Done with Apple

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”.

Windows 8/8.1 took the “rock solid” crown in my case.

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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.


JJW

It’s not just the dock I’m using (sold by Apple, b.t.w.). As you can see in another thread on this forum, it happens with all brands of docks.

Unfortunately, using a dock is the only way to get wired ethernet with “modern day” Macbooks (and other laptops for that matter).

Posting this additional information at the outset would have helped.


JJW

It lived up to the same mess that it tried to unify with. :upside_down_face:


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Do you know if it happens with Apple’s ethernet adapter?

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At least Windows Vista SP2 was just as good as Windows 7. Microsoft was too late though…

Perhaps it is time to confirm that the dock isn’t the issue. You can buy a 10 port Netgear ethernet switch for $20.

I used to keep a few on hand for trouble shooting and/or the occasional “we need 6 more connections in the conference room” calls from the boss.

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.

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If only Apple made such a thing… :wink:

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.

I know. I have many switches here. A dock is not a switch though. And everything else connected to this switch is working just fine. Just like the Belkin dock. As long as the Mac doesn’t go to sleep. :wink:

Happy with all the suggestions. But I’m pretty confident it’s not a hardware issue. The fact that the
macOS Big Sur 11.2 Release Megathread
on Reddit has already 254 (mostly negative) comments on this version of macOS, ranging from BT to display and ethernet problems, makes me think there might be an issue with the latest update(s). That, and the fact that we’re at beta 6 for 11.3 and there’s still no sign of Apple releasing this update. That’s really not because the Reminders sorting is still not working fine.

Wifi is taking over when the thunderbolt ethernet connection drops. And even though I have a solid Wifi connection, it’s still not as good as wired ethernet. Especially for video conferencing and stuff like that.

Yep, knew that. Just thought I’d suggest testing your theory. IMO that’s the only way to be sure. Good luck.

Oh my god, thank goodness somebody finally acknowledged this. It is so stupid that Apple hasn’t released a successor to that adapter yet…

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Don’t get me wrong, there’s more than enough complaining about Windows to. The input lag on an external monitor with a laptop that has a Nvidia GPU is too common which requires a quirky workaround. Overall I find Mac is still nicer for day-2-day work than Windows, but the gap is closing.

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Your experience sounds so familiar to mine. My MBP 16" has gone through all kinds of problems, from regularly crashing while sleeping under Catalina (I almost returned it at that time) to now randomly losing ethernet (via an Anker USB-C adapter) and then crashing about 1-2 minutes afterwards.

My initial problems only disappeared after several months, when Apple finally fixed the issue. The guys from the Apple Store had me completely reinstall macOS and then test it out for a few days/weeks before installing additinal software, though. Very funny when you use your MBP for work.

The latest versions of Catalina where quite stable for me, but for some reason I felt I should install to Big Sur. It had been out for such a long time, it sure is stable now. Let’s not dig into how they ruined notifications, but as described above, I was now introduced to a new crash pattern.

From what I found online, it seems that macOS (or the MBP 16" in particular) is still incompatible with a lot of USB-C displays, which sometimes causes those seemingly random problems. Which is great, because I bought a relatively expensive USB-C display specifically for my MBP at work…
Anecdotally, my MBP did not crash in that way - ethernet down, then crash - while at home, connected to a CalDigit TS3 Plus hub, which is my only cable connected to the machine.

Sometimes, I just wish I could go back to my good old PowerBook G4, which is still running great by the way, even without an SSD. :wink:

Let me tell you, though, that from my experience, Windows 10 can be a total pain, too.
I built a really nice desktop machine in 2018 for Adobe Lightroom (which had become unusable on my 2011 MBA 11"). The included backup solution has been totally unreliable, which I only found out by accident because Windows does not mind warning you about any problems. It’s easier for third party software to interfere with basic system functions, which could in theory be a great thing, but stops being great when your BitLocker encrypted drives suddenly all fail to mount.
Updates don’t take as long as on macOS? In theory, yes, but in practice, from time to time, there will be an update that just never ends. And the official recommendation is to wait for at least several hours before daring to reboot, which might completely f*** up your Windows installation. (Luckily, a reboot in safe mode somehow did the trick.)
And that’s just my experience with a high end machine with not a lot of software running, which is only used very occasionaly.

At work, I’m also taking care of IT a bit (we have an external IT consultant, but I try to quickly solve issues myself instead of having employees wait for remote service). There have been all kinds of weird problems introduced by minor and major Windows 10 updates, from random crashes (including the good old blue screen) to the search function being broken. And everytime such a thing occurs, you can start digging in the settings first (because obviously, when search stops working, it’s probably a user error), then you start Googling, and then you hopefully find that thread on the MS forums where other people are complaining about the same issues. And then you hope there’s a workaround, because otherwise you just wasted a few hours just to come up with “Well, that sucks, let’s hope the next patches will fix this.”

Last month, I bought a new PC (Lenovo M75q Gen 2) for an employee. Configured it, including migration of all the accounting software and data, started using it - and it randomly lost ethernet between every 5 and 120 minutes. Spent countless hours trying to fix it, no success. Mainboard was replaced, no success. Bought a second PC, thoroughly tested it, transfered data to it, tested it again, seemed to work, then stopped working. The “old” PC, reinstalled, still had the same problem, too. Then late in March, a new ethernet driver was released by Lenovo which fixed the problem.

Sorry for the rant, but trust me: Your experience might be better, but just as well your experience might be better if you had bought a different configuration for your MacBook, or if you just buy another MacBook, of if you just wait for another few months until finally Apple fixes your issues.

Oh, and don’t get me started on also the daily annoyances of actually working with Windows 10. No Preview which let’s you easily rearrange PDFs and quickly export PDFs/images to different sizes and formats, no quick look which let’s you run through tens of PDF files and rename them in a few seconds, no instant search on Synology NAS because Windows doesn’t use the remote search index, …

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I know a company that bought a bunch of Chromebooks for their employees. They were very easy to configure (all at once).

Windows 10 was released in 2015, that’s 6 years ago! I’m glad that Apple is continuing to invest in MacOS and releases a new version every year. They have great integrations with the iPhone and iPad so I can seamlessly move from mobile to my desktop. And of course last year they released Macs with their own chip designs. If none of that appeals to you, then please move to Windows and you’ll get a new version every 10 years or so.

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Have you tried setting the “service order” of your network connections? I wonder if your mac is thinking it has a connection on something other then your LAN.

In system preferences, select network, then the little drop down selector right under the list of connections. Select “ set service order…” and rearrange your connection from top to bottom in the priority order you want.

Also, what is your DNS set to or do you let your modem decide?