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Apple Releases macOS Big Sur 11.2.2 to Prevent MacBooks From Being Damaged by Third-Party Non-Compliant Docks

Delta-NC said:
The real problem is, and please try not to take this as an offence as that’s not what I’m really doing here, but the real problem is you.

If every customer refused to buy out of date USB cables devices then within weeks the product creators would get with the program.

For example micro-USB was officially abolished in 2013 yet some companies are STILL releasing products with these abolished ports even this year. If nobody bought these, not one person, it would stop. And before someone thinks USB-C is magically expensive it’s simply not, IKEA have for years sold a wireless charger with USB-C for a mere €4.

Stop buying out of date tech and it will go away, don’t pay attention and much like horrible unreliable and officially abolished micro-USB companies will continue to sell the garbage.

Apple are not wrong here, they rarely are on this subject.
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USB-A may be an old standard, but it's not obsolete. A USB-A 3.0 port is still fast enough for 99% of the jobs you might have to do today, and is durable and ubiquitous. USB-A is not going away any time soon.

The only way it will go away is for the standard to keep evolving until the day comes that a USB-A 3.0 port is too slow for the job. And for many accessories, like keyboards and mice, that day will never come.
 
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Cristim74 said:
Now I understand why I haven't been able to use my Caldigit TS3+ dock lately. I have a 27" 4k Dell monitor connected to it and now when I connect my 2017 15" MBP to it, the monitors turns on and then it goes into standby mode. No mater how many times I unplug it and plug it back in I can't make it to work. I thought the dock broke down. Currently installing 11.2.2 to see if it fixes the issue. Will report back.
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This is still not fixed. I still can't use my 4k monitor and the TS3+ dock. WTF Apple?
 
MauiPa said:
I'm pretty sure you are not correct. Electronics can be damaged by crappy devices, there is a pretty long history of this. Now the fact that Apple is preventing damage for "non-compliant third party" docks completely disproves you comment. The real question is what is non-compliant about these docks and what harm can they bring to other devices? Are they non compliant to Thunderbolt/USB standards, then why are they even being sold?
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From a hardware perspective, USB is designed to be highly fault tolerant. There are really only three ways that a USB device can plausibly physically damage a computer that it is plugged into:
  1. Some Apple software bug, coupled possibly with some firmware bug, caused Apple's code to tell the power supplies to provide a higher charge voltage than the motherboard could handle.
  2. The hub provided charge voltage on a non-charge pin.
  3. The hub's power input pin was dead-shorted to ground. And even this won't usually cause permanent damage (though at least in my experience, it will usually shut off the computer instantly, and may "blow" a polyfuse until it self-resets).
The last two fall under "fundamentally defective hardware" and almost certainly can't be fixed through software changes, which leaves #1. And in that case, the correct question that should be asked is why Apple chose to not make their voltage inputs be 20V-tolerant in anticipation that such bugs could occur. The difference in materials cost between handling 14.5V ± 5% and handling 20V ± 5% can't possibly be enough to outweigh the bad press if this problem had been more widespread, particularly given that the voltage input is pretty much guaranteed to be a switched-mode regulator anyway.
 
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Populus said:
Does anyone know if this release fixes something about the high SSD degradation issue?
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UP on this one. Though it’s too soon for them to release a fix unless they are aware of it long before the news broke out. I’d love to get a fix for this.
 
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HiVolt said:
Except there are still a metric sh*t ton of USB-A accessories being sold, and still will be for a long while.

The uptake on USB-C has not been as fast as it should be, and it will be years before that changes, by then there will be some new connector.

And the amount of USB-C accessories is still small in comparison to USB-A.
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If people stop buying USB-A peripherals, companies will be less incentivized to produce them. It doesn't matter how cheap your components are if you can't make any sales on the end product. Plenty of manufacturers are making accessories with USB-C, it's up to users to buy them instead. Clearly more people prefer using an adapter than replacing their older gear, or else it wouldn't be a meme.
 
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zorinlynx said:
USB-A may be an old standard, but it's not obsolete. A USB-A 3.0 port is still fast enough for 99% of the jobs you might have to do today, and is durable and ubiquitous. USB-A is not going away any time soon.

The only way it will go away is for the standard to keep evolving until the day comes that a USB-A 3.0 port is too slow for the job. And for many accessories, like keyboards and mice, that day will never come.
Click to expand...
And it won't go away until 7 port USB-C hubs are common. Not docks with 100 extra things you don't need, just a bunch of USB-c ports to plug all the devices into.
 
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techfreak23 said:
Was this issue present in Catalina as well? I got an intel Mac mini 3 weeks ago, but it literally fried in just under two weeks. Started randomly kernel panicking last Monday. Tried to restore it and that didn't work. Updated to Big Sur and that also didn't work. Then it got stuck in a boot loop. I don't have a Service provider in my area anymore, so I wasn't able to send it in to get diagnosed. Ended up having to just return it. I was using a Targus 4-port USB-A USB-C hub that I thought might be the root, but I won't know until I get my new mini next week. Hopefully the same thing doesn't happen...
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I'm wondering this, too. I have a 2019 16'' MacBook Pro using Catalina through work, and was also given a MOKIN USB-C hub. Using the MOKIN hub, I've evidently fried the USB-C ports on this machine twice. Apple has fixed my machine both times, and since it was returned the second time I stopped using any non-Apple USB-C connector and everything has been fine.

I don't think MOKIN is on the dock crap list, but I'm wondering if these issues are somehow related. The symptoms I had were different--no bricking or anything. Still, I've read stuff in the Apple support communities about USB-C ports failing repeatedly, and it seems like there's often a dock involved.
 
mansplains said:
If people stop buying USB-A peripherals, companies will be less incentivized to produce them. It doesn't matter how cheap your components are if you can't make any sales on the end product. Plenty of manufacturers are making accessories with USB-C, it's up to users to buy them instead. Clearly more people prefer using an adapter than replacing their older gear, or else it wouldn't be a meme.
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I'd love to switch, but haven't found a way to plug in 14 USB-C devices at the same time like I can with USB-A.
 
Need a fix for the issue where my 2017 and 2019 Touchbar MacBook Pro’s which kernel panic on almost a daily basis when they try and wake from sleep when connected to either my Belkin on CalDigit Thunderbolt 3 docks that have external displays attached to them.
 
Hope it has something for the mini and not just the macbooks. Specifically looking for fixes to migration assitant and boot up issues. I can't use an external drive that boots up one m1 mac with another m1 mac. You know, simple things the mac has been capable of doing before we couldn't buy our own hard drives for them. Convenient problems that only benefit apple need to get squashed. I hope it gets all sorted out in this OS and not through updating to a newer one. So it gets fixed this year.
 
and, as with the last few updates, they've broken git again, requiring reinstallation of xcode command line tools... .wtf Apple?
 
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Delta-NC said:
Stop buying out of date tech and it will go away, don’t pay attention and much like horrible unreliable and officially abolished micro-USB companies will continue to sell the garbage.

Apple are not wrong here, they rarely are on this subject.
Click to expand...
So we should all stop buying iPhones, eh? Because they haven't adopted USB-C, while the whole mobile world has, even the cheapies by now.

Show me how many USB sticks are made with USB-C connector vs USB-A? I bet its 10:1 USB-A. Why? Because it works just fine. Nothing wrong with it. The fact that you have to buy a whole set of new accessoriesl, adapters or dongles for a Mac laptop because they would not include a single USB-A port is just stupid.

They still include USB-A on their desktops, and will continue to do so. Their stubbornness on laptops is stupid. Yes, some PC makers are also starting to do this, but in PC world you have a choice.

My boss bought a M1 MacBook. He was frustrated to hell that the thing only has two ports. He even wanted to go all USB-C, but realized there aren't even any simple USB-C to USB-C hubs, so he can have more USB-C devices plugged in. Only hugely expensive docks that sometimes only have one or two USB-C ports, because they focus more on the USB-A/SD Card & Ethernet ports that Apple laptops lack.
 
MallardDuck said:
I'd love to switch, but haven't found a way to plug in 14 USB-C devices at the same time like I can with USB-A.
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That's fair, but it's also not an issue for Apple to solve necessarily. I don't believe Apple has released a computer with that many USB-A inputs. I use a small Anker powered USB-A/3.0 hub myself but the peripherals used are MIDI controllers and audio interfaces that don't require the power/speed of USB-C/TB3+. Although I'd love to upgrade my audio interfaces... but the ones I want cost more than my iMac and are super overkill anyway!
 
HiVolt said:
So we should all stop buying iPhones, eh? Because they haven't adopted USB-C, while the whole mobile world has, even the cheapies by now.

Show me how many USB sticks are made with USB-C connector vs USB-A? I bet its 10:1 USB-A. Why? Because it works just fine. Nothing wrong with it. The fact that you have to buy a whole set of new accessoriesl, adapters or dongles for a Mac laptop because they would not include a single USB-A port is just stupid.

They still include USB-A on their desktops, and will continue to do so. Their stubbornness on laptops is stupid. Yes, some PC makers are also starting to do this, but in PC world you have a choice.

My boss bought a M1 MacBook. He was frustrated to hell that the thing only has two ports. He even wanted to go all USB-C, but realized there aren't even any simple USB-C to USB-C hubs, so he can have more USB-C devices plugged in. Only hugely expensive docks that sometimes only have one or two USB-C ports, because they focus more on the USB-A/SD Card & Ethernet ports that Apple laptops lack.
Click to expand...
iPhones have adopted USB-C in the way that matters with MacBooks. It's the Lightning to USB-C cable. I have several of them and love them, got rid of my Lightning USB-A.
 
Jordan Klein said:
I bought a 2020 27" iMac a few months ago. Unfortunately for me, it came pre-loaded with Catalina. So it was either the POS Catalina, or somewhat POS Big Sur. I'd *MUCH* rather had the choice of sticking with Mojave.
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Catalina is miles ahead of big sur, like at least it's actually usable. Mojave is the gold standard honestly. 10.14.6 is peak macOS IMO. Everything from there is downhill.
 
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Cristim74 said:
Now I understand why I haven't been able to use my Caldigit TS3+ dock lately. I have a 27" 4k Dell monitor connected to it and now when I connect my 2017 15" MBP to it, the monitors turns on and then it goes into standby mode. No mater how many times I unplug it and plug it back in I can't make it to work. I thought the dock broke down. Currently installing 11.2.2 to see if it fixes the issue. Will report back.
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Hope so. I’ll try too. My monitor is wall-mounted at the end of a 15 foot cable run, and I don’t feel like spending hundreds of dollars on an optical TB3 cable.
 
poematik13 said:
Catalina is miles ahead of big sur, like at least it's actually usable. Mojave is the gold standard honestly. 10.14.6 is peak macOS IMO. Everything from there is downhill.
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Mate Catalina couldn’t even sync the iPhone for almost 7 months. Worse release ever. Mojave let you log in without even typing a password.
The gold standard was 10.4 tiger and 10.6 snow leopard. After that, free fall. But real, dramatic free fall.
 
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