from Hacker News

macOS Sonoma Forced Installs

by bangonkeyboard on 1/23/24, 3:57 PM with 91 comments

• by crazygringo on 1/23/24, 4:31 PM

  Just an anecdote to the contrary... running up-to-date Ventura on my M1 MBA, got a pop-up about upgrading to Sonoma a couple days ago, clicked X and it didn't install (or even download). Working correctly.

  So everything's normal for me. If this were happening to everyone it would be widespread and huge news.

  So assuming it's some kind of possibly-obscure bug, if it's only a handful of people?

• by lapcat on 1/23/24, 4:29 PM

  See also https://tidbits.com/2024/01/22/ventura-and-monterey-users-be...

  By the way, I highly recommend Little Snitch, which can block these downloads: https://www.obdev.at/products/littlesnitch/

  I personally do all of my macOS updates manually using the command-line softwareupdate tool in Terminal app.

• by rchaud on 1/23/24, 4:47 PM

  I'm pretty sure I've avoided this because the Sonoma update is 13GB, and my 128GB MBP only has 5-6GBs free at any time.

  Now, if Apple would only let me delete those useless HEIC wallpaper images. Each of those are over 1GB in size and can't be deleted without command-line tomfoolery.

• by mrkstu on 1/23/24, 4:11 PM

  This would be very divergent from Apple's past practice. Assuming its a bug at this point in the authorization steps.

• by chunky1994 on 1/23/24, 4:56 PM

  I am assuming this is a bug, otherwise it would be a very weird move on apple's part. While they're usually pushy about updates etc. for anyone who uses defaults they usually respect user decisions.

  I've dealt with the apple auth chain quite a bit and from the reports it looks like the earliest this started happening was Jan 10th with this notification "macOSInstallerNotification_RC" getting pushed to everyone on Ventura. Very likely the bug then make this appear as a required security update and auto installs it despite user input (I am not sure how many people without the install security updates toggle have also been upgraded).

  Also if you have a firmware password on that is still needed for security upgrades so that's probably why there's a difference between password less updates and non-passwordless upgrades but that's just a guess.

• by flutas on 1/23/24, 4:22 PM

  Incase the site goes down (as someone has noted once already).

  Backup Mirror Archive

  https://archive.is/gPxwR

• by geuis on 1/23/24, 4:17 PM

  Well this is worrying. I also have no interest in upgrading from Monterey. I have all automatic updates disabled except security patches enabled as well.

  I'm super glad now that I've gotten into the habit of disabling wifi when I'm not using the machine.

  I absolutely cannot stand computers doing things without my say so.

  Years ago my Windows machine forcibly did a restart and patch installation while I was working. It just exited every app I had running and rebooted. Cost me several hours of work. Talk about being instantly livid.

• by NoMoreNicksLeft on 1/23/24, 4:18 PM

  This happened to me last weekend. I have a 2013 iMac that was running Ventura with the Opencore patch. It came up with an update, Opencore got confused (or maybe I did?), and when I rebooted like an idiot it was bricked.

• by smartmic on 1/23/24, 4:19 PM

  Well, Apple is in control of your system. Same story with Microsoft software.

  Maybe yet another nudge to think about the core values of Free Software?

• by joney_baloney on 1/23/24, 5:46 PM

  Got me a week or two ago. 2018 Intel Mac mini on Monterey. Also did me the lovely convenience of changing my iCloud settings, my desktop background, and turned on screensavers.

• by ynoxinul on 1/23/24, 4:15 PM

  I've also noticed that clicking on "x" means "Install now", but in my case it asks for my password first and I can deny that, preventing the install.

• by jiveturkey on 1/23/24, 4:39 PM

  I have an x86 mac mini (last top spec hardware) running Catalina. It offers me the upgrade of course but to date has not forced me to upgrade.

• by txdv on 1/23/24, 4:29 PM

  Got a 2017 macbook, please force me to ugprade

• by mrweasel on 1/23/24, 4:17 PM

  Either this is an error on Apples part, or they have some motive for forcing Sonoma. My guess is that it's most likely an error, as I can see the motive for force installing an upgrade.

  It's bad either way and a forced upgrade can mess with peoples production workflows. Sadly Apple is notoriously silent on these types of issues.

• by alias_neo on 1/23/24, 4:31 PM

  OPs log screenshot clearly shows that they _did_ in fact, authorize the installation _non-interactively_.

  /s

  I wonder if it was a sudo permission thing and they were within the elevation timeout so it just automatically accepted for them in the background? That's what the log suggests to me.

• by mig39 on 1/23/24, 5:12 PM

  Happened to me, but only on an unsupported iMac running Opencore patcher.

  Hasn't happened to me on my daily drive MacBook Pro, which is running on Ventura just fine.

• by j16sdiz on 1/23/24, 4:14 PM

  The site is dead

• by tumult on 1/23/24, 4:14 PM

  This also happened to me. Except I got lucky and noticed it was happening due to sudden inexplicable increase in local network traffic (thank you blinkenlights) and managed to stop it in time.

  Here’s my story: https://merveilles.town/@cancel/111746895947244237

  I only use my Mac for music production and compatibility testing, but honestly, between this and the overall shoddy and janky state of macOS, I’m reconsidering my future use of Macs at all.

• by yreg on 1/23/24, 4:17 PM

  This is unusual and I hope it stays to be unusual. I prefer to update my Macs when I decide it is the right time.

  Meanwhile, my Windows machine updates itself whenever, often even in the middle of overnight computing tasks.

• by globalise83 on 1/23/24, 4:19 PM

  Reading this on my MacBook Pro running Linux