[crawrey]

I just upgraded to Monterey on my Macbook Pro 2018 15-inch and after rebooting, all of the USB-C ports stopped working, including the power adapter. I spent some time on the phone with Apple Support trying to figure out how to fix it. After about an hour and a half there was about 18% battery left before I started to panic and figure out how I was going to back everything up.

After panicking, the 3rd Apple Support Representative and I endeavoured to try and reset the System Management Controller (SMC) [1] once again. At this point I had realised that the first few times that I tried this with a previous support representative would not have worked, as I was holding shift on the left-hand side of the keyboard (the previous support representative did not specify) and not the right-hand side as outlined in the support article for Macs with the T2 chip.

Good luck!

1. https://support.apple.com/en-au/HT201295

[dual_dingo]

> I just upgraded to Monterey > I started to panic and figure out how I was going to back everything up.

Upgrading to a new OS on release day without a prior backup. You like to live dangerously, do you?

[hnarn]

This isn't Arch Linux we're talking about, it's the presumably tested and released operating system for the most premium personal computing hardware in the world. I'm not saying you shouldn't back up your stuff but your expectation on user behavior is unrealistic to put it mildly.

[dual_dingo]

I am not very experienced with Arch, but my impression is that it is actually more reliable when updating/upgrading then going to a new major MacOS release, which is an absolute disagrace given the fact that Apple can actually test their stuff on every single hardware model it is supposed to run.

And no, my experience on general user behaviour is to expect no backup, but this isn't Auntie Ednas crocheting Facebook group, but Hacker News :)

[jamil7]

> I am not very experienced with Arch, but my impression is that it is actually more reliable when updating/upgrading then going to a new major MacOS release

I used Arch briefly and this was not my experience, but at least in that community it's kind of expected that you understand this is a possibility and a tradeoff of running the OS.

[qwerty456127]

Use Manjaro then. It's a polished and reasonably tested Arch (roughly saying kind of like what Ubuntu is to Debian). Never had a single problem with it.

[pharmakom]

Ubuntu… polished? Ha!

[simion314]

>I am not very experienced with Arch, but my impression is that it is actually more reliable

It is only an impressions, Arch fanboyus will quietly try to fix the mess and blame themselves for the bugs, only some honest users will tell you straight in the face "never update Arch without first reading some news page and never update if you don't hve the time to rollback and fix shit".

[TimeBearingDown]

Both things are true.

Arch is, in my experience, much more stable, and yet you should glance at the news page and run full system upgrades when you could spare some downtime if you had to.

[II2II]

I would only call it a disgrace if the issue did not appear in testing yet appeared for a large number of users or if Apple released and update where problems appeared during testing.

Keep in mind these upgrades are being done to an OS that has a unique history based upon how the computer was used in the past. Issues that did not appear in testing are going to come up after release. Then there is the potential defects in the manufacture of a particular unit or due to how it was handled. In other words, it is legitimate to miss an uncommon fault.

As for Arch, I understand why the warnings exist. That being said, I have found it to be very reliable. I typically attribute it to changes being incremental, meaning that problems are less likely to arise; and due to development being done in the open, resulting in a larger pool of testers before it even hits rolling distributions like Arch (never mind distributions that do their own testing).

[circularfoyers]

I think the notable difference is that macOS has a standard release cycle of about a year, whereas Arch has a rolling release cycle. This why there's more possibility for breakage, as many of the core libraries or other software are likely having their versions bumped. This is based on my knowledge of how most standard release distros function and which I assume is Apple's update policy for software they ship.

Even assuming this is the case, it still doesn't excuse how they weren't able to uncover this in their testing, since they only have to test against their own set of hardware.

[ungamedplayer]

Imagine the hardware that arch has to support vs the hardware configurations that arch has to support.

Makes you think on the QE that goes into the release.

[jonaustin]

Honestly, this is some FUD; I've used Arch for 10 years; upgrading at least once a week, and the only time an upgrade has really messed things up was when they switched to systemd.

Also used Macbooks at work for 10 years, and I'm far more wary of apple upgrades.

[forgingahead]

My expectation for user behaviour is that users, regardless of self-identified tech competency, shouldn't upgrade their OS on the first day of a new release. I find that there's nothing that one can miss out on with a new release.

[seniorivn]

what's the point of a release date if it's not ready? os upgrades do fail, and you better backup before you upgrade, but if it's released, than it means it's ready

[ben_w]

Conversely, I’ve been looking at release notes and — with the exception of security patches and needing the latest version of Xcode for my job — I’ve not actually seen any positive benefit to upgrading since the versions were named after cats rather than places.

On the plus side, at least the most recent security update no longer had me listening to auto-playing YouTube videos in the front tab of Chrome before I even saw the login prompt: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVvu94g3iq0

On the down side, the latest security update decided to spontaneously start playing the YouTube video in the front tab of Chrome about 15 minutes ago when my laptop went into screensaver…

[concinds]

> On the plus side, at least the most recent security update no longer had me listening to auto-playing YouTube videos in the front tab of Chrome before I even saw the login prompt: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVvu94g3iq0

I had a similar problem, but with resuming from hibernation after the battery goes to 0. When you have FileVault on, that brings you back to the login screen; but Chrome videos started playing instantly. A horrific bug since you can't pause or mute it for a good 10 seconds until you get back to your desktop. Many people have probably been harmed by this bug, depending on what video they were watching last.

[concinds]

Could you share if FileVault was active when this happened to you? I believe the disk is supposed to remain encrypted before you log in, so I can't see how this would have happened on a reboot (or update install) without FileVault being off.

[beagle3]

From my perspective, it means it has been deemed ready for fresh installs — which aren’t uncommon. They have, especially with Apple, fewer configurations to test.

But the probability that they got a good enough sample for system upgrade is very small. Systems that have been in use— especially for a few years — tend to diverge widely.

The users who upgrade should wait unless they are willing to risk the small but not negligible probability that the upgrade will Bork their system.

[hnarn]

> From my perspective, it means it has been deemed ready for fresh installs

I don't think you'll find many "normal" people (i.e. non-developers) that agree with you on that definition.

[joshspankit]

That used to be the case before everything was connected to the internet: devs would agonize about making sure there were no bugs, because once it was out it was out of their hands.

Games were especially nerve-wracking because a single show-stopping bug could bankrupt the entire company, but I digress.

Now, it’s “Get enough working code out the door so that we can sell copies! We can patch it if we need to!”

[megous]

Software is never ready. It just has some local minimum of known issues.

[egypturnash]

I've been using Macs since about 2000 and that was my reaction too; I remember being very glad I waited a bit after one release that deleted some user's entire iTunes libraries.

[nuker]

> … presumably tested and released operating system for the most premium personal computing hardware in the world.

New tabs in Safari 15 are premium too. Look nice but totally unusable.

[planb]

Those are opt-in in the final (12.0.1) release and the sane tabs are back..

[joshspankit]

You’ve gotten a lot of pushback on this.

Rightly so, I’d say.

As someone who has used and managed all types of Apple products all the way back to Mac OS 7, it is not just my direct experience here but also countless discussions with peers: Every major update has teething pains.

It feels like Apple engineers test only on fresh machines from the factory. The first week is the “release client” test. New OS’, new products, new components (eg: butterfly keyboard), etc. Nothing is immune.

Yes, the marketing says that every detail of every Apple product is flawless however the core DNA of Apple drives them to innovate and you cannot innovate without breaking things. Their white glove motto is “bring it in, we’ll replace it”.

[endymi0n]

Personally, I really didn't regret waiting for 11.1 back then... unfortunately this wasn't the first bugged major release.

While Apple's hardware and product interop is still top notch, I feel way less safe about their grip on low-level and OS technology. For me, the (lack of) handling of their bug bounty program speaks volumes towards their priorities and I'm actively looking for the next platform that I can trust my data to that works out of the box and I don't have to babysit or debug.

[richeyryan]

You don't update OSX before March in my experience. There are always teething issues.

[dsego]

At least on linux you can have /home as a separate partition, which should reduce the risk of losing user data. Unless I'm completely wrong and this doesn't really matter that much during updates.

[jbirer]

bleeding-edge Arch Linux is more reliable than new macOS releases, lesson.

[hnarn]

That's beside the point. Arch Linux makes no effort to appear more reliable than new macOS releases, and there's no reasonable expectation that it should be, even if it is.

[popcorncowboy]

At what point do we start to hold software and software providers to a higher standard?

A multi-trillion dollar company releases an upgrade to its flagship operating system and "anyone who knows anything" smiles and nods because we understand that actually USING the upgrade runs a high enough chance to brick your device that doing so without a backup is a rube cliche.

I get it. But my question stands.

[8draco8]

And it's not like it's under Linux or Windows where target hardware configuration is more or less unknown. Building both software and hardware by Apple supposed to be advantage of Macs.

[dual_dingo]

I absolute agree with you, it's an absolute disgrace and while I am all in on holding Apple, MS or Google responsible for their shit, any law in that regard would most likely only affect the livelihood of your friendly neighborhood OS developer, but not actually Apple & Co.

[native_samples]

We do hold them accountable ... by using Apple :( It's not like Linux or Windows upgrades are drastically smoother. In fact right now I have a Windows VM that tells me "This PC doesn't meet the requirements to upgrade to Windows 11" in the upgrade screen, and their health check app tells me "This PC meets the requirements". Probably something got cached somewhere, as I had to add a virtual TPM just now. But still. This kind of experience is routine, with Windows. Like, why is the health check app not built in? Why is there a separate tool to begin with? Why doesn't it use their latest app packaging and distribution system instead of a sucky old MSI file? It constantly feels like there's nobody at the head of the ship with Windows.

[seniorivn]

NixOS updates are drastically smoother, if default option to boot into any of previous updates is enough to never overthink it

[native_samples]

I don't think a platform that requires you to learn a custom functional programming language can be described as having smoother updates, really.

[IIsi50MHz]

Haiku [operating system], while not ready for most people to use ar a daily driver, also has this ability to boot into prior state. Updated an app, or the whole system, and now something's gone pear-shaped? Reboot with the magic key held down and choose a previous config by date-time.

[crawrey]

I do!

Actually I never upgraded to Catalina and waited until Big Sur seemed stable enough to upgrade to and it upgraded from Mojave without a hitch. I had been following the beta releases of Monterey and it seemed pretty solid, so I figured what the heck, let’s live dangerously baby!

As for not having a recent backup it’s just something that always gets put the back burner. That’s my failing. But to be honest, I wouldn’t have really lost anything of worth, everything important is in version control. Maybe I would have lost a few dot files, some configs, some PoCs, the grooves in my couch. Those grooves that I’ve cultivated wouldn’t cost me much time and honestly sometimes it’s good to get a fresh couch and re-evaluate the grooves of the past.

With all of that said, despite the inconvenience of the upgrade, I would love to give a shout out to Apple support. It’s these moments that you get to appreciate the fact that you can pick up the phone and talk to someone who has some outstanding fault finding and problem solving abilities, leagues ahead of any other provider I have ever had experience with.

[unmole]

I never had to worry about making a backup before upgrading Linux distros. I mean, what's the worst that could happen when your /home lives on a different partition?

[gremloni]

I doubt anyone backs up their data with mac oses since they feel so much like generic updates.

[irae]

The T2 chips were a bold move and probably necessary for Apple as a transition plan. Imagine all the features it provides (Touch ID, secure boot, disk encryption) arriving only with the M1 Macs? Firmware and software needed to see the light of day and be put to test by the millions.

Thanks everyone that ever owned Intel Macs with T2 chips. I am so glad I never owned anything from that generation, and I appreciate your sacrifice. <3

[BillinghamJ]

I think in most regards, they were actually a lot better than the Intel-only Macs - including on stability etc.

As the T2 chip was the primary thing controlling the computer, effectively they were M1 machines, up until the point where the full x86 OS was being loaded.

So for a problem like this - with the SMC, ports, etc. - there's no distinction between the T2 Macs and the M1 Macs, they're the same thing and run the same fundamental software (which does get updated)

[snowwrestler]

Good example of why I usually wait for a few dot releases before upgrading MacOS.

I thank you and other early adopters (AKA QA testers) for your service.

[Tagbert]

But this kind of thing described by the parent (SMC data corruption) is usually caused by a local condition on the device rather than specifically buggy code. Waiting for a later version would not help in that case.

Not saying that there aren’t sometimes bugs in initial version released and it’s perfectly rational to wait to hear about any fire alarms going off, but the example given is not really a case in point.