macOS Catalina 10.15.5 released

[chscag]

Apple Releases macOS Catalina 10.15.5 With Battery Health Management Features, Fix for Finder Freezing | MacRumors Forums

 

[Raz0rEdge]

What timing, just bought a new MBA for my daughter that came in this afternoon. Checked for updates and got this 10.15.5, but was confused since my Mac Mini is running 10.15.4, now I know why.

 

[MacInWin]

I installed it, but I don't see the Battery Health function. I went to Sys Prefs/Power Saver, no new button at the bottom as I have seen posted elsewhere. Is there a place to turn it on (the button, I mean, the button is supposed to turn on/off the function).

 

[Rod]

Interesting the this comes hot on the heels of my recent post in iOS and Apps called "Optimised Battery Charging" an optional setting for the iPhone.
The post lists a number of do's and don'ts, mostly thanks to Randy, for maximising the health of Li-Ion (Lithium) batteries.
I just checked for the update which was not there this afternoon but it is now.
I'll get back when an if I find the button.


Sent from my iPhone using Mac-Forums

 

[Rod]

Aha, I just read the linked article and then went to the linked article in that and there I read that the feature for battery management is only for Mac Books with Thunderbolt 3 ports. See

macOS Catalina 10.15.5 Beta Includes Battery Health Management Feature for Macs - MacRumors


Sent from my iPhone using Mac-Forums

 

[jga40]

Apple Releases macOS Catalina 10.15.5 With Battery Health Management Features, Fix for Finder Freezing | MacRumors Forums

Not available in the UK yet ?

 

[RadDave]

Aha, I just read the linked article and then went to the linked article in that and there I read that the feature for battery management is only for Mac Books with Thunderbolt 3 ports. See

macOS Catalina 10.15.5 Beta Includes Battery Health Management Feature for Macs - MacRumors

Nice find Rod - just updated my early 2015 MBAir and according to this Apple Support Article, going to System Preferences > Energy Saver is suppose to show the screenshot below - well, mine looks the same as in previous macOS versions - of course, I've got an older laptop w/ TB 2 ports - assume the explanation? Not sure what these new TB 3 ports have to do w/ what is describe in the link given? Dave
.

 

[Rod]

AND; like Sidecar is only available for 2016 models onwards, sigh....

Here is the article I found this morning on the topic. See the fourth paragraph down.

macOS Catalina 10.15.5 Update Debuts With Battery Health Management Feature for MacBooks | Technology News

And a better explanation; How to Turn Off Battery Health Management on Mac – AUS-IT

 

[jga40]

Not available in the UK yet ?

No sooner had I posted, osMac 10.15.5 appeared. I don't have automatically download checked, I prefer to do it manually, like to see what's happening. Perfect upgrade, no problems whatsoever.

 

[Rod]

It is definitely a function on my wife's 2018 MBP just updated today. I'll check I over the next few days just to see if I can notice any changes.


Sent from my iPhone using Mac-Forums

 

[m.g.mcc]

Just read an article in "9to5Mac" about backups made from Catalina 10.15.5 using CCC won't boot the Mac. I don't use CCC, I use SuperDuper so I tried it and the result is the same. During the copy process it shows the clone being made bootable, but booting from it fails.

This wasn't a Mac with T2 chip where you need to set permissions to allow booting from an external drive. It seems Apple may have added a nasty security "feature".

 

[pine man]

Just read an article in "9to5Mac" about backups made from Catalina 10.15.5 using CCC won't boot the Mac.

I have 10.15.5 installed and use CCC.

Just tried to boot from CCC and it worked ok. In fact it's a while since I tried booting from CCC but, if anything, it actually seemed to boot quicker.

Just read 9 to 5 Mac and the following is important:-

existing backups are unaffected, and this has no effect on CCC’s ability to preserve your data, nor any effect on the integrity of the filesystems on your startup disk or your backup disk. The impact of this bug is limited to the initial creation of a bootable backup

This link explains all:-

A bug in macOS 10.15.5 impacts bootable backups, but we've got you covered | Carbon Copy Cloner | Bombich Software

 

[MacInWin]

If you create a brand new CCC backup on a new drive, it won't boot, according to CCC. However, continuing to use a previous CCC backup will boot. And even if you do create a new CCC clone, it can be made bootable.

From the blog at Bombich:

Early last week we discovered an APFS filesystem bug in a beta of macOS 10.15.5. The technical details of the bug are laid out below, but 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. To be very clear – existing backups are unaffected, and this has no effect on CCC's ability to preserve your data, nor any effect on the integrity of the filesystems on your startup disk or your backup disk. The impact of this bug is limited to the initial creation of a bootable backup.

He then lays out the process to "fix" this issue:

If you're running 10.15.5 and you're backing up a Catalina system volume to an empty disk, then you should replace your copy of CCC with the CCC 5.1.18 beta. After you open CCC 5.1.18:

Click the X button in the Destination selector box to clear the destination selection
Click on the Destination selector and reselect your destination volume
CCC will then present new UI that will guide you through the procedure of creating a bootable backup, or if you choose, a Data-only backup instead.

He also sort-of admits the problem with CCC is his own fault for not following Apple's suggestions:

Last year at Apple's Developer Conference, Apple suggested that backup software should use Apple's "Apple Software Restore" (ASR) for cloning APFS volume groups. Initially I dismissed this – I shouldn't have to use Apple's black-box utility to do my job, I prefer to take full responsibility for my backups.

By not following Apple's guidance, he ended up with a broken product. We've heard that story before...

 

[chscag]

Good information Jake. I beta test for CCC so I do in fact have their latest version 5.1.18 beta 1. I did notice that after the installation of 10.15.5, that the CCC backup took twice as long as usual probably because it created a new recovery partition.

It also appears that the no bootable problem was not limited to CCC but also to SuperDuper. Mike Bombich is a very diligent and knowledgeable developer and I trust that he will correct things with a future release.

 

[exncite]

I actually didn't like Catalina and downgraded back to Mojave. Catalina wouldn't run some of the programs I had installed. It also seemed to slow down my iMac. Wasn't easy but everything is fine now. Sometimes I think Apple is starting to act like Microsoft too much with all these upgrades.

 

[chscag]

Catalina wouldn't run some of the programs I had installed.

Apple issued warnings a good two years before ever releasing Catalina that 32 bit programs would no longer work. Aside from the warnings, users should always check to see if their current programs will run with the new release of macOS before downloading and installing it.

Also, it's a must to make a bootable backup of your current system before upgrading. Much easier to go back that way.

 

[exncite]

Apple issued warnings a good two years before ever releasing Catalina that 32 bit programs would no longer work. Aside from the warnings, users should always check to see if their current programs will run with the new release of macOS before downloading and installing it.

Also, it's a must to make a bootable backup of your current system before upgrading. Much easier to go back that way.

Yes, but as a relative neophyte, I probably missed that. Going backwards required wiping the computer clean, installing Mojave from the App Store and then reinstalling from my backups or from iCloud. Wasn't hard necessarily but took a fair amount of time.

 

[chscag]

You're not alone.... We have had inputs from other users who like you were caught short by upgrading to Catalina. We understand that not everyone is up on the latest news from Apple.

Glad to hear you successfully installed Mojave and are back in business.

Tune in to our forums every once in awhile to get the latest news about Apple and its products.

Regards.

 

[Raz0rEdge]

While my daughter's MBA picked up the 10.15.5 update, my Mac Mini doesn't seem to show the 10.15.5 update yet. It is still sitting at 10.15.4. Software update says that my Mac is up to date which is odd.

 

[harryb2448]

Ashwin it always takes Software Update twenty to thirty seconds to change that message on my iMac.