macOS Sequoia causing issues with third-party security tools and web browsers

AppleInsider

Apple's macOS Sequoia has apparently caused problems for users of third-party security products and web browsers because of firewall-related issues within the new operating system.

macOS Sequoia has caused problems for third-party security software.

On Monday, Apple officially launched macOS Sequoia, making the new operating system finally available to the public. While the operating system introduces a variety of enhancements and features such as Apple Intelligence, the update appears to have caused issues and concerns for certain security-related products and applications.

According to a Thursday report from TechCrunch, macOS Sequoia has affected the functionality of different security tools, developed by CrowdStrike and SentinelOne, among others.

The report cites recent social media posts from different security researchers and posts from affected users on Reddit. Messages from software support accounts in a Slack chatroom for Mac Admins, warning users of issues with macOS Sequoia, are also referenced in Thursday's report.

Security software affected by macOS Sequoia

While the report says that the cause of the issue is unclear, it appears to be a network or firewall-related problem. In a Slack chatroom for Mac Admins, a CrowdStrike sales engineer said that there was "quite a lot going on with changes in the network stack" and that CrowdStrike support for macOS Sequoia would be delayed because of the changes within macOS.

The same CrowdStrike sales engineer also said that the company is "tracking similar issues with other vendors" and that they "have feedback and a case in to Apple." CrowdStrike is waiting for Apple to resolve the issue with a future macOS Sequoia update.

In the same Mac-related Slack channel, a SentinelOne support account also mentioned issues with macOS Sequoia and urged users not to update their operating systems. The company ESET also warned its users of a network-related issue with macOS Sequoia, urging its users to update their ESET software to the latest version, which is compatible with macOS Sequoia.

Security researchers say there's a firewall issue that affects DNS and web browsing in macOS Sequoia

While the issues in macOS Sequoia were noted by security software companies, individual security researchers have also experienced similar problems.

Two such security researchers, Will Dormann and Waclaw Jacek, have both reported firewall-related and DNS issues in macOS Sequoia.

Will Dormann said on Mastodon that he was experiencing issues with DNS and the macOS Sequoia firewall. According to the researcher, blocking incoming connections within the macOS Sequoia firewall can also block replies to DNS requests, causing issues. "Depending on your firewall config, silly things like DNS may stop working for some apps," the researcher wrote.

Dormann also pointed out a seemingly related issue that affects Chrome and Chromium-based browsers on macOS Sequoia. Blocking incoming connections for Google Chrome in the macOS firewall causes large downloads to stall.

Apple released macOS Sequoia on September 16, alongside iOS 18 and iPad OS.

Similarly, Reddit users have reported issues with the Firefox web browser on macOS Sequoia. One Reddit user experienced issues changing their Firewall settings in macOS Sequoia to allow incoming connections to Firefox, while others provided potential workarounds and solutions.

There are workarounds for such firewall-related issues, which essentially entail "poking holes in your firewall" as Will Dormann put it in his Mastodon posts. "Which clearly isn't as safe as having a working firewall, but we're at the mercy of Apple here," Dormann wrote.

Waclaw Jacek, another security researcher, seemingly corroborates the claims of firewall-related issues. The researcher said in a blog post that the macOS Sequoia firewall can sometimes start blocking access to web browsing.

It's important to consider that Apple has only released macOS Sequoia to the general public on September 16. Because the operating system is very early in its release cycle, there's always the potential for unpatched bugs or issues that Apple will address with future updates.

If you have experienced similar issues on macOS Sequoia with the third-party products and apps described here, AppleInsider recommends that you follow the instructions provided by the software's developers and customer support teams. For some users, this could mean sticking to macOS Sonoma for the time being.



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sunman42

I’m thinking that any. Crowdstrike product on any OS is a pretty tough sell nowadays. Could take them some time to restore trust.

OctoMonkey

sunman42 said:

I’m thinking that any. Crowdstrike product on any OS is a pretty tough sell nowadays. Could take them some time to restore trust.

Unless a company is already heavily invested in their ecosystem.  After all, Microsoft has had its own share of major blunders but keeps on trucking...  and I have heard horror stories about AWS (though without any personal experience).

tlinn

Edge, my primary browser, has become almost unusable. It takes forever to load a page, when it actually does load the page. Half the time I get an error message. (Safari works without a hitch though.) And Print Center continues to crash almost immediately after launching. I know Day 1 installation of a new OS can be risky, but I've never experienced anything quite like this.

yyzguy

tlinn said:

Edge, my primary browser, has become almost unusable. 

Primary browser on Mac?  Why?

jesusfreak

Apple needs to spend some more time fixing major bugs.

I am still having serious reliability problems with external SSDs on my Mac Minis.  

Basic stuff needs to flippin work.  

mpantone

jesusfreak said:

Apple needs to spend some more time fixing major bugs.

I am still having serious reliability problems with external SSDs on my Mac Minis.  

Basic stuff needs to flippin work.  

This is a great example of why I don't upgrade operating systems at launch; I haven't done so for years.

These days I wait almost 9 months to upgrade. That's right, I installed macOS Sonoma and iOS 17 in June, just a week before WWDC 2024. This is the best assurance that I will get a mature operating system with relatively few bugs.

Apple's software QA has gone into the toilet about 8 years ago. Remember last year Apple engineering took a one week breather to reduce their bug queue. That's a bad omen vis-a-vis software quality.

john-useless

yyzguy said:

tlinn said:

Edge, my primary browser, has become almost unusable. 

Primary browser on Mac?  Why?

I also use Microsoft Edge, albeit as a secondary browser. (Safari is my choice for the primary browser.) I wanted a Chromium-based browser for sites that seem to work fine in Chrome but not in Safari … and I didn't want to use Chrome itself.

BlueLightning

While I have Firefox as a secondary browser, and a Chromebook as a backup machine, if a given site doesn't work with Safari, I usually take my business elsewhere.  Rarely, I will call customer service and refuse fees to have the vendor manually key in an order or service change.  Sometimes the issue is with a third party service the vendor uses.  There are "user agents" for Chrome, Edge and Firefox (and different versions of Safari) under the "Develop" tab in Safari, but often these make little difference.  Sometimes, I think there is missing data on the vendor's computers that causes the actual processing problems.  

My pre-retirement employer would not pay for software or software maintenance and support if web-based code did not pass initial and periodic tests against Chrome, Firefox and Safari (they did not care about Internet Explorer or Edge at the time).  This was stated in their contract with the developers.  They had many corporate lawyers on staff.  

Rogue01

This is mostly an issue with Macs in the Enterprise-environment with MDM management, not consumer Macs.  

loopless

So in MONTHS of developer and public betas these geniuses  did not think to test their software and provide feedback to Apple. It's ON THEM.

IreneW

Rogue01 said:

This is mostly an issue with Macs in the Enterprise-environment with MDM management, not consumer Macs.  

Yes, I'd say so. We got info from our IT dept warning us not to upgrade and wait for further instructions.

MplsP

mpantone said:

jesusfreak said:

Apple needs to spend some more time fixing major bugs.

I am still having serious reliability problems with external SSDs on my Mac Minis.  

Basic stuff needs to flippin work.  

This is a great example of why I don't upgrade operating systems at launch; I haven't done so for years.

These days I wait almost 9 months to upgrade. That's right, I installed macOS Sonoma and iOS 17 in June, just a week before WWDC 2024. This is the best assurance that I will get a mature operating system with relatively few bugs.

Apple's software QA has gone into the toilet about 8 years ago. Remember last year Apple engineering took a one week breather to reduce their bug queue. That's a bad omen vis-a-vis software quality.

Exactly. There are some nice new features. In Sequoia, but nothing that is that pressing or urgent to have. Sonoma works fine for me so I’m going to keep that until I can verify that Sequoia Is stable with no major issues.

michelb76

tlinn said:

Edge, my primary browser, has become almost unusable. It takes forever to load a page, when it actually does load the page. Half the time I get an error message. (Safari works without a hitch though.) And Print Center continues to crash almost immediately after launching. I know Day 1 installation of a new OS can be risky, but I've never experienced anything quite like this.

I have zero of these problems with Edge on Sequoia.

commentzilla

loopless said:

So in MONTHS of developer and public betas these geniuses  did not think to test their software and provide feedback to Apple. It's ON THEM.

You nailed. But something tells me the changes to the networking is a feature not bug. 

commentzilla

tlinn said:

Edge, my primary browser, has become almost unusable. It takes forever to load a page, when it actually does load the page. Half the time I get an error message. (Safari works without a hitch though.) And Print Center continues to crash almost immediately after launching. I know Day 1 installation of a new OS can be risky, but I've never experienced anything quite like this.

You may want to check the privacy and security settings in Edge, which has built in settings or proxies and a VPN. I've had problems with them before.