Apple releases macOS High Sierra 10.13 Supplemental Update with bug fixes for Adobe InDesi...

AppleInsider · October 5, 2017 5:29PM

Apple on Thursday issued a supplemental update for its macOS High Sierra operating system, squashing a password hint bug in Disk Utility, a few more minor bugs and improving the update's installer. The changes were so minor, it didn't even warrant a point-zero-one distinction.

The macOS High Sierra 10.13 Supplemental Update is now available as a free download from the Mac App Store. According to Apple, the update improves the stability, reliability and security of a Mac, and is recommended for all High Sierra users.

Specifics for the update include:

Improved installer robustness
Fixed a cursor graphic bug when using Adobe InDesign
Resolved an issue where email messages couldn't be deleted from Yahoo accounts in Mail

The update also fixes an issue that displayed as a disk encryption password hint to the user as the drive's password itself in plain text. First erroneously attributed to APFS, the flaw was in the macOS Disk Utility itself, and did not manifest with passwords and hints generated in the Terminal.

macOS 10.13 High Sierra launched to the public last week, with mostly under-the-hood improvements. Most notably it features the new Apple File System for Mac, as well as supports for HEVC video, HEIF image encoding, and Apple's Metal 2 graphics platform.

Apple is working on a macOS 10.13.1 update for High Sierra that remains forthcoming. The first beta of macOS 10.13.1 was issued to developer last week.

dewme · October 5, 2017 6:02PM

This may be a minor update but it's addressing very specific issues that have been bothering me. I had a very difficult time installing High Sierra on my late 2012 iMac 27" with 3 TB Fusion drive. The solution to the multiple installation failures turned out to require totally erasing the two Fusion drive components (SSD and HDD) and recreating the Fusion drive after booting in Internet Recovery Mode, as described in the second part of this support document: https://beta.apple.com/sp/betaprogram/apfsfusion. The fact that the installation failures would occur after at least an hour of downloading and installation processing and with the progress indicator at "less than one minute remaining" and a "please try again" error message made this a particularly infuriating failure. Wiping the Fusion drive required migrating all of my data from a Time Machine backup, which worked pretty much as expected, except that iTunes popped up in the middle of the migration process, required me to log into iCloud, and then indicated that it had run out of disk space trying to restore my iTunes content - which is absurd considering I have > 2 TB free. Quitting the iTunes interloper allowed the migration to continue and everything related to iTunes was exactly where it should be when the machine booted for the first time in High Sierra.

soli · October 5, 2017 6:07PM

I don't think I've ever seen such a massive update in size that didn't warrant even a tertiary point update. In the past, we saw security-focused updates that weren't point updates, but now that's done frequently in the background as signatures get updated to combat potential threats.

randominternetperson · October 5, 2017 6:15PM

Soli said:

I don't think I've ever seen such a massive update in size that didn't warrant even a tertiary point update. In the past, we saw security-focused updates that weren't point updates, but now that's done frequently in the background as signatures get updated to combat potential threats.

Right, but Apple doesn't do 4-levels of version for the OS (do they?), so they either would have had to change the upcoming 10.13.1 to be 10.13.2 or hold off on this update. For example, in About This Mac, mine says "macOS 10.12.6 (16G29)". I suppose they just didn't want to release something called 10.13.0.1.

dewme · October 5, 2017 6:20PM

Soli said:

I don't think I've ever seen such a massive update in size that didn't warrant even a tertiary point update. In the past, we saw security-focused updates that weren't point updates, but now that's done frequently in the background as signatures get updated to combat potential threats.

Agreed. The fact that this little incognito update ties up your Mac for at least 20-30 minutes is also a head scratcher. Apple must have committed the 10.13.1 version number before they realized the needed a more immediate update prior to 10.13.1. This one should have been given a unique version number given the size and complexity. From a version control perspective this is a stealth version. I’m sure the support people will let the development team know how they feel about this type of behavior.

edited October 2017

soli · October 5, 2017 6:35PM

randominternetperson said:

Soli said:

I don't think I've ever seen such a massive update in size that didn't warrant even a tertiary point update. In the past, we saw security-focused updates that weren't point updates, but now that's done frequently in the background as signatures get updated to combat potential threats.

Right, but Apple doesn't do 4-levels of version for the OS (do they?), so they either would have had to change the upcoming 10.13.1 to be 10.13.2 or hold off on this update. For example, in About This Mac, mine says "macOS 10.12.6 (16G29)". I suppose they just didn't want to release something called 10.13.0.1.

dewme said:

Soli said:

I don't think I've ever seen such a massive update in size that didn't warrant even a tertiary point update. In the past, we saw security-focused updates that weren't point updates, but now that's done frequently in the background as signatures get updated to combat potential threats.

Agreed. The fact that this little incognito update ties up your Mac for at least 20-30 minutes is also a head scratcher. Apple must have committed the 10.13.1 version number before they realized the needed a more immediate update prior to 10.13.1. This one should have been given a unique version number given the size and complexity. From a version control perspective this is a stealth version. I’m sure the support people will let the development team know how they feel about this type of behavior.

I'm leaning towards @dewme 's statement that 10.13.1 is already committed, but I also can't wrap my head around why it would be committed. Why not just make that update 10.13.2. For its size, the build ID's sequential increase is quite low—17A365 to 17A405 on my Mac, which seems more inline with what I've noticed in early Beta updates.

To your point, @randominternetperson, Apple has used additional digits when they issued an update to an update. Examples include, but are not limited to:

10.5.8 (9L30) on August 5, 2009 to 10.5.8 v1.1 (9L34) on August 31, 2009
10.6.3 (10D573) on March 29, 2010 to 10.6.3 v1.1 (10D578) on April 13, 2010
10.6.8 (10K540) on June 23, 2011 to 10.6.8 v1.1 (10K549) on July 25, 2011

edit: No idea of the size of these supplemental updates, but my research found that Apple has been doing this as far back as 5 years ago:

10.7.5 (11G56) on September 19, 2012 to 10.7.5 Supplemental Update (11G63) on October 4, 2012
10.8.2 (12C54) on September 19, 2012 to 10.8.2 Supplemental Update (12C60) on October 4, 2012
10.8.5 (12F37) on September 12, 2013 to 10.8.5 Supplemental Update (12F45) on October 3, 2013

I'd say that Supplemental Update was less confusing than #.#.# v#.#.

edited October 2017

karmadave · October 5, 2017 7:24PM

Hopefully, this fixes a Mail issue that's be annoying me to the point of reverting to web-based mail...

randominternetperson · October 5, 2017 7:32PM

Thanks for the historical examples, Soli. "Supplemental update" does seem like the better approach.

macpro · October 5, 2017 9:34PM

dewme said:

Soli said:

I don't think I've ever seen such a massive update in size that didn't warrant even a tertiary point update. In the past, we saw security-focused updates that weren't point updates, but now that's done frequently in the background as signatures get updated to combat potential threats.

Agreed. The fact that this little incognito update ties up your Mac for at least 20-30 minutes is also a head scratcher. Apple must have committed the 10.13.1 version number before they realized the needed a more immediate update prior to 10.13.1. This one should have been given a unique version number given the size and complexity. From a version control perspective this is a stealth version. I’m sure the support people will let the development team know how they feel about this type of behavior.

My 10.13.1 offers no further update at this time. 10.13.1 was a massive update so perhaps this interim update is most of it.

sflocal · October 5, 2017 9:40PM

This updated hosed my brand new 4-day old 15" MacBook Pro a few hours ago. DO NOT INSTALL THIS UPDATE if your machine has not finished disk encryption! It will lock your machine up and after being on the phone with Apple support, it was agreed that the only way to get control of my laptop back was to erase the drive and re-install MacOS from scratch.

My laptop was still encrypting the drive (I didn't know it was still doing it) and when the update patch prompted to restart my laptop, I got a bad error saying the patch could not be installed due to the drive still being encrypted, and from that time forward, each restart would only attempt to re-install the patch and not let me back into the system.

So be careful. The Apple Support technician had the nerve to blame me for clicking the restart button instead of waiting to do it later in the day even after I mentioned to him how a user is supposed to know to not install an auto-update patch while the drive is being encrypted! It was my first bad experience with Apple support and Apple in general.

All my data resides in the cloud so 1.25 hours later I was back up and running (without their help) but be forewarned. Avoid any MacOS updates if drive-encryption has not yet completed.

techrider · October 5, 2017 11:10PM

The "squashing a password hint bug in Disk Utility" is detailed by Apple and further reported on here

pshimi · October 6, 2017 2:30AM

Gosh, I was not expecting to be typing on Appleinsider this morning. I have been reading this site for a decade, but really thought I better let others know the problems I have had with this update.

It is not a point release, so one would think that it is compatible with the Nvidia graphics driver - you would be quite wrong. Long story short I had successfully installed High Sierra on a Mac Pro 2010 (2009 firmware update) and had it working with the OS SSD in PCIe slot 2, four SSDs in the original drive bays and a GTX970 (non EFI) graphics card in slot 1 with the original Apple GT120 (EFI) in slot 3 as a backup should an install go wrong...

Plugged monitor into original Apple graphics card just in case, update installed, but on reboot got stuck in reboot loop and would not load the OS. Took out GTX970 card, and put the GT120 (EFI) in slot 1. This is sometimes required to get things working on installation of updates. Machine loaded into OSX, completed installed though with garbled graphics (4K monitor). Managed to change the resolution down 2560x1440 at 30Hz (60Hz will not display properly).

NVidia's driver is not compatible, so Apple's standard OSX driver is in use. Putting the GTX970 back in - with the GTX970 in slot 1, GT120 in slot 3 (monitor attached to GT120) the machine will not successfully boot - Apple logo, then about 75% in it'll restart. Swapping the cards around does not solve the issue. The only way to get the machine to boot into the OS is to completely remove the GTX970 card from the machine.
PRAM resets and what not do not solve this issue. I am wondering if after NVidia update the driver whether or not this issue will even be resolved. It looks like a graphics card problem, but I have never seen this behavior before - usually even if the driver is incompatible, the machine would still boot into the OS successfully.

I hope this helps someone avoid the trouble I have had with this. Surely, this is NOT a point release, it obviously changes too many things. I only installed this because like Karmadave, Mail seems a bit buggy sometimes and I hoped this update would fix it. Big mistake.

As an aside, if you are installing High Sierra on a Mac Pro 2010 you will need to make sure the OS drive is in one of the original hard disk bays otherwise the firmware update required during the install of the OS will fail. I learned this after struggling with this issue due to my OS SSD being mounted on a SATA3 card in a PCIe slot (slot 2, which I recommend after you have successfully got the OS installed). I have not read this advice anywhere on the web, so hope this helps others having trouble installing High Sierra.

james.saldana · October 6, 2017 2:43AM

I installed 10.13 and it erased all of the non-standard (default) applications in my Application folder.

Has anyone else experienced this? I tired it several times and I always get the same result.

lkrupp · October 6, 2017 2:51PM

james.saldana said:

I installed 10.13 and it erased all of the non-standard (default) applications in my Application folder.

Has anyone else experienced this? I tired it several times and I always get the same result.

Have you tried looking the "Incompatible Software" folder located in your root directory?

james.saldana · October 9, 2017 4:20AM

lkrupp said:

james.saldana said:

I installed 10.13 and it erased all of the non-standard (default) applications in my Application folder.

Has anyone else experienced this? I tired it several times and I always get the same result.

Have you tried looking the "Incompatible Software" folder located in your root directory?

"Incompatible Software"? Everything? Microsoft Office 365, Adobe, Google (Chrome), TeamViewer, literally everything except the default apps.

james.saldana · October 9, 2017 4:38AM

lkrupp said:

james.saldana said:

I installed 10.13 and it erased all of the non-standard (default) applications in my Application folder.

Has anyone else experienced this? I tired it several times and I always get the same result.

Have you tried looking the "Incompatible Software" folder located in your root directory?

It's also worth noting that none of the 50+ apps that are deleted go to the Incompatible Software folder.

soli · October 9, 2017 6:16AM

james.saldana said:

lkrupp said:

james.saldana said:

I installed 10.13 and it erased all of the non-standard (default) applications in my Application folder.

Has anyone else experienced this? I tired it several times and I always get the same result.

Have you tried looking the "Incompatible Software" folder located in your root directory?

It's also worth noting that none of the 50+ apps that are deleted go to the Incompatible Software folder.

At least this is an easy fix since you surely have a Time Machine backup of every app prior to updating.

james.saldana · October 11, 2017 12:24AM

Soli said:

james.saldana said:

lkrupp said:

james.saldana said:

I installed 10.13 and it erased all of the non-standard (default) applications in my Application folder.

Has anyone else experienced this? I tired it several times and I always get the same result.

Have you tried looking the "Incompatible Software" folder located in your root directory?

It's also worth noting that none of the 50+ apps that are deleted go to the Incompatible Software folder.

At least this is an easy fix since you surely have a Time Machine backup of every app prior to updating.

I just don't understand why it deletes the apps. That can't be right.

Apple releases macOS High Sierra 10.13 Supplemental Update with bug fixes for Adobe InDesi...

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