6 ms·

I can't believe the recommended solution is "backup and reinstall your operating system". A browser shouldn't be so integral, that if it breaks the only option

I can't believe the recommended solution is "backup and reinstall your operating system". A browser shouldn't be so integral, that if it breaks the only option is to wipe your computer and start again.

X-Istence 5y ago
Is that user an Apple employee? I though the forums were a free for all?
- tlamponi 5y ago
  I mean, independent of that, that answer is flagged as "Apple recommended"...
  - X-Istence 5y ago
    Is that because the user has a certain amount of karma? I tried to dig into it but I am not sure how it got that flag. Telling users to re-install the system seems a little drastic and seems like the last thing Apple would recommend were you take your machine to the genius bar...
    - Peritract 5y ago
      Regardless of whether the flag was applied deliberately by an employee, or by an automated process, it's still showing up as 'Apple recommended' on their official support forum: any way you slice it, Apple is recommending exactly that.
- nielsbot 5y ago
  Apple employees are not allowed to comment on these forums.
creshal 5y ago
I remember when everyone laughed when Windows XP's update tool ran as ActiveX applet inside IE6. Guess Apple didn't learn anything from that.
- ktpsns 5y ago
  Oh god, I can remember that time! My journey was basicall from Win95 to Win2k to Gentoo Linux. An "emerge world" or so just updated the whole system. And then I tried WinXP and could not believe the way their system updater worked.
  - emilsedgh 5y ago
    Hell of a journey, directly to Gentoo!
- andrewmcwatters 5y ago
  You awakened neurons for me that I think are impaired from disuse. I can picture progress bars in Internet Explorer and Windows XP colors but not much more.
sneak 5y ago
In macOS system 8 and before, the way you made a disk bootable for a mac was you would partitoin/format it with the standard filesystem (HFS), create a directory in that filesystem called "System Folder", and put two files in it: "Finder", the app that launches on boot, and "System", the OS bundle. Doing so in the Finder would "bless" the System Folder and let the OS know it had everything it needed to boot. Everything else was optional. Macs, to boot today, need, at a minimum: * three partitions * two OS installations comprising dozens/hundreds of files (three separate macOS installations on M1 macs) * T2/M1 hardware-specific activation data * BridgeOS (on T2 systems) I remember being worried when OS X was first previewed (btw, everyone, for the last time it's pronounced "ten") that they would ruin the "drag and drop two files and a folder" simplicity that the mac was known for with this complicated new system. Indeed I was right. It's a real bummer how non-modular macOS is these days. It's a giant ball of mud, and the only recommended method of modifying it is format and reinstall, which burns a couple hours: just like Windows.
- g_p 5y ago
  Entirely agreed the loss of simplicity is a shame. I do wonder though if the current "APFS subvolume" approach is an acceptable alternative. What I don't understand is why the apple installer and updater seems to do a lengthy installation, when it seems to be effectively creating a "sealed image". Does anyone know of a good resource explaining the modern MacOS installer? It strikes me Apple could ship a delta image for the system subvolume, and just ensure the hash is correct before rebooting. That seems to not be what's being done, given the length of time an update takes. I wonder why they don't do this though, given it seems nothing can edit the system volume, so it ought to be shipped as an image?
  - sneak 5y ago
    I think (a guess from experience) that a huge amount of Apple work is done under intense time pressure, and prioritized as related to the bullet point list of new features being pushed for that release's marketing communications. The installer being better isn't going to sell more computers; it ain't really broken, so there would need to be some real incentive to do anything other than incrementally fixing it. (This is not to discount the small amounts of polish they add to these tools bit by bit over time as they are incrementally improved, such as the black full screen background for the system updater.) A total overhaul of such a central system (used regularly by millions of machines during updates) is a gigantic risk, to put it mildly. They also just took one such big risk with the whole APFS migration/system volume thing, which to their credit went well. Every now and then Apple will actually rewrite an app, like they did to Disk Utility not long ago. This usually makes it worse, and relegates anyone serious to the command line tools (which are fortunately quite complete and comprehensive, even if their man pages aren't). I have a feeling they spend the most high-quality application developer resources on things like iWork and FCP and stuff that users actually live and breathe every day, not stuff they run a few times a year unattended.
DangerousPie 5y ago
Looks like this is just some random guy's suggestion though? Not like these are the official help pages.
- KptMarchewa 5y ago
  There is big "Apple recommended" text next to it.
nottorp 5y ago
Well, for a long time internet explorer was the same in Windows. And probably still is, as in they use it internally for a lot of things even if Edge is now the actual user facing browser. As for Safari, I switched to Firefox when they disabled uBlock Origin, so I don't know how it works these days.
- tuco86 5y ago
  same here. I completely forgot how to use the internet without uBO or another decent adblocker. same reason i can't switch to iphone, they don't have a firefox with addon support.
  - BozeWolf 5y ago
    There are decent adblockers for safari on both macOS and iOS. Mozilla makes one for iOS, Firefox Focus, which you can setup as a content blocker. KaBlock exists for safari on both macos and ios. And there are many more. Fwiw: Im using safari on both iOS and MacOS, macos with kablock and iOS with firefox focus and the experience has been good.
    - 411111111111111 5y ago
      I got an ipad pro from 2020 and tried all these, but have to disagree. It's not as bad as no adblocking altogether, but very far from firefox with ubo on Android. It's good enough to use however, and android has it's own issues.
      - vizzah 5y ago
        AdBlock Plus + NeverAds enabled for iPhone I can't see any differences to my desktop with FF and uBO.
        nottorp 5y ago
        Doesn't AdBlock Plus sell whitelisting for ads?
jackson1442 5y ago
Quick correction- reinstalling does not constitute a wipe, at least not on macOS, and will generally fix any os-level weirdness you’re experiencing at a given moment. Definitely still ridiculous.
phreack 5y ago
It's insane how tightly coupled such crucial apps are to the OS. The first time I tried to make an iOS app and learned that you needed to download all of XCode and its updates (tons and tons of GB!) just to use some console commands and compile an app I spent a while searching for alternatives thinking that I must have not understood correctly.
mobilemidget 5y ago
I cant believe it is the only solution, and strongly doubt it is the only option. But for many users it is the easiest to do unfortunately, to get back to a clean working slate.
fnord77 5y ago
this is also the default genius bar solution.

X-Istence 5y ago

Is that user an Apple employee? I though the forums were a free for all?

tlamponi 5y ago
I mean, independent of that, that answer is flagged as "Apple recommended"...
- X-Istence 5y ago
  Is that because the user has a certain amount of karma? I tried to dig into it but I am not sure how it got that flag. Telling users to re-install the system seems a little drastic and seems like the last thing Apple would recommend were you take your machine to the genius bar...
  - Peritract 5y ago
    Regardless of whether the flag was applied deliberately by an employee, or by an automated process, it's still showing up as 'Apple recommended' on their official support forum: any way you slice it, Apple is recommending exactly that.
nielsbot 5y ago
Apple employees are not allowed to comment on these forums.

creshal 5y ago

I remember when everyone laughed when Windows XP's update tool ran as ActiveX applet inside IE6. Guess Apple didn't learn anything from that.

ktpsns 5y ago
Oh god, I can remember that time! My journey was basicall from Win95 to Win2k to Gentoo Linux. An "emerge world" or so just updated the whole system. And then I tried WinXP and could not believe the way their system updater worked.
- emilsedgh 5y ago
  Hell of a journey, directly to Gentoo!
andrewmcwatters 5y ago
You awakened neurons for me that I think are impaired from disuse. I can picture progress bars in Internet Explorer and Windows XP colors but not much more.

sneak 5y ago

In macOS system 8 and before, the way you made a disk bootable for a mac was you would partitoin/format it with the standard filesystem (HFS), create a directory in that filesystem called "System Folder", and put two files in it: "Finder", the app that launches on boot, and "System", the OS bundle. Doing so in the Finder would "bless" the System Folder and let the OS know it had everything it needed to boot. Everything else was optional. Macs, to boot today, need, at a minimum: * three partitions * two OS installations comprising dozens/hundreds of files (three separate macOS installations on M1 macs) * T2/M1 hardware-specific activation data * BridgeOS (on T2 systems) I remember being worried when OS X was first previewed (btw, everyone, for the last time it's pronounced "ten") that they would ruin the "drag and drop two files and a folder" simplicity that the mac was known for with this complicated new system. Indeed I was right. It's a real bummer how non-modular macOS is these days. It's a giant ball of mud, and the only recommended method of modifying it is format and reinstall, which burns a couple hours: just like Windows.

g_p 5y ago
Entirely agreed the loss of simplicity is a shame. I do wonder though if the current "APFS subvolume" approach is an acceptable alternative. What I don't understand is why the apple installer and updater seems to do a lengthy installation, when it seems to be effectively creating a "sealed image". Does anyone know of a good resource explaining the modern MacOS installer? It strikes me Apple could ship a delta image for the system subvolume, and just ensure the hash is correct before rebooting. That seems to not be what's being done, given the length of time an update takes. I wonder why they don't do this though, given it seems nothing can edit the system volume, so it ought to be shipped as an image?
- sneak 5y ago
  I think (a guess from experience) that a huge amount of Apple work is done under intense time pressure, and prioritized as related to the bullet point list of new features being pushed for that release's marketing communications. The installer being better isn't going to sell more computers; it ain't really broken, so there would need to be some real incentive to do anything other than incrementally fixing it. (This is not to discount the small amounts of polish they add to these tools bit by bit over time as they are incrementally improved, such as the black full screen background for the system updater.) A total overhaul of such a central system (used regularly by millions of machines during updates) is a gigantic risk, to put it mildly. They also just took one such big risk with the whole APFS migration/system volume thing, which to their credit went well. Every now and then Apple will actually rewrite an app, like they did to Disk Utility not long ago. This usually makes it worse, and relegates anyone serious to the command line tools (which are fortunately quite complete and comprehensive, even if their man pages aren't). I have a feeling they spend the most high-quality application developer resources on things like iWork and FCP and stuff that users actually live and breathe every day, not stuff they run a few times a year unattended.

DangerousPie 5y ago

Looks like this is just some random guy's suggestion though? Not like these are the official help pages.

KptMarchewa 5y ago
There is big "Apple recommended" text next to it.

nottorp 5y ago

Well, for a long time internet explorer was the same in Windows. And probably still is, as in they use it internally for a lot of things even if Edge is now the actual user facing browser. As for Safari, I switched to Firefox when they disabled uBlock Origin, so I don't know how it works these days.

tuco86 5y ago
same here. I completely forgot how to use the internet without uBO or another decent adblocker. same reason i can't switch to iphone, they don't have a firefox with addon support.
- BozeWolf 5y ago
  There are decent adblockers for safari on both macOS and iOS. Mozilla makes one for iOS, Firefox Focus, which you can setup as a content blocker. KaBlock exists for safari on both macos and ios. And there are many more. Fwiw: Im using safari on both iOS and MacOS, macos with kablock and iOS with firefox focus and the experience has been good.
  - 411111111111111 5y ago
    I got an ipad pro from 2020 and tried all these, but have to disagree. It's not as bad as no adblocking altogether, but very far from firefox with ubo on Android. It's good enough to use however, and android has it's own issues.
    - vizzah 5y ago
      AdBlock Plus + NeverAds enabled for iPhone I can't see any differences to my desktop with FF and uBO.
      - nottorp 5y ago
        Doesn't AdBlock Plus sell whitelisting for ads?

jackson1442 5y ago

Quick correction- reinstalling does not constitute a wipe, at least not on macOS, and will generally fix any os-level weirdness you’re experiencing at a given moment. Definitely still ridiculous.

phreack 5y ago

It's insane how tightly coupled such crucial apps are to the OS. The first time I tried to make an iOS app and learned that you needed to download all of XCode and its updates (tons and tons of GB!) just to use some console commands and compile an app I spent a while searching for alternatives thinking that I must have not understood correctly.

mobilemidget 5y ago

I cant believe it is the only solution, and strongly doubt it is the only option. But for many users it is the easiest to do unfortunately, to get back to a clean working slate.

fnord77 5y ago

this is also the default genius bar solution.