macOS Catalina (10.15) - Bugs and bug fixes

[cool11]

I’m seeing both the update and the combo update file, are you talking about that? Is it possible to make an install pen-drive with any of those files?

I can't see 10.15.5

 

[stevenaaus]

I found a workaround for this. If an external monitor is connected never but never close the mbp screen.

Then works fine, otherwise you're just asking for problems.

I just got a new Macbook Pro 16 inch. I set it up as a new system with almost nothing installed so far. It seems like every time it goes into sleep mode it crashes from a kernel panic. I'm on Catalina 10.15.4. Is there a solution?

Sorry for your hassles... such amazingly bad bugs.

I did a Catalina install.. Apart from the totally stupid design decision re APFS and containers which breaks pretty much everything, it seemed to go ok.

But , ugg, how ugly is this release ? It's just salt in the wound. What were they thinking. The scenic photos are so flat, the old scenics are gone, and there's a pile of absolutely hideous avantegard "artworks".

 

[Janeilfen]

I can see the 10.15.5 update available on Apple's web site downloads but my Mac mini on 10.15.4, says there are no updates available. Is this Apple trying to limit the amount of updates which are requested?

 

[gank41]

I'm currently running iOS 13.5 (17F75) on an iPhone 11 Pro Max and watchOS 6.2.5 on a S4 Apple Watch and have had no issues unlocking my MacBook Pro (2015 15in) with my watch up thru macOS 10.15.4, but now with 10.15.5 my Watch no longer unlocks my Mac. I can see the "Unlocking with Apple Watch" wording really quick and then it prompts for the password. I've tried turning that option off & on in Settings/Privacy, and I've tried rebooting both my iPhone and Watch. Not sure what else to try other than restoring the watch maybe? Doesn't seem like an issue with the iPhone or Watch, though, as it worked fine on 13.5 & 6.2.5 while on 10.15.4 but then stopped working right after yesterday's update.

EDIT: Erasing and repairing my Apple Watch from a backup seems to have fixed this, but it’s odd that everything worked fine up until 10.15.5’s release. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[ctomyan]

Photos still runs terribly slow. It took 15 minutes to export 10 jpeg's yesterday. They are all 45 MP images but Mojave Photos took about 10 seconds to do this. Catalina Photos is inconsistent. Sometimes it takes 2 minutes, which is still a lot, sometimes it takes 15 minutes to do a really simple task.

And this keeps happening after clean installing each point update from scratch. I don't know what's wrong with the imageconversionservice process. It's taking way too long to do a really simple thing, and while it's running the entire OS is sluggish, including simple things like watching youtube. FPS drops for all kinds of activity.

I'm having much worse problems with this in 10.15.5. Can't force quit ImageConversionService anymore to reset, and it runs on restart as well. Generally stable at 2.8-3.5GB of RAM as opposed to 6GB+ RAM blowouts in the past.

Also having issues with RAW files in the Photos app appearing blurry until edit or greying out after edit. Found a similar issue on Apple Support forums dating back to iPhoto in 2008 (https://discussions.apple.com/thread/1443917), and wondering if anyone has had a similar issue? I spent a couple of hours on the phone with Apple Support getting this escalated to engineering.

(Please don't flame me for using Photos; I'm a poor student that doesn't shoot enough to justify Adobe products)

 

[warnergt]

Did the 10.15.5 Catalina update to my 2019 Mac Pro yesterday.
Then, I got this message.

I used macOS Utilities to reinstall macOS and got the same problem.
I completely restored my drive back to 10.15.4 (took all night).
Ran update again today and got same problem.

This time, I selected "Startup Disk..." I selected my startup disk and it resumed installing.
About 10-15 minutes later, it was done and 10.15.5 was up and running.

 

[Queru]

Mac Mini 2018 i5 + sonnet eGPU 550 with RX580

Before 10.15.5
White screen on boot, reset eGPU -> works fine, but have to do this every time I boot the system.

After 10.15.5
eGPU unusable with MacOS, sometimes boots to windows on itself (yeah, windows works on Mac Mini while MacOS can’t even get to login screen LOL). After I disconnected eGPU, connected Mac Mini via HDMI - no screen, I have to input login blind -> screen shows up logged me into system. Hey Apple, what the... I have issues with Mac Mini since updating to Catalina.

I have no fix yet. I would love Apple to fix this mess. But I’m sick and tired of waiting so many months trying some half-resorts to make it work. It’s worse than windows at this point.

 

[ibarnett]

Then, I got this message.

View attachment 919781


I have had this twice, just went to macOS Utilities & selected restart, then installation resumed.

 

[Mattr!x]

Howdy,

Having issues with Zoom and Catalina.
10.15.5
As per screen shots Audacity enables the allow in privacy for mic/camera but zoom comes up with a different button almost internal zoom not the OS>?

Zoom Works fine on 10.15.4 on a iMac and a usb installed 10.15.4 boot drive on said MacBook Pro.

As you can see running latest download zoom 5.04 and strangely when clicking check for update it says oh must download a version that's compatible as per 3rd screen shot! even tho running latest. Run the updater and it downloads 5.04 again and still doesn't work...!

Im lost!

Any way to force or give a program ie zoom access?

Thanks!

 

[Taz Mangus]

Howdy,

Having issues with Zoom and Catalina.
10.15.5
As per screen shots Audacity enables the allow in privacy for mic/camera but zoom comes up with a different button almost internal zoom not the OS>?

Zoom Works fine on 10.15.4 on a iMac and a usb installed 10.15.4 boot drive on said MacBook Pro.

As you can see running latest download zoom 5.04 and strangely when clicking check for update it says oh must download a version that's compatible as per 3rd screen shot! even tho running latest. Run the updater and it downloads 5.04 again and still doesn't work...!

Im lost!

Any way to force or give a program ie zoom access?

Thanks!

Try removing Zoom, download and install it again.

 

[Mattr!x]

Try removing Zoom, download and install it again.

Ye tried that no dice.... I got it working just downloaded whole os again and installed new rather then patch updating 15.4 up to 15.5. I love APFS and just deleting other non working os partition....!!!

 

[profdraper]

For those using Carbon Copy Cloner or generally interested in backups, cloning volumes etc - according to Bomich there is a new APFS file system bug introduced in 10.15.5:

Early last week we discovered an APFS filesystem bug in a beta of macOS 10.15.5 ... the short version is that we're no longer able to use our own file copier to establish an initial bootable backup of a macOS Catalina System volume. ​

​

The chflags() system call can no longer set the SF_FIRMLINK flag on a folder on an APFS volume. Rather than fail with an error code that we would have detected, it fails silently – it exits with a success exit status, but silently fails to set the special flag. That's a bug in the APFS filesystem implementation of chflags – if a system call doesn't do what you ask it to do, it's supposed to return an error code, not success. That's a fairly nasty bug too. Apple preaches that you should always check your error codes, and we do – religiously. This bug slipped past us for who knows how long because the system call exits with a success error code.​

​

We don't need to set many of these flags, nor set them frequently – just on the first backup of the macOS system volume. It happens to be essential to the functionality of an APFS volume group, though, so the failure to set these flags means that new full-system backups created on 10.15.5 and later won't be bootable, and it will appear as if none of your data is on the destination (to be clear, though, all of the data is backed up). Kind of the opposite of what we're trying to do here. It's hard to find kind words to express my feelings towards Apple right now. Suffice it to say, though, I'm extremely disappointed that Apple would introduce this kind of bug in a dot-release OS update. We've seen 5 major updates to Catalina now, we should expect to see higher quality than this from an operating system​

[automerge]1591051900[/automerge]
& now a 10.15.5 'supplemental update' ....

 

[nutbunnies]

I had a computer with Vista for three years that annoyed me less than Catalina has in a week.

 

[ghostface147]

Battery life has taken a hit on 2018 MB Pro 15" since the update. I'm sure it has something to do with battery management. Usually at this time of the day, my laptop has about 8 hours remaining. Now it's at 4:22.

 

[Hat Tric]

On my iMac 27'' (2017) I've got audio problems after upgrading to Catalina 10.15.4 when using an external USB sound adapter (which is built in into my studio monitors). The USB cable is plugged in directly into the iMac.

Every couple of minutes some kind of USB buffer problem repeats the last fraction of a second over and over again for about a second or so, just like a skipped record. It's really weird when listening to music or podcasts.

The iMac's internal audio works just fine.

Anyone else with this problem? Catalina 10.15.5 and the supplemental updates didn't help.

 

[satcomer]

Try to Reset NVRAM or PRAM on your Mac! If if keep that key combination then let the iMac reset twice to reset the ports on the iMac or any Mac!

 

[fruit of Zappa's loins]

I am at a loss to understand why Catalina is so unstable. I thought that 10.15.5 would fix the persistent shutting down I have been experiencing since installing it. It happens on average once per day and usually at the worst possible time. I charge at $500 per hour when doing on-line consulting and I have to run a Windows machine in tandem in case the iMac shuts down. I am not doing anything exceptional with the iMac. I won't buy Mac again but I have an intellectual interest in how Apple seem incapable of providing a stable OS for Mac at this late stage in history.

 

[Populus]

I am at a loss to understand why Catalina is so unstable. I thought that 10.15.5 would fix the persistent shutting down I have been experiencing since installing it. It happens on average once per day and usually at the worst possible time. I charge at $500 per hour when doing on-line consulting and I have to run a Windows machine in tandem in case the iMac shuts down. I am not doing anything exceptional with the iMac. I won't buy Mac again but I have an intellectual interest in how Apple seem incapable of providing a stable OS for Mac at this late stage in history.

macOS 10.15.3 has proven to be pretty stable for me. Have you had this shutdowns on that version? Maybe it is a hardware issue with your iMac...

 

[fruit of Zappa's loins]

Had it right from the start with initial instal of Catalina. Never had the problem before that. Many years ago on previous iMacs I was running Mersenne prime searches with 100% CPU usage 24 hours a day for 1+ years and never had such instability issues. I was running such searches on a Windows machine as well without stability problems.

 

[maneta]

Is it just me, or somebody else has this issue ?...After updating to new supplemental update of Catalina, my boot wallpaper is keep changing to the original Catalina wallpaper.

 

[Weaselboy]

Is it just me, or somebody else has this issue ?...After updating to new supplemental update of Catalina, my boot wallpaper is keep changing to the original Catalina wallpaper.

Do you have FileVault turned on? If so, your Mac boots to the recovery partition and shows the default Catalina wallpaper until you get logged in. Totally normal.

 

[gank41]

I'm currently running iOS 13.5 (17F75) on an iPhone 11 Pro Max and watchOS 6.2.5 on a S4 Apple Watch and have had no issues unlocking my MacBook Pro (2015 15in) with my watch up thru macOS 10.15.4, but now with 10.15.5 my Watch no longer unlocks my Mac. I can see the "Unlocking with Apple Watch" wording really quick and then it prompts for the password. I've tried turning that option off & on in Settings/Privacy, and I've tried rebooting both my iPhone and Watch. Not sure what else to try other than restoring the watch maybe? Doesn't seem like an issue with the iPhone or Watch, though, as it worked fine on 13.5 & 6.2.5 while on 10.15.4 but then stopped working right after yesterday's update.

EDIT: Erasing and repairing my Apple Watch from a backup seems to have fixed this, but it’s odd that everything worked fine up until 10.15.5’s release. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I had to go thru this entire process again after the supplemental update, too. It’s hard to say if this is a macOS issue or a watchOS issue. I did have BlueTooth issues, too, though, so that’s why I’m leaning more towards macOS being the issue, as I wasn’t having any issues with things syncing across from my iPhone to Apple watch.

I’ve also been noticing some pretty major iCloud syncing issues. Any changes to the Photos App in iOS or iPadOS aren’t reflected in macOS, and vice versa. Same goes for Music.. Any albums I add to my Library are showing as either being Matched or Uploaded, but they’re not showing up on my iPhone or iPad. I have seen some pretty crazy delays in that, though.

 

[maneta]

Do you have FileVault turned on? If so, your Mac boots to the recovery partition and shows the default Catalina wallpaper until you get logged in. Totally normal.

No, FileVault it's off...
It worked fine until i made the supplemental update, few days ago...So, it's not quite normal

 

[Hat Tric]

Try to Reset NVRAM or PRAM on your Mac! If if keep that key combination then let the iMac reset twice to reset the ports on the iMac or any Mac!

This did the trick, my external DAC now plays without any hiccups! Many thanks satcomer! So it's not related to Catalina.

 

[satcomer]

This did the trick, my external DAC now plays without any hiccups! Many thanks satcomer! So it's not related to Catalina.

If this happened once it could happen again so Don’t forget that reset procedure especially after cold seasons or hot seasons that might cause Static cling to mess with the ports again!