I’ve mentioned this (too) many times before, but I’m getting so tired with Apple’s lousy software quality lately.
The fact that 11.3 is already at beta 6 and still not ready for release is not a good sign in my opinion. And in the meantime, my ethernet connection keeps on dropping on my $$$ 2017 15" MBP. A problem that started with the macOS 11.2.x update. You know, the one that was needed because USB peripherals could damage a Mac (how could that possibly slip through QA!?).
And no, this doesn’t look like a hardware issue. The dock functions properly. Everything that’s connected to that dock works fine: display, (usb) speakers. Everything but ethernet.
Oh yeah, and sometimes ethernet just works for a longer time. But I found out why: the machine doesn’t get to sleep anymore, for some mysterious reason. And since Apple removed all controls for the sleep setting, there is no way to make any changes here. FTR: there are no processes preventing the machine to sleep; pmset -g doesn’t return anything.
A new user account that I created had the exact same problems. The times that I cleared all caches, and reset the SMC are countless. All without effect.
Sometimes a restart of the machine brings back ethernet. But even that is not a sure thing. Many times several restarts and repluging the dock are needed to revive the (wired) ethernet connection.
I know this sounds like - or actually is - a rant. But i somehow hope that this message gets to Apple somehow. The quality of macOS is really below par for quite some time.
Well, Apple kind of forces users to update soon with these annoying badges everytime a new version is available. And no (legitimate) way to switch them off.
Agree on what you say about Win10. While MS is moving forward, it seems Apple has different priorities.
My cheap work laptop (a Dell) at least connects to the network every time I switch it on. Guaranteed. Can’t count on that with my shiny MBP which costed 5 times as much.
No ,I haven’t. And based on the countless accounts of people having similar and other problems in a Reddit thread, I won’t. I really don’t want to spend the time and take the risk when the outcome is uncertain. I’m not on the beta now, by the way.
That’s why I created a new account. But that didn’t fix the issue. It might be third-party software, but that’s unlikely. As it does work… until the Mac wakes up from sleep.
Every experience is different. Windows 7 was rock solid. But I’ve found WIndows 10 to be less stable , by a long way. Thank goodness I only have to use it every day for about 8 hours…
Yes, it appears Apple has been a bit over their skis for the past few years.
But it’s been my experience that Macs and Windows PCs are more alike than some of us would like to believe. I had 14 Windows XP machines in one department that ran virtually problem free for over 10 years. The same is true for our servers running Windows Server (v 2003 - v2012).
Updates have been a potential problem for every operating systems I’ve used. Windows, Mac, Linux, and a couple others for midrange equipment. With the exception of my Windows and Mac test machines, I would rarely roll out an update to production machines in less than 30 - 60 days from release. I’ve heard from some pros that they always stay at least one version behind the current macOS. But the world continues to become more dangerous and so is not upgrading when patches are released.
As long as we rely on individual computers/devices I suspect some things are never going to change. No computer “just works”.
This is saying that you have not properly tested whether the problem is due to a hardware failure or weakness just in the ethernet segment of the dock.
Perhaps the newest macOS patched a protocol that was allowing ethernet to broadcast without first confirming that the hardware receiving the signal is awake. Perhaps your hardware ignores this published protocol – it does not send back an “I am awake” signal. It works simply because, in some OS worlds (e.g. Windows), the handshake protocol is also well-documented but is never implemented (too much overhead in the OS design or some such reason). So, now, instead of praising Apple for improving their software so that your 2017 machine does not waste battery power, you blame them for not remaining compliant to hardware that did not support the protocols needed to be modernized effectively.
I agree. And Microsoft is bringing some nice (Mac a like) features to Windows through PowerToys and Power Automate Desktop. Some are better executed than on Mac. It are simple things like a native clipboard manager that make Windows quite nice to use. Updates on Windows install even faster than on Mac.
Being naive I bought an Apple thunderbolt to ethernet adapter a little while ago. Exactly for this reason: to test if “genuine” Apple gear would still work properly. However, when it arrived I noticed it’s thunderbolt 2…not 3.
, by a long way. Thank goodness I only have to use it every day for about 8 hours…
