Since Catalina I have been getting daily freezes, where the entire operating system locks up. I can still move the cursor around and audio keeps playing as well, but everything else is completely frozen.<p>Once in a while the freeze lasts so long the computer crashes resulting in a crash report:<p>Termination Reason: WATCHDOG, [0x1] monitoring timed out for service<p>Termination Details: WATCHDOG, checkin with service: WindowServer returned not alive with context:<p>unresponsive work processor(s): WindowServer main thread<p>I am at my wits end to what can be causing this. Is anyone else experiencing similar freezes?
Still having a (at least one of the multiple different) kernel panic during sleep:<p>panic(cpu 0 caller 0xffffff801e29169c): Sleep transition timed out after 180 seconds while calling power state change callbacks. Suspected bundle: com.apple.iokit.IOGraphicsFamily. Thread 0x2754.<p>Ever since moving to a brand new 16" MBP there isn't a day that passes wihout me being welcomed by the crash report dialog…
> The battery health management feature in macOS 10.15.5 is designed to improve your battery's lifespan by reducing the rate at which it chemically ages. The feature does this by monitoring your battery's temperature history and its charging patterns.<p>> Based on the measurements that it collects, battery health management may reduce your battery's maximum charge when in this mode. This happens as needed to ensure that your battery charges to a level that's optimized for your usage—reducing wear on the battery, and slowing its chemical aging.<p>Sound great. I hope this means no more swollen batteries.
<a href="https://www.ifixit.com/Wiki/What_to_do_with_a_swollen_battery" rel="nofollow">https://www.ifixit.com/Wiki/What_to_do_with_a_swollen_batter...</a>
<a href="https://lepageblog.wordpress.com/2011/11/24/how-to-fix-a-swollen-macbook-battery/" rel="nofollow">https://lepageblog.wordpress.com/2011/11/24/how-to-fix-a-swo...</a>
> Major new releases of macOS are no longer hidden when using the softwareupdate(8) command with the --ignore flag. This change also affects macOS Mojave and macOS High Sierra after installing Security Update 2020-003.<p>As a Mojave user, not happy about this.
My MacBook Pro (16-inch, 2019) was having kernel panics multiple times a day after having been asleep for extend periods. This was extremely annoying, as you can imagine. I’m happy to report that the Catalina 10.15.5 update fixes the kernel panics for me.<p>The issue I experienced has been well documented [here](<a href="https://mrmacintosh.com/10-15-4-update-wake-from-sleep-kernel-panic-in-16-mbpro-2019" rel="nofollow">https://mrmacintosh.com/10-15-4-update-wake-from-sleep-kerne...</a>) and elsewhere on the web.<p>I use my MacBook Pro (16-inch, 2019) with a CalDigit TS3 Plus Dock and LG 32” 4K monitor. It’s worth noting that using the computer undocked never gave me any problems.
The group FaceTime UI is very strange, why have several overlapping boxes rather than just dividing the screen equally and using all of it? I know it's like this in iOS, but I'm not sure what group video looks like in macOS (though it sounds like it's the same based on the update text here).<p>It's weird because the easier thing also seems like the obvious thing, and it's clearly better.
Battery health management sounds great!<p>I wish there was a way to customize this, though: Thinkpads have (on Linux) allowed setting thresholds for "charge only when less than" or "charge only up to" for many years now.<p>Given that such primitives must also exist as part of 10.15.5 now, I hope that somebody will figure out how to modify the default behavior.
Is reset PRAM still a thing ???.<p>I used to have a Mac Pro (cheesegrater) but switched back about 2 years ago due to having a kid in college and Dell and Windows 10 were not too shabby.<p>Probably on my 4th Windows 10 release from the original that Dell shipped with and it has been rather stable system.
> Battery Health Management<p>> • Battery health management to help maximize battery lifespan for Mac notebooks<p>> • Energy Saver preference pane now displays battery condition and recommends if the battery needs to be serviced<p>> • Option to disable battery health management <<<<p>Apple learned from their iOS update/iPhone slowdown faux pas.
> <i>”Addresses an issue that may prevent password entry on the login screen”</i><p>I’m still on Mojave 10.14.6 and this hits me from time to time, maybe once a month or so. Very annoying bug. Great if they have finally fixed it!
Anyone using Node.js for work who has updated to Catalina here? How did it go? I heard there were problems with node-gyp, but didn't investigate further. Everything running smoothly now? Any gotchas?
Anybody knows what has happened that multiple manufacturers (at least Dell, HP, Lenovo, ASUS, and now Apple) have released _all within this year_ updates to "enhance battery health management"?<p>Even on devices which were otherwise out of support already.<p>I ponder what has happened. I didn't hear any recent stories of battery explosions, huge battery recalls, or new regulations, yet all manufacturers are reacting to something.
I've been an Apple guy since 1984 when I was 12, and Catalina has finally pushed me to Linux for my daily driver. I'll still keep Apples around due to Apple's mostly excellent <i>ecosystem</i> execution, but... something has gone missing lately
Looking forward to seeing whether this contains a microcode or OS patch to fix what appears to be an Ice Lake CPU bug:<p><a href="https://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issue/JBR-2310" rel="nofollow">https://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issue/JBR-2310</a><p>Read the whole thing. It really appears as if there is a virtualization-escaping CPU-crashing bug in Ice Lake (10th generation) Intel chips that was discovered because it exclusively crashes when used with Jetbrains IDEs.<p>Sounds unlikely, yes, but seriously read the whole thing.
While I haven't had nearly as many bad experiences with Catalina as some other users, I am indeed starting to feel increasingly uneasy with the overall quality of the platform, both as a user and as a developer.<p>I've been a Mac user since the late 2000s: the first Mac I could afford at the time was a MacMini G4.<p>When I booted that machine up for the first time I was amazed by the quality and the refinements of the platform. When I started looking digging into the platform as a developer the feeling was exactly the same: care and refinements were almost omnipresent in every aspect of the platform.<p>While bugs - and even nasty ones - have never been aliens on Mac OS X/macOS, what I've personally started to experience in the past few years is a feeling of neglect toward the platform.<p>Yes, Catalyst seems to go against this trend: its intent, though, is to ease the porting effort of iOS applications to Mac. A certainly laudable goal.<p>What would probably be more laudable for Mac users and developers are: core platform stability and quality, API stability, developer documentation overhaul [1].<p>Our CI breaks every single time there's a minor macOS update and/or an Xcode update: we're at the point where our macOS UITests (XCTest) require more maintenance to keep working than the application itself.
XCTest on macOS has ridiculous bugs. I lost count of the radars we've opened, and the sample apps for reduction we've sent to Apple.<p>At every single minor macOS upgrade, few users complain that our application "doesn't work anymore" in certain cases. And to be exquisitely blunt: there ain't wrong with the application itself.
Rebooting after a macOS upgrade fixes whatever event tap regression we hit in Quartz.<p>In general, what I'd personally like to see:<p>* a less "hysterical" approach to the OS would be so. much. appreciated. (eg: focus on the few important core things, keep them working)<p>* release when it's ready: this whole marketing driven annual release cycle is unsustainable<p>I do understand that the vast majority of Apple's income is not Mac related at this point, but WTH...<p>[1] The whole business with documentation is amazingly summarized by this HN post from last year: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19966135" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19966135</a><p>[Apologies if this comment sounds a bit complaining in nature, that's not what I meant]
> Improves performance on certain Mac models when enabling hardware acceleration in GPU-intensive apps such as those used for video conferencing<p>Any info on which specific Mac models this applies to?
Since the last Catalina update (10.15.4) Firefox is almost unusable for me, whereas it was buttery smooth before. There are constant multi-second freezes and when I switch tabs I often see a gray loading screen before the content shows up a few seconds later. Never saw that happen before. Maybe it's just a coincidence and has nothing to do with the Catalina update, but I am interested whether other people experience the same.
Last time I tried, it was not at all well documented how to upgrade to Catalina when your iMac's boot drive is 1) an external SSD and 2) not (yet) formatted to APFS. Giving it another try now, but unless it suddenly got a whole lot easier I'll probably be passing again.<p>Have it on my 2016 and 2019 Airs though, no issues.
Did anyone face any issues installing the update? I have been lucky till now as I have never faced issue while updating. But then I read news reports that say people faced issues and macbooks were bricked while updating. So I thought from now on I would wait few days before I update.
Sigh. Now every time I use Speech to Text there is a sound before the dictation. Before Catalina you could disable it in setting but now the setting is complete gone.<p>And Apple wanted Voice Over to replace this dictation. The problem is most Apps doesn't even support this type of input. Example I cant use Voice Over for dictation on WhatsApp, but I could do it with old double Fn Key Dictation.<p>Not to mention the voice over recognition by default uses Enhance Dictation which is offline, and its results is actually worst and slower than online dictation.<p>Basically the worst of both worlds. It is super annoying.
> Battery health management is on by default when you buy a new Mac notebook with macOS 10.15.5, or after you upgrade to macOS 10.15.5 on a Mac notebook with Thunderbolt 3 ports.<p>Unfortunately... this update does not help everyone. I have a MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Late 2013) and these changes in the System Preferences are not visible. This quote was found only when digging further in the "How to control the battery health management feature" instructions.
Catalina decided to remap my paragraph key to "ö" this week (using a 3rd party Swedish Dvorak layout). Remaking the layout to the proper symbol works for about an hour. It is my Emacs prefix for functions I don't consider important enough to warrant their own direct key bindings. Annoying doesn't cut it.<p>I haven't done a factory reset yet, but I started backups today to be able to.<p>Catalina is a disaster. I got my Mac for free from a relative,but I sure as hell won't buy another.
Software Update isn't showing me 10.15.5 yet. Others?<p>On my 2019 16" I've definitely noticed that Zoom calls slow stuff down by a lot. Would be great if that gets fixed here.
I have a 2014 mbpro. It was working fine but when I try to export from final cut it crashed. After restart I tried to export again and it said that my battery was dying (it was at 55%) then powered down
Finally! They fixed my Image Capture bug! Now I can import pictures from my iPhone AND they will be deleted from the iPhone. I've only imported 7 movies at one time with no problem. So far, so good...
Is there any point in downgrading to Mojave from Catalina? Haven’t looked into it, so I assume it’s a pain. But the semi-daily kernel panic, over heating, kernel tasks taking up 80%+ CPU is rediculous for a $3k+ laptop
I'm still on High Sierra... I wonder if there are really good reasons to upgrade to Mojave? (I only know about disadvantages about upgrading to Catalina.)