hoakley March 31, 2022 Macs, Technology

What has changed in Monterey 12.3.1?

The update to bring Monterey to version 12.3.1 is very small, and close to the minimum update size.

Apple claims that it addresses two issues: for Mac mini 2018 systems, it ensures that a USB-C or Thunderbolt display used as a second display turns on properly, and it fixes an incompatibility between some Beats headphones and other Bluetooth devices such as game controllers, which could disconnect after playing audio through the headphones.

Additionally, this addresses two other issues. The first are those few MacBook Pro 2021 models which have been unable to update to 12.3; this update should enable them to update to 12.3.1 successfully. The other is a strange bug which caused flickering in half a dozen pixels on Thunderbolt or Cinema Displays when connected using a USB-C to TB adaptor, with an M1 Mac; that has now been fixed too.

I’m glad to hear that this apparently fixes the severe bug in AppleScript which caused open [file] to fail. However, it doesn’t fix or alter in any way the memory leak seen in the Finder’s Find feature, nor does it display charge levels during recharging of Apple wireless input devices.

There are two security fixes included in this update, detailed here. One affects AppleAVD, the other Intel Graphics Drivers. Apple remarks that it’s aware of reports that both vulnerabilities have been actively exploited. These make this an urgent update for all Monterey users.

iBridge firmware in T2 Macs is updated from 19.16.14242.0.0,0 to 19.16.14243.0.0,0, and iBoot in M1 series Macs from 7459.101.2 to 7459.101.3.

The only bundled app to show a changed version or build number is Safari, which has a small increment in build to version 15.4 (17613.1.17.1.13).

Changes in /System/Library are also extremely limited, the most significant being:

some AMD kernel extensions, which increase version number
AppleAVD kernel extension, which increases version from 559 to 560, consistent with the security release notes
AppleGraphicsControl kernel extension, which increases version from 6.5.4 to 6.5.7
some AppleIntel graphics kernel extensions, which increase version number, consistent with the security release notes
JavaScriptCore, WebKit and SafariServices frameworks, which increase build numbers.

Updated 0710 GMT 1 April 2022.

13Comments

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1

Andrew on April 1, 2022 at 4:51 pm

So far 12.3.1 seems to have fixed the systemstats process memory leak on my Macs. *knock on wood*

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- 2
  
  hoakley on April 1, 2022 at 7:27 pm
  
  Thank you. That’s one relief.
  Howard.
  
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3

Michael Tsai - Blog - macOS 12.3.1 on April 1, 2022 at 9:09 pm

[…] Howard Oakley: […]

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4

Alex on April 2, 2022 at 5:38 pm

“…the memory leak seen in the Finder’s Find feature…”

You comment on this all the time. Do you use this particular feature a lot in your workflows? Surely there are oodles of other memory leaks on any Mac. At least, I assume that Safari and WindowServer don’t just get bigger and slower (even when I close windows) over time until I reboot because they think it’s fun.

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- 5
  
  hoakley on April 2, 2022 at 5:57 pm
  
  Thank you.
  Please explain to me how I can reproduce these other memory leaks which you claim. I have spent many hours looking at reports of how Monterey leaks memory elsewhere, and drawn complete blanks.
  BTW, my iMac Pro runs 24/7 for many days between restarts, and I’m a heavy Safari user. I’ve never seen any leak in WindowServer or Safari despite such long-running. Neither is there any in Finder unless I use the Find command, which is one of Finder’s fundamental features for many users. In a matter of a couple of minutes, without much effort on my part, I can get Finder taking more than 5 GB of memory which it never releases unless force-restarted. How does that compare with the leaks you have observed?
  Howard.
  
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  - 6
    
    Milad Zhian on April 5, 2022 at 5:36 pm
    
    Hi, I updated my MacBook Pro M1 to MacOS Monterey a couple of months ago. After updating I realized that my Mac had a delay in some softwares. I usually run Skype, OBS Studio, and Zoom at the same time. I use NDI through these software. At that time I had a lot of problems for streaming videos. There was an error like this: “Your Memory has fulled”. I don’t remember the exact message but it was the message like that. Finally, I decided to downgrade to Big Sur, and I haven’t have the mentioned problems since that time.
    
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    - 7
      
      hoakley on April 5, 2022 at 8:54 pm
      
      I’m sorry to hear that. While I’m aware of (and have used when pressed) Skype and Zoom, I’m not in the least surprised. In fact, I’m amazed you got them to run at all on an M1 in Big Sur.
      While you’re back in macOS 11, you might like to be aware that it’s still vulnerable to the two security bugs patched in Monterey 12.3.1, which are apparently being exploited in the wild. So please be careful until Apple patches those in Big Sur.
      Howard.
      
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8

Christian on April 2, 2022 at 10:17 pm

I like to report that installation on Intel Mac requires double time over USB.

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- 9
  
  hoakley on April 3, 2022 at 7:13 am
  
  Thank you.
  I’m not sure I understand. Could you please explain a bit more?
  Howard.
  
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10

Darren on April 19, 2022 at 8:46 pm

On a MacBook Air, 2017, currently running Catalina with all updates applied, I would appreciate any thoughts on either updating to Big Sur or Monterey.

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- 11
  
  hoakley on April 19, 2022 at 10:19 pm
  
  If you’re happy that all your key apps are compatible, I’d upgrade to Monterey when you’ve got time. Apple either isn’t fixing, or is fixing more slowly, many security vulnerabilities in 10.15 and 11. It also isn’t fixing any non-security bugs in those versions of macOS.
  I wish you success.
  Howard.
  
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12

The Real Nirv on May 13, 2022 at 9:11 pm

File sharing simply stopped behaving as expected. Specifically it would function as expected for 5-10 min. After that amount of time it would begin to exhibit strange Finder behavior when it came to accurately displaying the size in xbytes for files and folders, sometimes it would get erratic enough to not display the complete directory. Once this cosmetic issue surfaced, the volume, although still mounted would stop accepting items from being dropped into any affected directory. Mac mini 2018 (headless) OWC RAID 5 (4 rotational drives) and OWC’s softraid. PRAM, SMC, safe boot, new user account steps showed no change. Reinstalled Mac OS, issue appears to persist. Maybe some compatibility broke with High Sierra Clients. Still investigating issue. As a test, I might clean install High Sierra to rule it out. Have CrushFTP server running on the mini – that continues to work but there is something to be said about having native Finder when a user. Screen sharing works w/o issue.

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- 13
  
  hoakley on May 13, 2022 at 9:24 pm
  
  I’m sorry to hear that. Unfortunately, you’re not short of potential culprits, although High Sierra clients would be high on my list of suspects, and something that no one would show any interest in fixing.
  Howard.
  
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