Apple Releases macOS Catalina 10.15.2 Update With Apple News Improvements, iPhone Remote Control Support for Music and TV Apps

[kissmo]

Temperatures for my MBP 15 2018 are much better!
It's not placebo, I noticed a lower 5 degrees on average. I have no idea why. I am using it since a few hours and many of the tasks I used to do keep the mac a tad cooler.

I hope now they work on macing the OS boot a bit faster.
It is unbelievable that Windows boots a lot faster than MAC.... it used to be the opposite in the past.

 

[crom1543]

Did the iTunes Remote issue really solve? It still doesn't work properly on my Mac.

 

[maxvptrsn]

Somebody kick me !!! Duh, I know better, but I installed this upgrade and now my system, and especially my browsers, are running slower than a snail. Fortunately I have a backup.

 

[tywebb13]

Here are some other updates:

Security Update 2019-007 for High Sierra: https://support.apple.com/kb/DL2026?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US

Security Update 2019-002 for Mojave: https://support.apple.com/kb/DL2027?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US

Safari 13.0.4 for High Sierra: http://swcdn.apple.com/content/down...a9gejq7jp6525t/Safari13.0.4HighSierraAuto.pkg

Safari 13.0.4 for Mojave: http://swcdn.apple.com/content/down...piw6n8fkjdqv1dxkl3/Safari13.0.4MojaveAuto.pkg

I have also found out that there is indeed a 10.15.2 combo - but not as a standalone download yet. The only way to get it so far is to go from 10.15 to 10.15.2 via the Software Update preference pane (thereby circumventing 10.15.1). If you have 10.15.1 or 10.15.2 betas you will only get the 10.15.2 delta, not the combo.

The standalone combo should be available soon however.

If you want the full installer for 10.15.2 you can get it here: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/macos-catalina/id1466841314?mt=12

You may then proceed to make a bootable usb of 10.15.2 using instruction I posted at https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/bootable-catalina-usb-installer.2183859/

 

[Tramtrist]

Have they fixed the repeated kernel panic crashes that Catalina introduced? I’m guessing not it’s a serious problem for many people.

 

[Macula]

Downloading and installing today's Mojave update, then going out for a cocktail in style.

 

[Ledgem]

How are you getting remote to work? I can't find the code input icon on the desktop?!?
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How did you pair the remote app? I can't find where to enter the code?!? Thanks

This drove me nuts for a bit. I've now paired successfully with my Watch, two iPhones, and two iPads.

The step that most of the posts here seem to be missing is to completely disable Home Sharing within the iOS app. To do that, tap on settings (upper right corner) and then tap or slide the slider to turn it off. On most of my devices, this kicked you back to the main screen, and asked if you wanted to set up a new library via Home Sharing (large, prominent, blue button) or manually (listed below that). Tap on manually, which will bring up a screen with a four-digit code. Once you've done that, then the device will show up within Music, listed on that left-most window as a "Devices" (listed underneath iTunes Store for me, but if you kept the default view, it should be underneath the "Library" subheading, or specifically, Music Videos). Click on the device, which will bring you to a screen allowing the entry of the four digits.

Of note, one iPad (an older, iPad Air 2) seemed to hang the app when trying to disable Home Sharing. I had to uninstall the app and then re-download and install it to get it working.

The Apple Watch worked properly once I had fixed the iPhone it was paired to. In that case, just trying to add a new library on the Watch caused it to appear within the Music app.

Happy with Apple for bringing back this functionality. It's a bit rocky - more than I'd expect from Apple - but I'll take what I can get.

 

[johnalan]

Am certified fanboy since Tiger.
But the software of late has been sloppy.

have they fixed the issue with:

reboots taking 6 minutes

or

the Touch Bar showing an extra item instead of the standard 4?

 

[camelia]

Here are some other updates:

Security Update 2019-007 for High Sierra: https://support.apple.com/kb/DL2026?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US

Security Update 2019-002 for Mojave: https://support.apple.com/kb/DL2027?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US

Safari 13.0.4 for High Sierra: http://swcdn.apple.com/content/down...a9gejq7jp6525t/Safari13.0.4HighSierraAuto.pkg

Safari 13.0.4 for Mojave: http://swcdn.apple.com/content/down...piw6n8fkjdqv1dxkl3/Safari13.0.4MojaveAuto.pkg

I have also found out that there is indeed a 10.15.2 combo - but not as a standalone download yet. The only way to get it so far is to go from 10.15 to 10.15.2 via the Software Update preference pane (thereby circumventing 10.15.1). If you have 10.15.1 or 10.15.2 betas you will only get the 10.15.2 delta, not the combo.

The standalone combo should be available soon however.

If you want the full installer for 10.15.2 you can get it here: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/macos-catalina/id1466841314?mt=12

You may then proceed to make a bootable usb of 10.15.2 using instruction I posted at https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/bootable-catalina-usb-installer.2183859/

Thank you!! 😍

Camelia

 

[imom]

3.5GB download to update a handful of what should be stand-alone applications???
All i do is delete/hide this crap anyway. The only thing of interest is any fix to mail.
The rest can be removed as far as I am concerned.

Not everyone is upgrading from 10.15.1
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Pity that Hands Off is always a step behind the latest OSX releases. I got an error message starting up on 10.15.2.

How hard can it be to prepare for the latest update before the release instead of after?

 

[drlunanerd]

And... no it doesn't. Standby mode still not working on a MacBook Pro 2012. Worked fine in Mojave.

Hopefully this fixes the power management bugs with older MacBook Pros.

 

[LV426]

Am certified fanboy since Tiger.
But the software of late has been sloppy.

have they fixed the issue with:

reboots taking 6 minutes

or

the Touch Bar showing an extra item instead of the standard 4?

A reboot should not take 6 minutes, and certainly never does on my MacBook Pro. I imagine there might be circumstances where a running process is required to shut down gracefully - on pain of data loss. Or a situation where flushing out data to a flaky device causes delays. Or some third party software is written badly. There are too many variables here. But speaking from personal experience, my setup never encounters problematic reboots.

 

[johnalan]

A reboot should not take 6 minutes, and certainly never does on my MacBook Pro. I imagine there might be circumstances where a running process is required to shut down gracefully - on pain of data loss. Or a situation where flushing out data to a flaky device causes delays. Or some third party software is written badly. There are too many variables here. But speaking from personal experience, my setup never encounters problematic reboots.

Many people having the issue:https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/372183/catalina-crashing-at-shutdown-with-this-error

 

[LV426]

Many people having the issue:https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/372183/catalina-crashing-at-shutdown-with-this-error

Some people. Less than you can count on two hands from that link. Not to say that there aren't other forums, of course.

My original comments still stand. There are a million ways you can have a slow shutdown, and they aren't necessarily an operating system issue.

One user had a dodgy device driver for a 3rd party peripheral. Another alleges his SMC controller needed a reset. No common cause found by Apple in that thread.

Did you raise a support call with Apple in respect of your particular problem?

 

[MRJEFF]

I am writing to say that this latest update did not fix my email issues. The issue is only on Catalina running apple mail my emails literally take 5 minutes before sending out of the outbox. I use a small server for my IMAP mail on my own domain. This does not happen on my Mojave machines and I am not having the issue running a third party mail Client on Catalina. I spent hours on the phone with Apple waiting for their engineering team to figure out the issue and after more than a month they keep losing my files and have no answers. Has anyone else had this issue? I had to wipe 2 of my machines clean to reinstall Mojave because of all the issues with Catalina.

 

[JFox]

I was struck by the data loss (blank messages) after reindexing my mailboxes last Friday. Spent about 18 hours over the next three days restoring everything from backups (the TM backup was fairly worthless as it was missing the last 3 weeks -- no one knows why, not even Apple). I spoke with an Apple support person on Monday who said she has fielded multiple calls about this issue, but has no real solution. She just tells people to do what I already did -- go into your V7 or V6 folder and reimport. So far, I've been able to move large numbers of messages between mailboxes without issue (using old boxes I've got archived elsewhere, of course), but other bugginess remains -- smart boxes don't give the right # of messages, can't delete boxes from along the left-hand column, general CPU hogging. What a joke.

I am writing to say that this latest update did not fix my email issues. The issue is only on Catalina running apple mail my emails literally take 5 minutes before sending out of the outbox. I use a small server for my IMAP mail on my own domain. This does not happen on my Mojave machines and I am not having the issue running a third party mail Client on Catalina. I spent hours on the phone with Apple waiting for their engineering team to figure out the issue and after more than a month they keep losing my files and have no answers. Has anyone else had this issue? I had to wipe 2 of my machines clean to reinstall Mojave because of all the issues with Catalina.

 

[K4LK]

Been stable for me on a 2019 iMac since 10.15.0



I'm on a 2019 iMac as well and have none of those issues, Catalina has been stable since 10.15.0 for me.

You're lucky. With this release, I still cannot access the "Pages" directory in the root iCloud Drive. I can access this directory using Mojave or iOS 13.3 or iPadOS 13.3. Catalina is still full of bugs.

 

[chrisdazzo]

As I type, Remote app has yet to be updated, and the existing version does *not* work with this updated version of Catalina.

Also had to re-pair my Mac, and do so via the code - not via Home Sharing. Odd bug.

Related to your other question about freezes, according to Console.app, some Adobe update process froze my iMac about 2.5 hours after a full update (via App Store installer). Killed all related Adobe processes this morning after a hard reboot and it's been smooth sailing from there. I still think the intermittent freezing has to do with Time Machine running while disks are being re-indexed for Spotlight, though...

 

[Banglazed]

https://support.apple.com/kb/DL2028?locale=en_US

Combo available now

 

[mxrider88]

OMG - I thought I was the only user having this freakin' problem. Has been driving me nuts and have been working with Apple support for a month on the issue. Not only does handoff/continuity break with multiusers on a Mac, but so does the unlock with Apple Watch feature. Really hopeful this all gets fixed with this update.

I gave up after years.. they are just useless.

 

[Risco]

Fast user switching is fixed, no more freezing!

 

[HowieIsaacks]

Don't get excited about being about to control the Music and TV apps with your iPhone or iPad. Apparently, Apple released this feature without also releasing and updated Remote app on iOS and iPadOS. I called AppleCare and they said that they're aware of the issue, and that someone is working on it. Does anyone there pay attention to stuff like this before announcing new features?

 

[Tacorumors]

This drove me nuts for a bit. I've now paired successfully with my Watch, two iPhones, and two iPads.

The step that most of the posts here seem to be missing is to completely disable Home Sharing within the iOS app. To do that, tap on settings (upper right corner) and then tap or slide the slider to turn it off. On most of my devices, this kicked you back to the main screen, and asked if you wanted to set up a new library via Home Sharing (large, prominent, blue button) or manually (listed below that). Tap on manually, which will bring up a screen with a four-digit code. Once you've done that, then the device will show up within Music, listed on that left-most window as a "Devices" (listed underneath iTunes Store for me, but if you kept the default view, it should be underneath the "Library" subheading, or specifically, Music Videos). Click on the device, which will bring you to a screen allowing the entry of the four digits.

Of note, one iPad (an older, iPad Air 2) seemed to hang the app when trying to disable Home Sharing. I had to uninstall the app and then re-download and install it to get it working.

The Apple Watch worked properly once I had fixed the iPhone it was paired to. In that case, just trying to add a new library on the Watch caused it to appear within the Music app.

Happy with Apple for bringing back this functionality. It's a bit rocky - more than I'd expect from Apple - but I'll take what I can get.

Many Thanks Ledgem! Two or 3 betas back Remote worked again, then not anymore, and after your tip it does. Nice!

 

[capekim]

I got bit by the dreaded "empty email" bug last Friday in Mail. Any box with > 500 message or so listed all the messages, but none had actual contents. Spent about 15 hours restoring from backups. Time Machine was of no use as it doesn't seem to be working with Catalina Mail (and still doesn't -- most bizarre and reported to an Apple tech on a call).

So far, moving hundreds of emails between boxes isn't causing them to go AWOL, and that's really the only thing I can test for. So maybe it's fixed. Maybe. A least I have everything backed up in two archiving programs.

The undo-delete is back working, which is nice.

Still can't completely delete a mailbox -- message are nuked, but the box remains in the left-hand column.

Smart mailboxes still get jacked up with message counts. My Unread box is empty but says I have 100 unread messages. Trying to get ride of that # by rebuilding the index is what triggered my meltdown last week. Good times. Good times.

This is why I am waiting on Catalina. Nothing seems to be acknowledged regarding Mail fixes in these updates outside of the undo fix.

 

[BarrettF77]

The popping isn't entirely eliminated. You still hear a little crackle of some kind when starting and stopping and it sits idle. You can also hit command q and quit out of safari while playing a YouTube video and get it to pop as well. Doesn't happen though if you try it with music. So it's something to do with the setup. Again, Apple with a half baked solution. I've got till Jan 10 and if it's not fixed either an extension of this machine goes back. Unacceptable for a $4,900 machine.