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Comment by slovette | Hacker News Reader

Catalina is broken in many ways.

This complain and Remote Access in (so I can SSH to my $4k MacBook) disables itself anytime the computer is restarted.

But more importantly, I’ve still not found a Thunderbolt Display that doesn’t routinely crash screen manager services upon idle user activity. 3 x $300 thunderbolt3 dock solutions later and not a one hasn’t crashed this computer. All main brands, two of which sell accessories in the Apple store.

Problem also existed with a top of the line 13” MacBook Pro.

I’ve just gotten used to the shoddy-ness that is Catalina. Figure if I go to the bathroom, upon return I have a fresh, new clean desktop environment. Feature not a bug. Yay!

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This is why I went back to Mojave. Apple has had a history of breaking dev environments on release for people who don't code under their ecosystem of dev tools (well on second thought, they make life difficult at times even for people that do), and I don't see that trend changing in the future.

Eventually every new release has stabilised, but it seems that doesn't hold true for Catalina.

haha oh boy. I was actually just about to install Catalina today, figuring I'd put it off long enough and everything has to be smooth by now (and system update bugs me about it often enough)... But lo and behold, I log into HN and see this thread....

Just FYI, you can disable that notification:

https://www.macworld.com/article/3447396/how-to-stop-getting...

It does not prevent the red notification dot on the System Preferences app, but it does mean at least you don't get the notifications pop up on your screen.

I’ve had zero problems with Catalina. You can also find complaints about every release of MacOS going back a decade+.

A history of breaking dev environments? I'd argue they have a history of breaking everything on release. I do agree that they have a history of stablizing after a few months, but it's been longer than that.

Yea, Apple doesn't care about backwards comparability. You can run some ancient 32-bit Windows games on Win 10 (so long as they don't use DRM that uses low-level things like direct CD/DVD I/O). If you have a collection of physical disc Mac games, there is a good chance 0% of them run on 10.15 (or many of the releases leading up to it).

we are getting close to 10 years since I owned a Mac with an optical drive (and definitely a decade+ since I used an optical drive on my mac very often)

There is a good chance that less than 10% of your mac games from a few years ago work on current macos since they killed 32bit support. And now there will be essentially no new mac games since they will not support vulkan and stopped updating openGL.

There are plenty of new Mac games, since all game engines that matter already added Metal support and I bet that long term Apple Arcade will have more games than Desktop Linux.

So far Vulkan has been mostly a thing on Linux anyway.

The bit about a Vulkan and OpenGL isn't really accurate.

Practically no one, apart from some hobbyists working on side projects, are actually using Vulkan or Metal or D3D12 directly to make games or applications. These APIs weren't written for end-developers to use directly, they were written for engine developers.

I mean, it's fun to try. But you'll have to write something like ~1200 lines of C/C++ just to render a single triangle. It's a far cry from playing around with OpenGL immediate mode.

And to be frank, Vulkan/Metal/D3D12 are about as similar to one another as major graphics APIs have ever been. Sure, there's quite a lot of differences, but the broad strokes are more or less similar.

I agree that usually one uses a higher level API, but I've worked on commercial apps that use Metal both for graphics and compute. The code is not so unweildy as is suggested here. An old triangle test app I have here shows only about 100 lines of graphics code.

In Metal, yes. In Vulkan it's a lot more.

Of course, a lot of this code is code you only write once and then abstract on top of. Metal just has a lot of that abstraction "done for you" because it's only designed to work on a closed set of hardware profiles.

Vulkan requires a lot more signatures in triplicate and setup rituals. Not a bad thing, just a different target.

The unix illusion breaks more and more with every release

Every day they stray further from BSD's light

The main reason why I won't buy the new MacBook Air is that it's Catalina only. Good thing my Mac Mini shipped with Mojave despite my ordering it months after the Catalina release. It's really the Windows Vista of macOS.

I've tried to find a thunderbolt3 dock that worked perfectly but none have - not even limited to Catalina. My monitors will randomly switch refresh rates or resolutions or not even display picture. Plug them into a pc and they work every single time.

Try a Henge dock. Been using one for 6 years. No monitor or thunderbolt issues.

I actually have one but haven't really used it yet since I decided to just use windows and be done with all the mac problems for now. Still use my MBP but only from the couch.

Wow, there are so many mac problems in your workflow that WINDOWS is easier to use? Ouch.

I know, sad right? Thankfully most of the stuff I do is on a dev server so doesn’t really matter. As long as vs code works.

I have Catalina. It doesn't play nicely with a Dell D6000 powerbrick / dock.

The display is fine but it won't charge at the same time.

I have not installed the Dell 'driver'; it loads a kext so probably won't work anyway. I'm not upset about that. Docking should not require a kernel module.

That's about it. Catalina has been fine every other way.

The thing is with this charging bullshit is, it worked fine prior to 10.15.4. Prior to that version, my Mac charged and outputted to multiple screens at the same time.

The Dell U3419W (with Thunderbolt 3) works exactly as promised for me.

https://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop/accessories/apd/210-arc...

I've had a lot of compatibility issues between my U3818DW and macOS and Dell doesn't care. Even more, their support staff on their public forums don't even acknowledge their buggy USB-C implementation and insists on blaming Apple. [1]

[1]: https://old.reddit.com/r/UsbCHardware/comments/ettgrg/dell_r...

That's a shame. This monitor is spectacular over DisplayPort with my good old 2015 MBP.

Indeed, the image, price and size are spectacular. But this atitude has put me off Dell and they won't get my business anytime soon.

That's true for most Macs, too: people are very prone to believing that their experience is universal rather than a hardware failure or local configuration issue.

FWIW, the monitor I talked about is the standard issue monitor for most employees (~500) at my office. My company has MBPs ranging from 2016 to 2020 of varying sizes and I've never heard anyone say anything negative about the connectivity to their monitor.

It has USB-C, not Thunderbolt.

I completely disabled everything to do with sleep. “Solved” the problem for me.

The first thing I install on a fresh Mac is amphetamine.

Just curious, how is this different from Caffeine?

http://lightheadsw.com/caffeine/

Or just running caffeinate -t 10000?

One difference is that Amphetamine isn't updated as well, also seems more hackish. I switched to Caffeine a while ago.

It has more features. Check https://apps.apple.com/us/app/amphetamine/id937984704?mt=12 for details.

The one you linked to looks like a simple wrapper of caffeinate(8).

Caffeine might be better in this scenario, but amphetamine has some auto triggers and custom settings for keeping the system awake but still turning off the screen, etc.

Maybe I will get flamed for saying it. What a shockingly tasteless name for an app.

Edit: guessing that downvoters haven't encountered a lot of people suffering from addiction

The most popular third party software installation tool for MacOS is called Homebrew. Alcoholics exist. That doesn't make the name offensive.

Amphetamines have legitimate therapeutic uses, it's not only crippling addiction.

Actually you just made a pretty convincing case that Homebrew has similar issues. I am already not a fan of it because I have hit too many amateurish bugs, but now I have another reason.

By the way, the word brew is also used for other things, eg. coffee or tea, and homebrew is a common metaphor for other things where amphetamine is unbiguously one thing.

Yeah Homebrew is kind of a bad example. I wish there was at least an option to use descriptive names instead of tortured analogies.

Overdiagnosis & misuse etc aside the number of people using amphetamines therapeutically may well outnumber your "unambiguous" cohort by a larger fraction than drinkers do alcoholics.

Tasteless comment.

I didn't say use was unambiguously non-therapeutic. I said it was unambiguously a drug. There are no famous cultural metaphors analogous to "homebrew computer club" etc. It always refers directly to the substance.

Maybe you should consider that a close family member had problems with this very recently before you call me tasteless. It is in fact really fucking stupid that some privileged Mac programmer, probably young and of limited life experience, thinks that is a cutesy name for his (yes I am assuming male) project and not the name of something ruining a lot of lives, probably thinks it's hilarious and clever. He has no taste. Opiates also have legit use. I wouldn't name a project after those either. There is a thing such as tone deafness.

Yeah, I've had my problems in the past and whatever that app is, I wouldn't be keen on having that on my computer, it would only serve to remind me.

Is there a world-wide approved list of names and topics that we're allowed to use to avoid infringing on sensibilities of 100% of world population?

I take prescribed amphetamine [0] twice every day. The taste of the name is not in the name, it's from whatever else you had in your mouth at the same time.

[0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisdexamfetamine

My issue with Catalina is that every time i open up the laptop and log in (so sleep, not reboot) it has forgotten the Apple-ID password and needs to be entered. I've tried all suggested solutions (I'm not alone) including resetting the NVMRAM etc. But so far no luck.

I'm holding off installing Catalina on my main machine. And now they seem to focus on 10.16 instead.

I have two CalDigit TS3+ docks (home and office). At home, I have a 4k monitor in the display port and a Thunderbolt 27" plugged into the TB3 port using an adapter. My previous dock couldnt handle the 27" at all, so I had to plug that in directly to the Mac. Usually when I needed to wake the machine, I had to unplug both the doc and the 27", log in, and then plug them back in again. Now with the CalDigit, it just works. It's also like $300, so I guess TB3 is hard and they know it =)

I am still on Mojave tho, so may suck on Catalina.

Figure this is the place to jump in here. I tried a couple cheaper docks and sent them back to Amazon immediately. I bought a CalDigit, and it's been rock solid for many months now. I connect an external display (Asus 27" 4K) to it, remove it, use the built-in display, and use it in clamshell, off and on, all through the day. Not one problem at all. There's no sugar-coating it; they're at the top of the range for TB3 docks, but mine's been worth every penny. I've been on Catalina since launch day.

I know "me too" is discouraged here but yes I have the same experience (Caldigit TS3+ dock, works great in Mojave). Expensive, yes, but at least now it's down to $250 both at apple as well as amazon.

I had this problem as well on a 13" MacBook Pro.

My "fix" was to go HDMI to USB-C (instead of Thunderbold to USB-C).

I understand this might not be viable for everyone, but it resolved the issue for me.

", I’ve still not found a Thunderbolt Display that doesn’t routinely crash screen manager services upon idle user activity. "

I've been using a Dell U2515H for almost six years on my late 2013-model MBP and thunderbolt port, never had an issue. I'm also going through a Henge thunderbolt dock. It's not a macOS problem.

naive take, i have same problem but if i boot into windows on the mbp it works fine. how do you explain that?

Trivially easy to explain:

The monitor you have didn't properly implement the Thunderbolt spec, and since Windows has looser adherence to the spec than macOS, things work fine.

This happens with web browsers every decade or so. "Browser X" follows the Javascript spec to a tee, which breaks millions of poorly written websites, so "Browser X" has to degrade its performance or lose market share, and thus we have lots of sites that are out of spec.

Make sense?

Your explanation could be plausible but do you have any evidence to back it up? Most curious is the fact that people are complaining about a specific OS version with regard to the problems. Did the spec change between OS releases?

No but the OS could have fixed a bug or tightened the spec.

I have evidence in other domains, as per my example.

But thanks for moving the goalpost. /salute/

OP asked for an explanation, I gave one. Was it correct? I don't know, I just provide reasoning skills.

My intent was not to move the goalposts, I was just wanting you to elaborate. Even though the explanation is trivial to you, it may not be that way to others.

(A corollary to this are the forum posts starting with a technical problem and ending with the OP saying "figured it out!" and no further explanation :)

Assume this is true. Why is it a good thing? If the looser spec handling on Windows fixes the bug without introducing other problems, then from the user perspective, Windows is doing the correct thing and OSX is failing.

But it then ends up with standards being meaningless and people who are running not-Windows get screwed (like UEFI, ACPI, and various other nonsenses that "work fine" on Windows but not on Linux, etc.)

That assumes Microsoft broke the spec and the hardware was designed for it. The scenario in the thread is that the hardware broke the spec and Microsoft just made it work. I don't think that's much different than a lot of other software. Look at all the application specific code and fixes added to graphics drivers, for example.

I think Dell U2515H doesn't have Thunderbolt, only Display Port. So I wouldn't call that a Thunderbolt display, if it doesn't have ability to chain further Thunderbolt devices.

LG 4K works perfectly for me.

I've tried every T3 dock available. They all have bugs that render them unusable for me. The one that was the closest to being good -- OWC 12 port I think -- wouldn't tolerate MBP sleep. After wake from overnite sleep (maybe the Mac would go to hibernate -- I didn't investigate further) the dock would need to be reset. I've never had the MPB crash though, but I haven't gone back to trying docks now with Catalina.

There certainly is something particular to your environment causing this crash. Such a bug would be in all the news.

I haven’t encountered that, but have other more minor gripes. When in clamshell and an external monitor is plugged in and you restart all you have actually done is shutdown (you you have to open up the laptop and turn it on again). The way things break for ‘security reasons’ which you have to hunt for though the settings page. Eg VMWare Fusion won’t work unless you happen to know that it needs enabling in security settings, but some breakages are even more obscure and don’t generate an error message.

Oh, so that's why my computer restarts from time to time when I get away from my desk. And I'm not even on Catalina yet, just use a 13" MacBook Pro.

My 2013 Mac Pro does this too - it's actually (at least in my case) a kernel panic.

> This complain and Remote Access in (so I can SSH to my $4k MacBook) disables itself anytime the computer is restarted.

I've found IPv6 stops working after sleep, the appropriate area in the network pane is blank (I use RA not DHCPv6). Since the Mac updates its DNS records and puts IPv6 addresses in I've found accessing via hostname stops working, but then of course I can use the IPv4 address which works fine.

Yep. I turned off ipv6 support on my router an computers, and still use RA. No more issues on local network except one ... the DNS settings on my MacBook constantly revert to a default value, killing my host name access to my docket containers. But at least it’s a quick fix.

Yeah both of my TB3 docks result in crashes after unplugging or plugging in while the display is off. Very annoying behavior.

I've been using the Belkin Thunderbolt 3 dock for years now, and have had 0 issues with crashes.

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