Apple releases macOS Catalina 10.15.5 supplemental update with security fixes

AppleInsider

Apple released a supplemental update to macOS Catalina 10.15.5 on Monday afternoon only one week after its official release.

Following an afternoon of updates, Apple's macOS Catalina supplemental update is a simple security update with no special features noted or revealed. The release notes read as follows:

macOS Catalina 10.15.5 supplemental update provides important security updates and is recommended for all users.

Some features may not be available for all regions, or on all Apple devices. For detailed information about the security content of this update, please visit: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT211215

The support article Apple referred to stated that a kernel exploit was patched which could allow an application to execute arbitrary code. Apple makes direct reference to the unc0ver exploit that was being used to jailbreak iOS devices in the note.

macOS Catalina 10.15.5 introduced battery health management to the operating system, which first appeared in iPhones and was originally released on 27 May.

melgross

Is there still the problem with creating cloned bootable drives? That’s keeping me from updating to 10.15.5. One backup system I use for my boot drive is to clone it with SuperDuper, which has been very reliable. That also allows incremental updates. Every so often I will wipe that, and do a new bootable clone. This will allow clones created before 10.15.5 to continue to be used, but won’t allow new ones to be created.

The developer of Carbon Copy Cloner, another popular app for this, is concerned that this isn’t an easily fixed bug, as it involves just a couple of small changes, but is a deliberate move by Apple to end the cloning presses altogether. I hope not! But the way Apple has been moving lately has me concerned that it is. The problems I’ve been having with third party preferences panels, which hasn’t been fixed, has me thinking that Apple is closing that area down as well. Not good Apple!.

Mike Wuerthele

melgross said:

Is there still the problem with creating cloned bootable drives? That’s keeping me from updating to 10.15.5. One backup system I use for my boot drive is to clone it with SuperDuper, which has been very reliable. That also allows incremental updates. Every so often I will wipe that, and do a new bootable clone. This will allow clones created before 10.15.5 to continue to be used, but won’t allow new ones to be created.

The developer of Carbon Copy Cloner, another popular app for this, is concerned that this isn’t an easily fixed bug, as it involves just a couple of small changes, but is a deliberate move by Apple to end the cloning presses altogether. I hope not! But the way Apple has been moving lately has me concerned that it is. The problems I’ve been having with third party preferences panels, which hasn’t been fixed, has me thinking that Apple is closing that area down as well. Not good Apple!.

I think this info is going to take about a day or two to shake out.

ShapeshiftingFish

My 2019 13” MacBook Pro has been frequently (like 50% of the time) restarting when waking up from sleep since the update to 10.15.5 couple of days ago (I was waiting for bug reports and felt safe to do it, in hoping it would iron some lingering eGPU issues). Let’s see it this update fixes the new problem. I used to dread only major MacOS updates, now it’s every single one.

gilly33

ShapeshiftingFish said:

My 2019 13” MacBook Pro has been frequently (like 50% of the time) restarting when waking up from sleep since the update to 10.15.5 couple of days ago (I was waiting for bug reports and felt safe to do it, in hoping it would iron some lingering eGPU issues). Let’s see it this update fixes the new problem. I used to dread only major MacOS updates, now it’s every single one.

I’m having the same problem with my iMac. As a matter of fact since 10.15.4 thought 10.15.5 would solve the problem. Sometimes it shows an icon suggesting there is no bootable drive. Catalina has been a disaster for me. Have a late 2012 machine so it’s upgrade time for sure but still ‘bad Apple’ to borrow from Brian Tong. 

agilealtitude

gilly33 said:

ShapeshiftingFish said:

My 2019 13” MacBook Pro has been frequently (like 50% of the time) restarting when waking up from sleep since the update to 10.15.5 couple of days ago (I was waiting for bug reports and felt safe to do it, in hoping it would iron some lingering eGPU issues). Let’s see it this update fixes the new problem. I used to dread only major MacOS updates, now it’s every single one.

I’m having the same problem with my iMac. As a matter of fact since 10.15.4 thought 10.15.5 would solve the problem. Sometimes it shows an icon suggesting there is no bootable drive. Catalina has been a disaster for me. Have a late 2012 machine so it’s upgrade time for sure but still ‘bad Apple’ to borrow from Brian Tong. 

Interesting.,.. I was having this issue with 10.15.4, but 10.15.5 seemed to resolve it.  When I do wake the machine up, sometimes I get a washed-out screen.  I need to close the lid and re-open to make it get back to normal.

lkrupp

There’s also an update for tvOS that brings it to 13.4.6 and no one seems to be mentioning it.

dewme

I dread updates to macOS only because no matter how small they are the update always imposes a big time penalty and are often aggravating. Apple obviously went out of their way to make the process as hands-off as possible but in doing so they make life difficult for anyone that doesn’t have a bone stock setup. 

For example, I boot my Mac Mini from an external SSD because the pathetic HDD that Apple put in it is horribly slow. When I install a macOS update to the SSD image the stupid reboot process used by the installer totally friggen ignores the specified boot order (why?) and the machine reboots to the HDD image. It’s brain dead too, because once the machine boots into the HDD the boot order still shows the SSD as the boot drive. Idiots. 

Anyway, it usually takes me an hour or two of having to install the update on both the HDD and SSD while periodically intercepting the boot with the Option key to force it to boot to the SSD. Yeah, I should just tear the stupid thing apart and put an SSD in the Mac Mini. It just blows my mind that an HDD equipped (or infected) Mini is so damn slow. I have Windows and Linux machines with HDDs that are still functional but for some reason a HDD Mac Mini is pure torture. 

I won’t get into the problems on my iMac and why it prefers to attempt booting from the Time Machine backup disk rather than the built-in fusion drive. All I can say is never ever buy a Mac with a HDD or Fusion drive, and yeah, I’d prefer that the Mac used a Linux APT style update model rather the horrendously slow and convoluted model they are now using. WTF are they doing for those 45 minutes and 3-4 reboot cycles that it takes to install a patch?

Mike Wuerthele

dewme said:

I dread updates to macOS only because no matter how small they are the update always imposes a big time penalty and are often aggravating. Apple obviously went out of their way to make the process as hands-off as possible but in doing so they make life difficult for anyone that doesn’t have a bone stock setup. 

For example, I boot my Mac Mini from an external SSD because the pathetic HDD that Apple put in it is horribly slow. When I install a macOS update to the SSD image the stupid reboot process used by the installer totally friggen ignores the specified boot order (why?) and the machine reboots to the HDD image. It’s brain dead too, because once the machine boots into the HDD the boot order still shows the SSD as the boot drive. Idiots. 

Anyway, it usually takes me an hour or two of having to install the update on both the HDD and SSD while periodically intercepting the boot with the Option key to force it to boot to the SSD. Yeah, I should just tear the stupid thing apart and put an SSD in the Mac Mini. It just blows my mind that an HDD equipped (or infected) Mini is so damn slow. I have Windows and Linux machines with HDDs that are still functional but for some reason a HDD Mac Mini is pure torture. 

I won’t get into the problems on my iMac and why it prefers to attempt booting from the Time Machine backup disk rather than the built-in fusion drive. All I can say is never ever buy a Mac with a HDD or Fusion drive, and yeah, I’d prefer that the Mac used a Linux APT style update model rather the horrendously slow and convoluted model they are now using. WTF are they doing for those 45 minutes and 3-4 reboot cycles that it takes to install a patch?

Out of curiosity, which Mini model, and which external drive?

photoeditor

I held off on Catalina until about three weeks ago. The update process was disastrous for me; 10.15.4 was rough, 10.15.5 tanked my boot partition on my primary machine and baked in a problem to the other one that rendered my system preferences dysfunctional, and I ended up having to erase and start over. Fortunately I was all backed up --- in 10.15.4, so without this ridiculous cloned backup crippling.

10.15.5 works well for me otherwise, generally a bit better than 10.14. I hope we find out soon about the cloned backup; if this is deliberate, it's outrageous, and if it's accidental it is highly sloppy.