Apple Releases macOS Sierra 10.12.6 With Security and Stability Improvements

[Guy Clark]

iMac late 2012 hung on reboot after applying the Combo 10.12.6 update. Had to reboot to safe mode then to Option+Cmd+R and run DI to fix corruption of HD - no errors.
Seemed on initial reboot after applying Combo was either an SMC and / or ROM update taking place. Left hanging for 20 minutes, force shutdown via Power Button.
No love in the Old days of Tiger when things just worked.

Its true 10.4 Tiger was a great release however many forget how dreadfully unstable 10.0 Cheetah, 10.1 Puma and 10.2 Jaguar were. In reality OS X didn't become usable until 10.3 Panther.
It should come as no surprise really as OS X was a massive break from OS9.

What is great to see however is from 10.10 Yosemite onwards there are visual similarities to that of 10.4 Tiger and releases prior to that.

 

[Westside guy]

What are the bluetooth fixes in 10.12.6?

You can find all of the specifics listed here: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207922
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Its true 10.4 Tiger was a great release however many forget how dreadfully unstable 10.0 Cheetah, 10.1 Puma and 10.2 Jaguar were. In reality OS X didn't become usable until 10.3 Panther.

I would argue that the latter stages of Jaguar were actually quite useable - but otherwise I agree.

 

[IG88]

[doublepost=1500584365][/doublepost]Can anyone think of a compelling reason I should UG to Sierra from El Capitan? MacBook Pro late 2011, runs splendidly now, no issues, very secure. I only UG in iOS because sometimes there's just no way around it, darn it.

No. When I still had my 2013 MBA, my plan was to jump straight from El Cap to High Sierra around x.2. The only reason I'm on Sierra right now is because my '17 MBP came with it.

 

[You are the One]

You will want to select the drive up top of the left column to erase the whole thing. If you need more help, just start a new thread and shoot me a PM so we don't go off topic here.

(edit*: deleted error)
[doublepost=1500613922][/doublepost]Seems they have added a new service relating to install/update, at least I haven't seen it before. EmbeddedOSInstallService connects to during and after the install. I blocked the second attempt for fun and then opened Safari and the same service tried to connect over port 80 to the same place.

I found a reference by Eric Gomez here: Offline Touchbar Activation With A Purged Disk

 

[Marcopolo53]

2017 iMac went from B05 to B09 on BootROM version.

iMac Late 2012 ROM jumped to B1D

 

[Ebenezum]

After testing 10.12.6 for two days I haven't seen any improvements to PDFKit, furthermore Services are broken just like they were in 10.12.5. This means I'm going to skip Sierra and hope Apple manages to fix PDFKit in High Sierra, I cant take any changes with work related PDF files.

 

[jesse.bruffett]

So far I am seeing SIGNIFICANT battery life improvement on my 2017 13 inch (TB) MacBook Pro. With 10.12.5 I was getting maybe 6-7 hours, since 10.12.6 I'm getting closer to 8-9 hours. No changes to settings or running apps. Has anyone else seen this improvement or have I had a couple light days at work and not realized it? Has anyone else seen this kind of improvement?

 

[MauiBrah]

I have a 2010 MacPro 6-core with an AMD Sapphire GPU. Upon installation, the screen went black. No mouse cursor, nothing. I entered my password blindly (what some other forums suggested), but to no avail. I shut it off and turn it on again. Black screen. Rebooted in CMD-R and tried to reinstall OS. That resulted in the same black screen. I finally restored from my time capsule backup and am back to 10.12.5.

Anyone else with this problem?

 

[lexvo]

I have a 2010 MacPro 6-core with an AMD Sapphire GPU. Upon installation, the screen went black. No mouse cursor, nothing. I entered my password blindly (what some other forums suggested), but to no avail. I shut it off and turn it on again. Black screen. Rebooted in CMD-R and tried to reinstall OS. That resulted in the same black screen. I finally restored from my time capsule backup and am back to 10.12.5.

Anyone else with this problem?

I had my screen go black on my 2012 iMac, but this was for about 1 minute and then it rebooted and completed the installation.

 

[MauiBrah]

I had my screen go black on my 2012 iMac, but this was for about 1 minute and then it rebooted and completed the installation.

hmmm... yeah. I let mine go for 2 hours and nothing happened.

I am a video professional who loves FCPX and I'm taking this as a sign that an upgrade is in my future. I've been relegated to editing in proxy, which works great, but the time is fast approaching, I'd say in 6 months or so that I repeal and replace.

 

[JackieTreehorn]

Wow, two sleep wake failures on my 2016 Macbook with 101.12.6 Never had those before.

 

[Marcopolo53]

Check crash log. Look for powerd stat =0. If it is there then we have same. Suspect rMB is powering down Broadcom 4360 and driver is not initializing properly causing driver crash.
Me, am turning off wifi when closing lid. Not a solution but workaround
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I had my screen go black on my 2012 iMac, but this was for about 1 minute and then it rebooted and completed the installation.

iMac late 2012 just had a com.apple.xpc.launchd crash after 1 day on 10.12.6. Just surfing in Safari. Screen went all blueish and lost GPU UI. System underneath still working. Can see TM external processing BU. Had to do Hard Reset - Power button off. Ran Internet AHT extended - no issues found. Reboot and get usual message about shutting down wrong etc.

 

[ambientdaw]

Hmmmm, App store does not show any updates available for me either. I am on 10.12.5 on an iMac 2015. I would love the security update, and I guess I could go find the combo installer. But I see some people are having problems with this update. Maybe I should wait?

 

[kiwipeso1]

Hopefully, it will run smoothly and without issues at the end of the current year, yes.

It's just I tested other betas, and I don't remember them being so broken as 10.13 apparently is. High Sierra seems like a whole new OS built from the ground up (lots of bugs and malfunctions), not an update like it was El Capitan or Sierra. But surely, over time it will become usable, and maybe more polished with 10.14. I guess this is the start of a new cycle. Or maybe it is APFS fault, I don't know.

That is another major change, so if you had changed the filesystem to APFS, then that would be the main problem if you did not have a SSD. The whole point of beta software is that people find the problems before the official release.
It is supposed to be for people to test their spare mac that they don't depend on always working for the beta software to get things right before the official release.
I would not lose any sleep worrying about it, and just use Sierra for now.
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[doublepost=1500584365][/doublepost]Can anyone think of a compelling reason I should UG to Sierra from El Capitan? MacBook Pro late 2011, runs splendidly now, no issues, very secure. I only UG in iOS because sometimes there's just no way around it, darn it.

Mainly because Sierra won't be downloadable from the app store once High Sierra is out.
I would suggest getting it, make an installer USB and keep that handy.

 

[xbjllb]

Sure hope this finally gets my spotlight working. Not being able to search anything, especially mail or have an applications list in System Information really bites. Oh, the useless redundant websearch in spotlight works fine. Just what I needed, another Google. Also hope I can finally pull my main drive into the privacy panel in spotlight prefs (or anything else on that drive) to force a reindex when necessary. Missing Mavericks.

 

[Askolan]

I could swear my mac is running faster with this update. No issues to report yet. I'm on a mid 2012 11 inch MacBook air, 4gb RAM 1.7 ghz i5.
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This is no such bug. Fix your busted system.

How would you know he isn't having this bug? I actually did a quick google search and this is a problem for quite a few people and is well documented. I don't get the rudeness and smugness that some people employ on here; it serves no one and makes mac users look bad.

 

[mikerichh]

One thing life taught me, if your machine is working just as you like, don't update it. Why risk losing functionality on features and enhancement you probably don't need or sometimes might be annoying.

This is especially true when you use a machine with specific software combination for business or any kind of work. I remember when OS X was out, many people stayed on OS 9 because it did what they wanted and no reason to upgrade to a system you just don't know how it works.
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The problem is that Apple will keep nagging you for a good 10 months on daily basis and remind you to update. I wish there was a way to stop that.

[doublepost=1501225085][/doublepost]

One thing life taught me, if your machine is working just as you like, don't update it. Why risk losing functionality on features and enhancement you probably don't need or sometimes might be annoying.

This is especially true when you use a machine with specific software combination for business or any kind of work. I remember when OS X was out, many people stayed on OS 9 because it did what they wanted and no reason to upgrade to a system you just don't know how it works.
[doublepost=1500568377][/doublepost]

The problem is that Apple will keep nagging you for a good 10 months on daily basis and remind you to update. I wish there was a way to stop that.

This is a great way to leave your computer vulnerable to hacker or virus attacks. Software must be updated and tailored to what has been reported as possible attack sources and methods.

 

[chrfr]

Sure hope this finally gets my spotlight working. Not being able to search anything, especially mail or have an applications list in System Information really bites. Oh, the useless redundant websearch in spotlight works fine. Just what I needed, another Google. Also hope I can finally pull my main drive into the privacy panel in spotlight prefs (or anything else on that drive) to force a reindex when necessary. Missing Mavericks.

There's something wrong with your computer that isn't specific to 10.12. This all works fine for me in 10.12.6 (and earlier versions of 10.12.)

 

[MacBH928]

[doublepost=1501225085][/doublepost]

This is a great way to leave your computer vulnerable to hacker or virus attacks. Software must be updated and tailored to what has been reported as possible attack sources and methods.

As I mentioned, if you use it for business or specific tasks you are better off taking it offline. The updates break the workflow with abandoned plug-ins, abandoned software, compatibility issues.

 

[Marcopolo53]

From what I have read, most of the major issues in the 10.12.6 update (via Apps Store or Combo ) stem from incompatible kext extensions. So, each must make their own choices >> stay 10.12.5 or move on to 10.12.6 or wait for High Sierra. Though, 10.13 will have issues from the start. For me, 10.13. X will be the earliest if at all.

 

[xbjllb]

There's something wrong with your computer that isn't specific to 10.12. This all works fine for me in 10.12.6 (and earlier versions of 10.12.)

Sure it is. After a wiped clean install, no end to 12 different web fixes tried numerous times, changing the ownership on v-100 to the correct one, deleting spotless from two other boot drives (snow leopard and mavericks) and two other fixes on the sierra boot drive, no end to starting and stopping the process in terminal, the numerous web complaints from Yosemite on are very indicative of something still very drastically wrong. And now dragging drives and folders into the spotlight privacy panel in and back out works (fixed) but still never indexes either mail or applications, my two major needs. However, it sure wanted to turn my initial time machine backup into a three month ordeal until I put the time machine drive back into privacy. And it is a lovely useless redundant web search engine. THAT works.

Consider yourself unimaginably lucky.

 

[Rorosbutt]

Was anyone else prompted to sign into iCloud again? (Got a pop up on my iPhone saying "mac is now using iMessage blah blah) seems weird as I've never had to sign in again AND had this type of pop up.

 

[weckart]

Was anyone else prompted to sign into iCloud again? (Got a pop up on my iPhone saying "mac is now using iMessage blah blah) seems weird as I've never had to sign in again AND had this type of pop up.

I've had to sign back in to iCloud after every update of macOS on all of my computers for a while already. Tired of it now.

 

[Rorosbutt]

I've had to sign back in to iCloud after every update of macOS on all of my computers for a while already. Tired of it now.

Thank you! Glad to know it's normal!

Oh wow. I can't remember the last time I signed in again. Maybe for new full OS update but never minor.