapshots using btrfs. Each snapshot is entirely bootable by itself, so if I ever broke anything, I just roll back. The system snapshots are read-only, so they are unlikely to be destroyed by bugs like that. You can also just make another snapshot of the same snapshot to be safer. It's also separate from the user data I care about.

srhtftw• 2 years ago

Gotta be honest, I find the idea of a bootable backup disk to be defective

Well, having relied on a similar product (Carbon Copy Cloner) to keep a bootable backup in addition to time machine backups for myself and members of my family to reduce MTTR for many years, I find the idea of being unable to trivially recover from a hardware failure in a few minutes to be defective.

Any of our clones can be booted on any similar system. On a few occasions people have used borrowed machines until repairs were complete without relying on cloud or internet connectivity. Of course these are all older systems and working while booted from an external drive is definitely a degraded experience akin to driving on a spare tire until you can get to a proper service station.

replete• 2 years ago

It's actually insanely useful. Weekly clone to disk is something I value because if the machine dies I can use my clone on another machine and boot my real desktop without fuss and Continue Doing Things

iamnotsure• 2 years ago

managed software, managed hardware, managed people

floydnoel• 2 years ago

are you an anarchist, then? i am curious

__MatrixMan__• 2 years ago

I question the sanity of anyone who takes a good hard look at the world around them and isn't a little bit of an anarchist.

alwayslikethis5• 2 years ago

One of the worst things about the move to smartphones is the inability to make full backups. I don't understand. It's my own device, all the data belongs to me, and I should be able to back it up whenever I want.

realusername• 2 years ago

Some data is even completely unaccessible, like the app usage on Android. You can view it, but you can't export it in any shape or form.

Reason0773• 2 years ago

It’s very easy on iOS to make a backup of your phone including all apps, settings, and data. Either to the cloud to locally to your own storage. What am I missing?

duxup• 2 years ago

Back when I used to play with roms in the Android world being able to back things up was neat… but also took a ton of space and was crazy cumbersome.

I kinda prefer iCloud style backups.

catlikesshrimp• 2 years ago

That is why many people complain about not really owning the device. And some others defend not owning the device because - cool reasons; and if someone owns his own device that breaks the magic for everyone involved, somehow /s

Do something about it? Get an Android phone you can root and own your device;

And if you feel you are missing something, slap an apple sticker on the back /s

ClassyJacket• 2 years ago

Even worse, now some apps are not allowing screenshots. That's bullshit, it's my phone, I should be able to screenshot whatever the hell I want.

lopkeny12ko• 2 years ago

the inability to make full backups

Says who? I have been using this for years:

    adb backup -f backup.ab -apk -noshared -all -system

userbinator• 2 years ago

It's my own device

That's what you think, but based on the actions of the companies doing this stuff, clearly they don't and strongly want you to be happy with owning nothing.

haileys• 2 years ago

This sucks. We think it sucks. You think it sucks. But we can't fix it: Apple has to do so.

And this is why I gave up on macOS several years ago now and moved to Linux.

It's not about which OS is better or worse. All software has bugs. It's about the empowerment to _do something_ about the inevitable bugs, rather than wait and hope that a fix comes down from above.

kelnos• 2 years ago

And not just that: if an update breaks my Linux install, I can figure out what broke it and roll back to an older version. Rolling back updates on macOS or Windows is just... not really a thing, at least not without a full reinstall, assuming you even have installation media for older versions these days.

com2kid• 2 years ago

Windows automatically save a restore point before updates are installed and rolling back - assuming the machine isn't bricked - is really simple.

bsder4• 2 years ago

It's actually really difficult to roll back a MacOS machine to an earlier OS even with a full reinstall.

You either have to make MacOS backup disks immediately upon opening the machine, or you have to find MacOS installation disks from the dodgy high seas.

n144q• 2 years ago

You can. Most Linux users can't -- I say 90%, if not 99%. Most Linux users are just users, many of which don't know how to use tar or xargs without looking it up, very few have the technical knowledge and capability of figuring out "what broke it".

electroly• 2 years ago

If you restart several times in succession after an update (e.g. if the machine is stuck in a boot loop), Windows automatically rolls back the update. If the machine boots but you still want to rollback manually, the option is available for a period of time after the update is installed in Settings under Windows Update > Advanced options > Recovery. It's true that once the period of time is up (something like 10 days), you can't rollback any more, but I think your statement about Windows is untrue enough to warrant a correction. Rollback of Windows OS updates is there and it works. I have relied on this functionality in actual real life practice.

tonyedgecombe7• 2 years ago

It's a shame as APDS does support snapshots and they appear to work well. Having said that I could foresee problems with rolling back the system partition but not the data.

dymk2• 2 years ago

In theory I can make bluetooth and wifi and deep-sleep work with Linux, but am I actually able to fix it? No, and not for a lack of trying. If we're talking about practical ability to fix what goes wrong with my daily driver, then macOS still wins hands down.

EasyMark• 2 years ago

you can fix it by buying a linux compatible laptop/pc or building one with known compatibility.

bsder4• 2 years ago

As opposed to all the people who can't make a USB keyboard work with MacOS and can't do a damn thing about it.

The thread about it generally reaches 40+ pages before Apple erases it only for it to come back. Apple has known about it for half a decade. I can pinpoint the OS release when they broke it. Sure, it doesn't seem to affect everybody, but the people it does affect have no recourse.

With MacOS, as long as everything works, everything works. But, when it doesn't, you cannot do a damn thing about it.

Linux very, very rarely leaves that kind of catastrophic bug for 5+ years.

leni536• 2 years ago

All of those work. As for bluetooth, I can connect multiple bluetooth headphones and playback audio at the same time. This is a bit fiddly, but I wouldn't even know where to start on some other systems.

mistercheph2• 2 years ago

What hardware were you experiencing issues with wifi or bluetooth or sleep?

akvadrako2• 2 years ago

Deep sleep doesn't work with Windows or Mac, and isn't needed on Linux either.

My past two laptops, ASUS and Lenovo, lasted days with modern standby. Not as great as Apple but good enough.

makeitdouble2• 2 years ago

deep-sleep

Didn't Apple kill deep sleep/hibernation when transitioning to ARM ?

It was touted as "Always On Processor" to mimic the iOS and iPadOS management of CPU and never shut it down.

apatheticonion• 2 years ago

I'm waiting with bated breath for the day I can run Linux with full hardware acceleration on a MBP or laptop of equivalent quality.

Everywhere I look in the tech world there is so much potential for incredible products just out of reach because of bad software forced on us by anti-competitive practices.

Apple. You're the richest company on Earth. For the love of god, let me use my "pro" device to do professional work.

I am overseas right now and am quite literally typing this from an AMD mini PC with my MBP set up as a second monitor I interact with via a network based mouse/keyboard sharing application. It really hurts the promise of portability if I need to carry a second computer with me because my MBP is _nerfed by software_ to prevent me from using it for everything I do.

whitehexagon• 2 years ago

I'm part way down this path. I bought a 2nd-hand M1 that only runs Asahi Linux (mainly for OpenGL/Vulkan and being able to use the unified memory for local LLMs). Still trying to find replacement apps to fully transition away from my old mac.

Especially, I'd love to find a tool as great as SuperDuper for my backups. I've been running it for 16 years now, including some full restores along the way. Thanks to the devs for a dependable tool! Pretty sure I used it to migrate laptops, which I imagine is also something that would be more tricky with later macos versions.

Anyway, I hope apple fix this bug soon. If not, then I'll look forward to buying a linux license for SuperDuper one day.

nikisweeting• 2 years ago

Article is pretty unclear, "copying" can mean many things to many different people:

    cp -r / /Volumes/Clone  # this never worked

    # what about rsync, does this still work?
    rsync --acls --archive --hard-links --one-file-system --sparse --xattrs / /Volumes/CLONE
    sudo bless -folder /Volumes/CLONE/System/Library/CoreServices

    # what about block-level copying, does this still work?
    sudo dd if=/dev/rdisk2 of=/dev/rdisk4 bs=1m conv=notrunc

mrpippy• 2 years ago

It’s documented in their older blog posts, I believe they use the ‘asr’ utility to copy the OS install. The many partitions that make up a macOS install means that cp or rsync isn’t enough. dd would do it, but at great cost in flexibility (can’t back up to a smaller disk, or select files) and speed

noisy_boy2• 2 years ago

dd would do it, but at great cost in flexibility (can’t back up to a smaller disk, or select files) and speed

I mean if we are talking about copying the whole OS or disk, that is a very macro operation. The fine-tuning can be done at the target location after copy like removing unwanted files/resizing partitions etc. No idea how slow would dd be but I thought you could specify larger blocksize for better performance (hoping someone more knowledgeable on dd can add their views).

submeta8• 2 years ago

This is bad. - Just recently I broke my system badly. So I decided to erase my system and re-setup from time machine. After several unsuccessful attemts I realized that my Time Machine backup (1.45 tb) exceeded my ssd capacity (1 tb). I did research, and learned not to prune my Time Machine backups. As that may corrupt it. So after several days and failed attempts to restore from time machine and after some research and finding out that indeed it was still possible to boot from external ssd, I decided to buy a 2 TB ssd, restore to that ssd, boot from it, clean up excessive data, and migrate from that ssd to my Macbook. It took me three days to solve it. As each failed attempt and investigation took hours to complete.

In the meantime I called Apple support to get help. I said right away that I am an IT professional who worked as sys admin in the past and that I would like to talk to experts. And they forwarded me to „experts“. The first said: „Forget about full restore, won’t work. Create a fresh install and manually (!) copy individual files from time machine to your mac.“ Second person told me to buy a new Mac with 2 tb ssd and restore to that. I asked her if it was possible to restore to an external ssd via Carbon Copy Cloner? As I did in the past half a dozen times. She told me she definitely does not recommend that path as she cannot recommend third party apps (?!?).

I did not try that option immediately as I heared a few years ago that latest MacOSes do not support booting from external ssds. And so I didn’t think of this option. But some research and I found out that indeed it is still possible, but you have to go some extra steps.

So if this wouldn’t have been possible I would have had spent two weeks to restore my machine. Or bought another machine with 2 tb just to restore from backup.

PS: I spent almost 5k Euros for this maxed MacBook Pro with 64 gb. Plus Apple Care. I didn’t want to buy another Mac just to restore from backups.

PPS: All of this was shortly before a very important presentation. So I was stuck with my work laptop (windows machine), and I am 90% less productive with it as it lacks my tools. Yeah, shouldn’t have screwed my main machine just before a super important milestone. Lessons learned.

redmajor12• 2 years ago

Sounds like the lesson learned here from reading your travail is not to invest in an ecosystem that makes it difficult to do a standard operation.

submeta8• 2 years ago

Maybe. But what are the options? Windows? Not really. Linux/Debian/Ubuntu is great, in theory, but it lacks tools: Acorn, Keyboard Maestro, OnniGraffle, Alfred App, MS Office, MS Teams, and a dozen more. Plus Apple silicon. I test LLMs locally.

LeoPanthera• 2 years ago

Are we reading different comments? Because the only reason he had problems is because he didn't do anything standard. He futzed with his backups instead of letting the OS take care of it, and that's the only reason he had any trouble.

If you let Time Machine doing it's thing, restoring from a backup is fast and painless.

(Though it's been years since I had to restore a Mac for any reason. It makes me wonder what he was doing.)

hmottestad12• 2 years ago

Sounds a bit too simplistic. Apple is about the only company that allows you to run any decently sized LLMs on a laptop. They also have all day battery life, amazing single-threaded performance and great multicore performance. And they didn’t stop there, they also threw in a truly fantastic display and speakers that are so far ahead of any competitors that I wonder what kind of magic they have that no other laptop brand is able to put better speakers in their laptops.

eek2121• 2 years ago

You act like other ecosystems are better. They aren’t.

hmottestad12• 2 years ago

When I last restored from Time Machine it allowed me to select which folders I wanted to restore. Then I could just restore the most important bits and leave anything big behind on the backup drive to restore manually later.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/102551

submeta8• 2 years ago

I only was offered to select top level folders. Nothing below them.

alexeiz• 2 years ago

Second person told me to buy a new Mac with 2 tb ssd and restore to that.

Or you can just upgrade the SSD as you would do with any normal laptop. Oh, wait...

kstenerud• 2 years ago

I've really been noticing how Apple software quality has been on a slow decline since Snow Leopard. I look at some of their older source code and it's a joy to read!

Nowadays, my daily travails with restarting Xcode multiple times a day to work around bugs (package blahblah is not available) have really worn thin (I mean, Xcode has always had problems, but not THIS bad). Add to that the fact that the "system data" on my mbp now takes up 80% of the space on my SSD (800GB of system data! Even after manually deleting caches and derived data)...

It's like they don't even care about code craftsmanship anymore. And yet their culture of not putting in useful debug messages (because "it just works") persists.

My latest and greatest headache? Some parts of AppKit now directly call [NSApplication _crashOnException:] regardless of the "NSApplicationCrashOnExceptions" setting, and WITHOUT even calling [NSApplication reportException:]. So now you lose the exception entirely and good luck figuring out what caused the crash. Ugh...

tonyedgecombe7• 2 years ago

I don't use Xcode so maybe it is an exception but in general I would say the opposite. For me it has been getting better over time.

People talk about Snow Leopard being stable but it was riddled with bugs, just take a look at the release notes for all the updates it received over the next year.

T4iga• 2 years ago

I have had a similar experience after i shared my MacBook with my girlfriend for a while. Turned out even after uninstalling her cloud file sharing software thing, there were still over 100GB of cached files left on disk. MacOS didn't make the obvious identify or find in the storage overview.

I ended up finding it through a disk space visualizer that showed a large folder (the stolen 100GB) in some cache directory. I can highly recommend trying that out. MacOS' inbuilt tools are in my experience inadequate to find what is stealing your disk space (on top of applications being unable to clean up after themselves).

raverbashing• 2 years ago

Yeah

Let me guess, the best engineers are working on iPad/iPhone apps today and MacOS is relegated to code fixes and people building for the "common user" that doesn't know what a drive is

wiredfool• 2 years ago

The system data apparently contains the Time Machine backups that haven’t been flushed to your external backup, including folders that are set to be ignored.

I discovered this while trying to restore a docker vm image that was maybe ignored, while not having enough space on the drive to restore it back, because deleted versions still take up space in the system data, even when the trash is emptied.

hilux• 2 years ago

I didn’t want to buy another Mac just to restore from backups.

And then presumably one more Mac to backup your backup Mac.

It's Macs all the way down!

throwaway48476• 2 years ago

You chose the walled garden.

super_mario2• 2 years ago

How did you end up with TM backup larger than original source? Sure, total storage consumed on TM drive can be larger than source, but that is because older versions of files are stored as well. But restoring most recent versions of files should be equal to source in size.

submeta8• 2 years ago

I had only 600-700 gb of data on my Mac. Installed OneDrive, did not know that I had configured my NAS to do 800gb of cloud backups to OneDrive. And Time Machine downloaded that data into its backup. Although I had configured OneDrive not to download that folder to my Mac. So time Machine screwed up in the first place.

prmoustache4• 2 years ago

I don't know time machine, but why would a full restore take more space than the original drive? Wouldn't a full time machine restore by default restore the last state of the system being backed up (and not full history) by default like any half decent backup solution?

submeta8• 2 years ago

vachina2• 2 years ago

Apple doesn’t care. They want you to subscribe to their iCloud plans and “abstract” away backups so that you lose the ability to own your backups.

fauigerzigerk• 2 years ago

I wish they did abstract it away. But iCloud is the only widely used cloud storage service that doesn't have file versioning. So as an iCloud user you really do need a backup and they're telling you as much every step of the way.

nunez3• 2 years ago

I don't have a dog in this fight, but I just want to say that it is extremely refreshing to see a good ol' fashioned Linux vs Win vs Mac debate in 2024. The Internet isn't dead.

I lied; I actually do. GIMP sucks!

rsync• 2 years ago

"Create a fresh install and manually (!) copy individual files from time machine to your mac.“"

This is, and always has been, the only sane answer.

If you value your time, energy and sanity you do not upgrade your OS - you wipe it clean and install from scratch. It is as true today with OSX as it was going from Windows 3.1 to Windows 95.

nbzso• 2 years ago

A side rant with some useful information:

I had a nightmare week with an office Mac Mini, 2018 . When the employee tried to update to Sequoia, he faced the error-try again conundrum. So logically, I introduced the restore option.

Oh boy, what a shitshow. So after faced by 8 hours restore process option, I proceeded to USB installation. Due to T2 restriction, enabling the boot process in restore utility menu is mandatory.

Surprisingly, this cannot be done without working installation and admin user. So installing the OS which was the default for the computer and booting again was the next step.

Long story short, the Mini stopped working in the middle of the installation. No chime sound. No light. We decided that it is dead for good.

And then I got mad. Perfectly working computer bricked by slow and buggy restore process. 8 hours? Did Apple have no money to afford more server speed from Akamai? Or deliberately f&cks up the process, users to go and buy the new stuff? HMM.

Solution:

So I proceeded to DFU mode with non-recommended cable USB2 to USB-C (from my Logitech mouse, with data capabilities.) You power up the mini by holding the startup button and push the power cable in. USB-C must be connected to the first thunderbolt port after the HDMI input. Then magically you have a connection in your host mac Finder and proceed to restore the T2 firmware. Install as usual from the USB stick and revive the Mini.

P.S. Found bits and pieces to come up with this solution from hardware repair forums. If you call your Apple "support" you know the procedure. Come to the store and buy more.

exabrial• 2 years ago

This is a perfect move from an environmentally focused company! This will totally help reduce ewaste and anyone supporting the environment should totally absolutely undeniably without question of common sense just buy all of their products!!!!!!!!!

talldayo5• 2 years ago

Mother Nature just got a call that her first check cleared, she's very excited for the future of Apple's courageous new direction for e-waste management.

germandiago• 2 years ago

My bext comouter will not be a Mac. Works nice but the lock-in is crazy all the time.

ilrwbwrkhv3• 2 years ago

Yup both Mac and Windows have a better replacement now: Linux. Thanks to all the hardware vendors and Valve, Linux has become a better desktop alternative for sure.

pjmlp5• 2 years ago

The day Microsoft decides Proton is a nuisance that gaming alternative is gone, as Valve decided fostering a GNU/Linux game ecosystem wasn't worth it.

noisy_boy2• 2 years ago

And Linux works pretty nicely with Android too - not hand-in-glove cohesion like Apple can provide for obvious reasons, but practically all vendors provide tools to switch pretty easily during the device setup stage and Syncthing provides amazing flexibility in managing data between Android and Linux devices on an ongoing basis.

cynicalsecurity• 2 years ago

I'm amazed to people's reaction to this. You themselves have chosen to use a walled garden closed source OS. What did you expect? Apple not screwing you? Apple has been doing everything to hint they are turning macOS from general purpose OS into iOS-like nonsense. Why are you even surprised? Switching to Linux is long time overdue.

trungpv1601• 2 years ago

So bad

quijoteuniv• 2 years ago

Mac use to be for tinkerers, that is not the case anymore, I loved to tinker with them 10 years ago, it was the only (reliable) platform you could work with sound. You bought a machine that would run years, people in studio would run many years with them, then they started to close it down more and more. I stopped working with sound but my old machine almost 20 years old still runs, out of tinkering with it i got into Linux, now i work in operations with k8s, creative, complex beatiful engineering

danielovichdk• 2 years ago

As long as they don't take away the __MACOSX folder when I copy other things.

amir734jj• 2 years ago

Maybe it's just me, but I've been so used to Linux for so many years that I have a really hard time using either Mac (helping relatives) or Windows (for work). I use a system76 laptop and a system76 PC. It's perfect.

commandersaki3• 2 years ago

What's the battery life of something like that under normal usage?

keyle6• 2 years ago

No one really complained with 15.1 and macOS completely blocking software that is "untrusted".

You know the "move to bin" popup, which you used to unblock in the past by cmd+clicking the binary, or later via the settings menu for privacy & security (insane in its own right!)

Since 15.1, you're done and dusted. Unsigned/untrusted binaries simply will not run on macOS, regardless of how much you trust them to be. Thanks Apple.

That is a big deal, a really big deal... For the music industry, many industries and consumer grade software, such as game installers from GOG, etc. They simply don't open anymore once you install them fresh.

I raged for about 15 mins at these idiots at Apple for making such a breaking change to user space.

This is clearly not to protect the user as much as it is closing the walled garden onto users. Disgusting, silent move, in a minor release.

Thankfully I found the solution in

        xattr -d com.apple.quarantine ~/binary

But what do I do once this doesn't work anymore? I really wonder. I really like the M1-M4 chips. I can't stand listening to a fan anymore. If this keeps going south I will be jumping ship to the first distro that supports this hardware properly.

A sad state of affairs. macOS is a beautiful OS with its problems but very workable. Apple is slowly picking at it and worsening it, mostly, throughout the years. Long live Snow Leopard!

sumuyuda2• 2 years ago

I haven’t updated to 15, but I thought they just removed the ability to run unsigned software by right clicking and selecting open. My understanding was you had to manually approve it in the system settings via Gatekeeper?

Apple is 100% slowly boiling the frog in respect to locking down macOS to be like iOS. I already switched to Linux on my personal machines. I saw the writing on the wall when notarization was announced in 2017.

keyle6• 2 years ago

15.1 completely removed the ability to "open anyway" within the Privacy & Security panel, which was already a shocking way of handling it.

argsnd• 2 years ago

You can either switch off Gatekeeper or go into the system settings to click open anyway. Yes, it’s annoying though.

keyle6• 2 years ago

No, this is what I'm saying, 15.1 removed the system settings to "open anyway". It's gone.

pas2• 2 years ago

moving to Asahi Linux seems like an option eventually

keyle6• 2 years ago

Yeah I was looking at that. The problem is I write my own mac software and I'd be missing on that.

rgovostes• 2 years ago

For additional context, the dialog reads:

"App" Not Opened <br> Apple could not verify "App" is free of malware that may harm your Mac or compromise your privacy. [ Done ]

The upper right of the dialog has a ( ? ) button that opens https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/apple-cant-check-ap... which says:

However, if you choose, you can still open an app that isn’t allowed to open by manually overriding Privacy & Security settings.

There's a link to the settings, under which you have to scroll down and find a second copy of the above message and then click "Open Anyway", with then gives you a third warning:

Open "App"? <br> Apple is not able to verify that it is free from malware that could harm your Mac or compromise your privacy. Don’t open this unless you are certain it is from a trustworthy source. [ Done ] [ Open Anyway ]

Continuing on requires authentication, and the prompt offers a fourth warning: "You are attempting to open an app that may harm your Mac or compromise your privacy."

According to https://developer.apple.com/support/compare-memberships/ you do need a full $99 Apple Developer Program membership to have apps notarized.

iamshs• 2 years ago

Tangential:

I updated my iPhone 15 from 17 to 18.1 and got Safari crashes. Lost handoff capability from iPhone to MacBook, works perfectly the other way. Both of these problems are incredibly frustrating.

tropicalfruit• 2 years ago

1st mistake: purchasing a post 2013 apple product

2nd mistake: installing an update on said product

angry_octet• 2 years ago

Does anyone know of a way to disable the update notification badge? Or indeed remove the list of updates available. The old 'softwareupdate --ignore' flag has been removed.

So freaking annoying.

oarfish• 2 years ago

The funniest bit about upgrading to Sequoia for me was that running programs in Apple's debugger breaks establishing local network connections.

i.e. a device directly connected via ethernet can be communicated with when running the binary normally, but cannot under lldb. Meanwhile no prompts about allowing network connections etc. are presented.

That wasted at least half a day until I realized I could just use the upstream LLVM debugger.

macOS 15.2 breaks the ability to copy the OS to another drive

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