hoakley October 30, 2019 Macs, Technology

What has changed in the Catalina 10.15.1 update?

Apple’s release notes for Catalina 10.15.1 are quite detailed, at last, and specify improvements and fixes to support AirPods Pro, in the Home app, in Siri, Photos, Messages, Contacts, Apple News, Music, and TV.

After looking at what has changed, I’d add Books to that list, which has gone from version 1.0 to 1.0.1. There have also been substantial changes in DiskImageMounter, the Finder, Bluetooth (including its preference pane), ManagedClient, drivers for AMD and Intel graphics hardware, and support for SwiftUI apps. There’s also a new set of kernel extensions appearing to support AMD Radeon 6000 series graphics cards, which may appear in a future model, perhaps?

Another important update included is in the kernel extension exclude list AppleKextExcludeList, which rises to version 15.1.1.

The list of Apple’s bundled apps which have changed build numbers in 10.15.1 includes:

App Store to build 1004.4.20
Automator to 490
Books increments from version 2.0 (1841) to 2.1 (1849)
Contacts to 2421
Home to 367.2.38
Maps to 2439.21.8.28.27
Music from version 1.0 to 1.0.1
News from version 5.1 (2309.4) to 5.2 (2328.6)
Notes to 1095
Photo Booth to 1115
Photos to 111.16.180
Podcassts to 1420.34
Preview to 999.1
Stocks from version 2.1 (415.1) to 2.2 (420.2)
TV from version 1.0 to 1.0.1
TextEdit to 355
Activity Monitor to 1075
Bluetooth File Exchange from version 7.0.0 (7.0.0f8) to 7.0.1 (7.0.1f1)
Boot Camp Assistant to 6170.40.25
Disk Utility to 1704
VoiceOver Utility to 706.

Core Services apps, kernel extensions, and other significant components which have changed build numbers include:

Accessibility, small increments across many
Address Book plugins
Supporting components for updated bundled apps
Archive Utility app to build 128.1.1
DiskImageMounter app to version 559.40.3
Finder to version 10.15.1, build 1298.1.2
Installer app to build 965.1
ManagedClient app from version 12.0 (1258) to 12.1 (1271)
Bluetooth menu from version 7.0.0 (7.0.0f8) to 7.0.1 (7.0.1f1)
Paired Devices app from version 1.8.2 (182.3) to 1.9 (190.11)
Spotlight to 2074.4
AMDxxxxController and AMDRadeon KEXTs from version 3.0.68 to 3.2.24
AMDRadeonX6000 support KEXTs added (new)
AppleIntel graphics KEXTs from version 14.0.69 to 14.2.16
AppleMultitouchDriver KEXT from version 3400.35 to 3410.2
AppleStorageDrivers KEXT from version 489.11.2 to 489.41.1
AppleUSBAudio KEXT from version 320.47 to 320.49
IOBluetoothFamily KEXT from version 7.0.0 to 7.0.1
Several Thunderbolt driver KEXTs with incremented version numbers
APFS from version 1412.11.7 to 1412.41.1
SwiftUI framework from version 33 to 39.3.900
SystemExtensions (SEXT) framework to build 35.40.2
Bluetooth preference pane from version 7.0.0 to 7.0.1
several QuickLook qlgenerators updated
several Spotlight mdimporters updated
XProtect updated to 2106
AppleKextExcludeList KEXT updated to 15.1.1.

This update is very large indeed, as it brings relatively small but significant incremental uodates to a great many parts of the system. Many public and private frameworks have changed, some clearly in support of the new versions of bundled apps. I hope that you find it worthwhile.

26Comments

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1

alvarnell on October 30, 2019 at 11:49 pm

Some discussions started among SysAdmins about /var/log/system.log being readable only by admins.

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- 2
  
  hoakley on October 31, 2019 at 10:20 am
  
  Thank you. I hadn’t noticed that change, but only run as an admin user anyway. That would be in accord with the policy for the unified log, of course.
  Howard.
  
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3

EcleX on October 31, 2019 at 11:12 am

This is interesting:

SuperDuper! for Catalina
Drives are Different
Apple’s intention is to hide the details, so it’s possible you didn’t notice, but in Catalina APFS drives are now quite a bit different than they were before. Let’s just do a quick refresher of how we got to where we are now.
…/…
at
https://www.shirt-pocket.com/blog/index.php/shadedgrey/comments/superduper_for_catalina
and more at
https://www.shirt-pocket.com/blog

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- 4
  
  hoakley on October 31, 2019 at 12:07 pm
  
  Thanks. Yes, it’s not changed AFAIK in 10.15.1, and remains as I detailed more extensively, complete with downloadable roadmaps.
  Mike Bombich at CCC has also written his account, which is worth reading too, for its relevance to the other cloning app.
  Howard.
  
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  - 5
    
    EcleX on October 31, 2019 at 1:06 pm
    
    All that shows that APFS is not yet finished, a work in progress and a moving target. Maybe that is the reason why Apple has not yet released its full documentation (mainly the part on how to write to it). Hopefully, they will finish that soon (at least by WWDC, by June 2020 and macOS 10.16), including Time Machine 2 supporting backups into APFS disks.
    
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    - 6
      
      hoakley on October 31, 2019 at 6:47 pm
      
      I don’t think that we can say that anything in macOS is “finished”, apart perhaps from 32-bit support and HFS+! It’s just that, as a target, APFS is moving much less than it did in High Sierra and early Mojave. Firmlinks are a change, but as they’re not available to users and almost certainly won’t be used in backups, I don’t see them having much impact beyond linking volumes within Volume Groups.
      As for waiting for documentation, I reckon that Godot will arrive first. By a long way.
      Howard.
      
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  - 7
    
    Jerry Fritschle on October 31, 2019 at 6:38 pm
    
    TM 2.0, as we assume to be in development, is going to be a completely different animal. The present TM’s party trick of directory hard links is of course not supported in APFS, and that is presumably deliberate. Using snapshots to browse past versions in the Finder is going to be no small achievement. I chuckle as I keep reading people asking (not you, EcleX) when APFS will be ready for TM, as really it is the other way around.
    
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  - 8
    
    EcleX on November 1, 2019 at 7:54 am
    
    Do you mean that Apple will not release further APFS documentation? Why? Why has then released some documentation already?
    
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    - 9
      
      hoakley on November 1, 2019 at 2:42 pm
      
      I have absolutely no idea. But it’s now eight months since they even updated the existing documentation. Given all the documentation that is overdue, I have no idea how Apple will ever catch up. If it even intends to.
      Earlier in the APFS project, Apple did say that it was considering making it open source. I think we can now be fairly confident that will never happen.
      Howard.
      
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  - 10
    
    EcleX on November 2, 2019 at 10:53 am
    
    Although a bit old, this article is also interesting about APFS repair, fsck, etc:
    
    A ZFS developer’s analysis of the good and bad in Apple’s new APFS file system
    https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/06/a-zfs-developers-analysis-of-the-good-and-bad-in-apples-new-apfs-file-system
    
    LikeLiked by 1 person
    - 11
      
      hoakley on November 2, 2019 at 12:03 pm
      
      Hmm. APFS has changed a bit in those 3 years. That doesn’t even refer to the first release!
      Howard
      
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    - 12
      
      hoakley on November 2, 2019 at 4:11 pm
      
      Now I’m back in front of my Mac, I recall reading that article over 3 years ago. It was interesting then, but as it’s based on the beta release of APFS in Sierra, its relevance to APFS now is minimal. A great deal has changed, including a few things that Apple was at that time asserting were fixed and would not alter. So it’s of purely historical interest now.
      Howard.
      
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  - 13
    
    EcleX on November 2, 2019 at 5:18 pm
    
    Thanks, I meant these parts of the article in relation to APFS repair:
    
    Crash Consistency
    Computer systems can fail at any time—crashes, bugs, power outages, whatever—so file systems need to anticipate and recover from these scenarios. The old-old-old school method is to plod along and then have a special utility to check and repair the file system during boot (fsck, short for file system check). More modern systems labor to achieve an always-consistent format, or only narrow windows of inconsistency, obviating the need for the full, expensive fsck. ZFS, for example, builds up new state on disk and then atomically transitions from the previous state to the new one with a single atomic operation.
    …/…
    It’s surprising to see that APFS includes fsck_apfs—even after asking Giampaolo I’m not sure why it would be necessary. For comparison, I don’t believe there’s been an instance where fsck for ZFS would have found a problem that the file system itself didn’t already know how to detect. But Giampaolo was just as confused about why ZFS would forego fsck, so perhaps it’s just a matter of opinion.
    
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    - 14
      
      hoakley on November 2, 2019 at 6:05 pm
      
      As I said, it’s an interesting piece of history: two opinions from file system designers about the theoretical need for a repair tool.
      We now have three years experience of APFS, which is different in many respects from the design that they were talking about then. Apple now has information on its use and performance on over a billion iOS devices, and tens of millions of Macs. And it provides an fsck_apfs which does sometimes fix problems. As the author writes, it usually takes a decade for a file system to fully mature.
      So I think it would be extremely dangerous to draw any conclusions about APFS in 10.15.1 from that article. It’s like trying to predict whether an unborn child will make a good doctor. Now at least the child has grown up and is studying medicine!
      Howard.
      
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  - 15
    
    EcleX on November 28, 2019 at 2:50 pm
    
    Excelent news!!! Well, it seems that Godot will come, after all (from the horse’s mouth). Apple has provided developers more documentation about APFS on September 2019:
    
    Awards and Reviews
    Alsoft Inc.
    @121Zer0 Last September, Apple provided their developers with partial documentation regarding APFS. The development… https://t.co/VzSal26OZ2
    Nov 7, 2019, 12:58 PM
    https://www.alsoft.com/awards-and-reviews.
    
    Source:
    
    Alsoft Inc.
    @diskwarrior
    Last September, Apple provided their developers with partial documentation regarding APFS. The development team is working to complete the upgrade until full documentation is released.
    https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1192516727780700160
    
    Such documentation is not public at
    About Apple File System
    https://developer.apple.com/documentation/foundation/file_system/about_apple_file_system
    
    and specifically at
    Apple File System Reference
    
    Click to access Apple-File-System-Reference.pdf
    
    which still shows:
    
    Revision History
    2019-02-07
    Corrected the discussion of object identifiers in j_snap_metadata_val_t. The extentref_tree_oid and sblock_oid fields contain a physical object identifier, not a virtual object identifier.
    
    2019-01-24
    Added information about software encryption on macOS in the Encryption chapter.
    
    2018-09-17
    New document that describes the data structures used for read-only access to Apple File System on unencrypted, non-Fusion storage.
    
    But, as stated by Alsoft, developers have access to it. Since you are also a Mac developer, probably you could access that as well. That could be a great new article for this site!
    
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    - 16
      
      hoakley on November 28, 2019 at 3:45 pm
      
      Thank you.
      I don’t think that is what that tweet means – I don’t see any mention of Apple releasing any new documentation, merely that Alsoft are still waiting for “full documentation” to be released.
      There’s no new developer documentation on Apple’s website, as you say. Maybe Alsoft expects that to change shortly? I still wouldn’t hold my breath, I’m afraid.
      Howard.
      
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  - 17
    
    EcleX on November 28, 2019 at 6:31 pm
    
    They said:
    
    “Last September, Apple provided their developers with partial documentation regarding APFS”.
    
    Last September is 2019, yet no official documentation has been published, as far as I know. Alsoft also said that it is only for developers. The good news is that Apple continues releasing more APFS documentation, even if it is only as a NDA to developers.
    
    All that seems to confirm the idea that APFS is a work in progress and the fact that Apple has not yet released the FULL documentation is that there is something BIG still in the works. Most likely, that is APFS support for Time Machine target disks (Time Machine 2). Hopefully, we will see that by WWDC June 2020, and full final APFS documentation by September 2020, when macOS 10.16 is released.
    
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    - 18
      
      hoakley on November 28, 2019 at 6:46 pm
      
      Thank you.
      You are presuming that “last September” refers to this year and not 2018, which is when Apple did release the first version of the APFS documentation.
      The next sentence may cast further doubt: “The development team is working to complete the upgrade until full documentation is released.” Apart from its wobbly grammar, it is clear that whatever documentation they’re referring to still isn’t complete. That is currently the case with the documentation which Apple has published to date, which was last amended last February. There is no other documentation which Apple has released.
      That situation is confirmed by the response to the following reply to that tweet, which specifically asks whether “full documentation” has been released. That question was left unanswered, but an offer was made to put the person on the mailing list.
      AFAIK, no one outside Apple knows when or if Apple will ever release what outsiders consider to be “full documentation”. We don’t even know whether TM 2 is scheduled for release next year. We almost certainly won’t know the answer to either of those questions until June 2020, with WWDC, and even then (as with Catalina’s changes to TM), they may not be discussed at that time.
      Sorry, that’s the way that Apple is.
      Howard.
      
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  - 19
    
    EcleX on November 28, 2019 at 8:59 pm
    
    If you look at both Alsoft threads, you will see that such message is in reply to others by some people in November of this year. Since they say “last September”, I understand that it is 2019. Besides, they say “Apple provided their developers” instead of to the public. Of course, that is assuming that it is not an error or that they do not want to mislead readers. As you say, time will tell, but at least we have such new information, whatever it means.
    
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    - 20
      
      hoakley on November 28, 2019 at 9:03 pm
      
      What new information, though? I am a developer, and there is no new information that I can access. No APFS documentation has ever been restricted to registered developers, as far as I know. Only pre-release info (e.g. about macOS betas) isn’t available to the public.
      Howard.
      
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  - 21
    
    EcleX on November 29, 2019 at 12:19 am
    
    I do not know, but that is what Alsoft says. Maybe they contacted Apple requesting such information (they would have to close their company if DiskWarrior for APFS could not be developed, due to such lack of documentation), and then Apple sent them such documentation; maybe after signing a NDA.
    
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22

Michael Tsai - Blog - macOS 10.15.1 on October 31, 2019 at 7:31 pm

[…] See also: Mr. Macintosh, Apple, Howard Oakley. […]

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23

EcleX on November 5, 2019 at 7:15 am

This is a wise advice that we all should know by now (pioneers get the arrows…), but here it goes for the record:

Why You Should Wait a Bit Longer to Install macOS Catalina
https://www.macobserver.com/columns-opinions/dr-macs-rants-raves/wait-install-macos-catalina

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- 24
  
  hoakley on November 5, 2019 at 7:29 am
  
  Thank you.
  Certainly if you rely on Apple’s Mail app, I think it’s worth waiting until its current bugs are fixed. So too if you’re dependent on 32-bit apps.
  Some of us don’t have any choice, though!
  Howard.
  
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25

Jon Aarbakke on November 11, 2019 at 7:50 pm

I have a late 2012 MacBook Pro Retina with dual graphics card, geforce 650 M and Intel 4000. It´s worked a treat until… Catalina 10.15.1, bang, lots of kernel panic. I have taken the route back to Mojave, in the process merging the two original volumes into one (512 SSD) and wiping it completely. Now, I get lots og black screens on boot, and when I do manage to boot (I try lost of SMC/NVRAm resets, I still get panic attacks. I went to energy settings and disabled automatic graphics switching, then turned it back on, and kaboom!…. the only time I have been able to trigger it. So really frustrating. Can upgrading to Catalina 10.15.1 have introduced some snippet of sw that messes up the machine, even when running Mojave?
Grateful for advice…

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- 26
  
  hoakley on November 11, 2019 at 8:56 pm
  
  Thank you.
  I suspect that at least some of your problems are down to firmware. When you installed Catalina on your Mac, it should have updated the firmware to 281.0.0.0, which seems associated with your problems. However, when you downgrade to Mojave, the firmware normally stays unchanged, rather than be downgraded to 280.0.0.0, as it would have been before the upgrade.
  I recommend that you contact Apple Support, and see what they suggest. There’s nothing – as far as I’m aware – that a user can do to alter this.
  I wish you success,
  Howard.
  
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