hoakley May 12, 2025 Macs, Technology, Updates

Apple has released macOS Sequoia 15.5, and 14.7.6, 13.7.6

Apple has just released the update to macOS Sequoia to bring it to version 15.5, and security updates for 14.7.6 and 13.7.6.

The Sequoia update for Apple silicon Macs is just under 3 GB in size, and just over 2 GB for Intel Macs.

Apple’s general release notes for Sequoia 15.5 only mention one new feature, that parents now receive a notification from a child’s device when its Screen Time passcode is used. Otherwise, it’s the usual “enhancements, bug fixes, and security updates”.

Security release notes for Sequoia 15.5 are here, and list 46 vulnerabilities fixed, none of which are reported as believed to have been exploited already. Those for 14.7.6 are here, and for 13.7.6 are here.

One important entry in the Enterprise release notes concerns the future of AFP: “Apple Filing Protocol (AFP) client is deprecated and will be removed in a future version of macOS.” I can hear the howls of anguish already.

Developer release notes claim three bugs are fixed:

large network shares should enumerate correctly in the Finder,
Pro Display Calibrator should work properly on M4 MacBook Pros,
apps registering helper executables should now do so correctly.

The macOS build number is 24F74. Firmware in Apple silicon Macs is updated to iBoot version 11881.121.1, while that in T2 Macs is updated to 2075.120.2.0.0 (iBridge 22.16.15072.0.0,0).

Safari is updated to version 18.5 (20621.2.5.11.8), and there are 8 security bugs fixed in WebKit (15.5).

Last updated at 1845 GMT 12 May 2025.

11Comments

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1

Duncan on May 12, 2025 at 11:21 pm
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“Apple Filing Protocol (AFP) client is deprecated and will be removed in a future version of macOS.”

Aside from backwards-compatibility with older versions of MacOS, are there any advantages today from using AFP?

Reading current reports on AFP vs SMB (v.3) I’m seeing that SMB now matches or exceeds AFP in transfer speeds. Are there any remaining advantages to AFP (such as ease of setup, usability features, reliability), or is it now primarily a case of backwards compatibility?

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- 2
  
  hoakley on May 13, 2025 at 8:29 am
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  I know of no good reason for sticking with AFP, unless the network device doesn’t support a reasonably recent SMB, e.g. a very old Mac.
  Howard.
  
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  - 3
    
    Duncan on May 13, 2025 at 2:50 pm
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    Thank you for the reply.
    
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4

EcleX on May 13, 2025 at 8:50 pm
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macOS 13.7.6 (22H625) Ventura also updates Disk Utility 22.6 (1731) to 22.6 (2200), fixingg the following bogus error on Macs (Intel) when checking any disk with Disk Utility Fist Aid (no problem when checking volumes or containers; the issue arose only when checking disks):

First Aid process has failed. If possible back up the data on this volume, Click Done to continue.Running First Aid on…
Checking prerequisites
Checking the partition list
Checking the partition map size
Checking for an EFI system partition
Checking the EFI system partition’s size
Checking the EFI system partition’s file system
Checking the EFI system partition’s folder content
Problems were found with the partition map which might prevent booting
Couldn’t mount disk. : (-69842)
Operation failed…

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- 5
  
  hoakley on May 13, 2025 at 8:57 pm
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  Thank you.
  Howard
  
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  - 6
    
    EcleX on May 14, 2025 at 9:19 am
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    Amazingly, the issue is not fixed when running Disk Utility First Aid after booting in Recovery Mode (Command R when booting). No problem when it is done booting from the internal disk and checking it or other external SSD. So, it is a bug of Recovery Mode. Really amazing.
    
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    - 7
      
      hoakley on May 14, 2025 at 11:00 am
      
      I have just checked in a VM, and the version of Disk Utility that runs in Recovery is, as expected, the same as that installed in /Applications/Utilities. I can’t check this on an Intel Mac, but I don’t see any such problems when running in a VM on Apple silicon. So whether this is a bug confined to Intel Macs, or a problem on your Mac, I don’t know.
      Howard.
      
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8

EcleX on May 14, 2025 at 9:20 am
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Oops! I meant Amazingly, the issue is NOT fixed…

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- 9
  
  hoakley on May 14, 2025 at 10:57 am
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  I have taken the liberty of correcting your comment.
  Howard.
  
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  - 10
    
    EcleX on May 14, 2025 at 4:48 pm
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    Many thanks. More surprises after doing more tests (good news eventually):
    
    So far I have tested the internal booting SSD, an external USB SSD and also other external USB SSD used only for Time Machine. Surprisingly, the last one generated the following error when running Disk Utility Fist Aid from the internal booting disk (note the “-69716” error code, which is different from the “-69842” indicated above) and checking its container (no problem when checking its volume or the disk):
    
    First Aid process has failed. If possible back up the data on this volume. Click Done to continue.
    Hide Details
    Running First Aid on “Container disk3”
    Checking storage system and repairing if necessary and if possible
    Performing fsck_apfs -y -x /dev/disk2s2 error: container /dev/rdisk3 is mounted.
    Storage system check exit code is 65.
    Storage system verify or repair failed. : (-69716)
    Operation failed…
    
    I tried several times to no avail and during all such Time Machine testing, “Apple – System Settings – General – Time Machine – Options – Backup frquency – Manually” was set avoid interference (before it was set as Automatically Every Hour). At that time I thought about trying in Safe Mode, but instead I tried the following, which worked:
    
    Then I quit Disk Utility, opened Apple Mail and received and replied to several messages. After that I opened Disk Utility again, selected First Aid, selected the Time Machine container, and this time it worked (it had 59 snapshot, so took several hours to check them all, as when I checked its volume). In all testing with all disks, no problems were found (except when the bogus error arose, as described above). As recommended by Apple, I checked volumes, then containers and then disks. When the container generated the bogus error in the Time Machine SSD, I checked the disk with First Aid (was OK), and then the container again to no avail (generated the bogus error, until fixed as indicated above).
    
    I write all this as reference, in case it could be useful to someone.
    
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    - 11
      
      hoakley on May 14, 2025 at 8:05 pm
      
      Ah. This is the old problem with failed unmounting. fsck can only check and repair volumes and containers that are unmounted. It has been a longstanding problem that Disk Utility often fails to unmount volumes/containers when it’s going to fsck them. When that fails, you see similar errors to those you are now describing.
      The trick is to manually unmount the volume/container before running First Aid on it.
      That’s quite different from the error on the disk check you reported earlier.
      Howard.
      
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