Latest OS X beta ditches buggy discoveryd DNS service, replaced with mDNSResponder
In an apparent effort to fix DNS errors seen in recent OS X 10.10 versions, Apple's latest Yosemite beta shows the buggy discoveryd service replaced with mDNSResponder, a process last implemented in OS X 10.9 Mavericks.
With the OS X 10.10.4 beta, released on Tuesday, Apple reinstated mDNSResponder to handle DNS processes previously assigned to discoveryd since the debut of OS X 10.10 Yosemite.
As reported by ArsTechnica earlier this year, discovered discoveryd would repeatedly fail to resolve device names, duplicate machine names and cause other network problems that led to general system slowdowns. The process was also attributed to various Wi-Fi issues.
The discoveryd service was thought to be linked with Handoff functionality, which debuted alongside Yosemite and iOS 8, but those features appear to be operational even with the transfer to mDNSResponder.
It is not clear if Apple plans to permanently fall back to mDNSResponsder when OS X 10.10.4 launches, or is merely using the older service as a stopgap solution as it works to fix discoveryd.
With the OS X 10.10.4 beta, released on Tuesday, Apple reinstated mDNSResponder to handle DNS processes previously assigned to discoveryd since the debut of OS X 10.10 Yosemite.
As reported by ArsTechnica earlier this year, discovered discoveryd would repeatedly fail to resolve device names, duplicate machine names and cause other network problems that led to general system slowdowns. The process was also attributed to various Wi-Fi issues.
The discoveryd service was thought to be linked with Handoff functionality, which debuted alongside Yosemite and iOS 8, but those features appear to be operational even with the transfer to mDNSResponder.
It is not clear if Apple plans to permanently fall back to mDNSResponsder when OS X 10.10.4 launches, or is merely using the older service as a stopgap solution as it works to fix discoveryd.
Comments
EDIT ... oops I forgot the /joke tag!
Here's some detail as to why it was a mess. Sorry for the language.
Anyway the point is when Apple began to empower Macs to interface with the rest of the computer world, they did not do their usual high quality work. It's almost like the OS people don't like to be bothered with all that networking stuff, and they end up hiring people who can't do the job. Or they are not allowed to do the job. Imagine if Apple decided to make their networking top notch and hired the best and brightest out there. It would certainly help them out in the business world - both for Macs and iOS. At this juncture we can only assume they either don't hire well, or don't budget well for networking in OS development.
This really isn't surprising.
It’s amazing how this jerkwater, douchebag outfit stays in business isn’t it.
http://m.slashdot.org/story/149406
Apple was forced to drop Samba.
Ya that gpl3 really poisons the well. We dropped tons of stuff due to it.
Will this help with iOS devices repeatedly failing to appear when using iTunes Wi-Fi sync?
For every blogger who criticized Iljitsch van Beijnum for his Ars article on reverting back to mDNSResponder in Yosemite, I hope that crow tastes good.
So in your esteemed opinion, which OS has the easiest and most stable "and secure" networking stack?
Edit: to add between the "".
http://forums.appleinsider.com/t/185686/update-your-mac-apple-fixes-major-flaw-in-os-x-yosemite-but-wont-patch-lion-mountain-lion-or-mavericks
and not fixing new ones until 6 months+ after release, it leaves people choosing between two bad options. Having reliable networking is essential in a modern OS. By the time this update is out, they will be at WWDC talking about 10.11. They added over 200 features to Yosemite:
https://www.apple.com/osx/all-features/
The updates are free so it's not like they need to make a new OS compelling to upgrade to any more. The same goes for iOS. They can launch an OS at WWDC, have a 3 month beta period then deploy it and patch it over another 3-6 months when they find issues, then skip a year and that allows a user to have a stable OS for 18-21 months before the next beta starts.
There seemed to be a lot of changes after Forstall left 2-3 years ago but those have been done now so hopefully it will slow down.
Bugs don't affect everyone the same way. People have a whole range of wireless hardware and environments.
So I run Yosemite on 3 machines, and my family on many more. I've been running Yosemite since the betas. If this system is so horrible and buggy, how come I have experienced ZERO issues relating to this?
My sentiments exactly. Same here with no issues whatsoever in my home network. Obviously the issue is real if Apple is making this change and the complaints are numerous.
For every blogger who criticized Iljitsch van Beijnum for his Ars article on reverting back to mDNSResponder in Yosemite, I hope that crow tastes good.
Yes, companies need a feedback loop with their customers to stay healthy. There are some on this board who shout down any criticism, mistakenly thinking they are helping Apple.
Same here. I did see that issue of being issued new device names early on but it was fixed by an early developer version that was not long after released to the public. I am using all Apple gear, routers included. Perhaps non Apple routers still had an issue, hard to know.
Probably because you only run Yosemite? It seems like when people attach something besides 10.10 or 8.3 to their network the whole thing pukes.
My sentiments exactly. Same here with no issues whatsoever in my home network. Obviously the issue is real if Apple is making this change and the complaints are numerous.
Yawn. Try putting your Macs in an environment with several thousand machines in a mixed Windows, Mac, Linux, and who knows what else environment with Active Directory, proxies, firewalls, VPN, etc.
Since upgrading to 10.10 myself and many others in my company have been having networking problems with our Macs. These are problems we never had with 10.9 or earlier.
Or maybe you cited a trivial example with no problems as sarcasm?
You probably know all this but if not here's a useful tip. These days if you have an large fast external drive you can make a disk sparseimage of your boot drive very quickly using Carbon Copy Cloner. I have a 2 TB external with images of six different boot volumes from MBPs and a Mac Pro. Should you need to restore you can use this as a back up of where you were. Far faster than using Time machine. You just mount the Mac to be restored using Target mode on another Mac and use the sparseimage as the source to clone back.
Then you can test out a new update and see if it is OK with no worries. I did this last night for my Mac Pro but so far the new dev update seems fine.