Apple Seeds Second macOS Sonoma 14.2 Release Candidate to Developers

[MacRumors]

Apple today seeded a second release candidate (RC) version of an upcoming macOS Sonoma 14.2 update to developers for testing purposes, with the software coming few days after Apple seeded the first RC. The second RC has a build number of 23C64, up from 23C63 for the first RC.

Registered developers can opt-in to the beta through the Software Update section of the System Settings app. Under Beta updates, toggle on the Sonoma Developer Beta. Note that an Apple ID associated with an Apple Developer account is required to get the beta.

The release candidate version of macOS Sonoma 14.2 represents the finalized version of the softwae that will be released to the public should no major issues be found.

macOS Sonoma 14.2 adds support for enhanced AutoFill for PDFs, along with Contact Key Verification for Messages, a sticker tapback option, new Weather widgets, and more. Apple's release notes for the update are below.

This update introduces enhanced Autofill for PDFs and improvements to Messages and Weather. This release also includes other features, bug fixes, and security updates for your Mac.

PDFs
- Enhanced AutoFill identifies fields in PDFs and other forms enabling you to populate them with information such as names and addresses from your contacts

Messages
- Catch-up arrow lets you easily jump to your first unread message in a conversation by clicking the arrow visible in the top-right corner
- Add sticker option in the context menu lets you add a sticker directly to a bubble
- Contact Key Verification provides automatic alerts and Contact Verification Codes to help verify people facing extraordinary digital threats are messaging only with the people they intend

Weather
- Precipitation amounts help you stay on top of rain and snow conditions for a given day over the next 10 days
- New widgets let you choose from next-hour precipitation, daily forecast, sunrise and sunset times, and current conditions such as Air Quality, Feels Like, and wind speed
- Wind map snapshot helps you quickly assess wind patterns and access the animated wind map overlay to prepare for forecasted wind conditions for the next 24 hours

Clock
- Multiple timers let you run several timers simultaneously and create a name for each timer
- Timer presets help you quickly start a timer with a range of preset options
- Recents makes it easy to restart your recently used timers

This update also includes the following new features:
- Favorite Songs Playlist in Apple Music lets you quickly get back to the songs you mark as favorites
- Use Listening History in Apple Music can be disabled in a Focus so music you listen to does not appear in Recently Played or influence your recommendations
- Shazam Music Recognition allows you to quickly identify songs playing online or around you, even when wearing AirPods
- New keyboard layouts provide support for 7 additional Sámi languages
- Some features may not be available for all regions or on all Apple devices.

For detailed information about the security content of this update, please visit: https://support.apple.com/kb/HT201222

Apple is expected to release macOS Sonoma 14.2 next week.

Article Link: Apple Seeds Second macOS Sonoma 14.2 Release Candidate to Developers

 

[GMShadow]

Two RCs just means they still haven't fixed the bugs.

Normally I don't have too many problems, but Sonoma's been the biggest pile since Yosemite.

 

[Polinsky]

Normally I don't have too many problems, but Sonoma's been the biggest pile since Yosemite.

Sonoma works fine for me. Not a single problem.

 

[harriska2]

I have some software that hasn’t been updated for Sonoma so I’ll have to wait at least 6mo-1 year I’m talking you Nikon Studio NX.

 

[adh1003]

Sonoma works fine for me. Not a single problem.

Wow, so it must be the first entirely bug-free operating system in the world! /s

Honestly, these "works for me" posts are so tedious and pointless. There is a huge number of forum threads across Mac sites, the Apple forums and the likes of Reddit from people discussing bugs. LOTS of bugs. Including the infamous very serious f-up where they've got the recovery partition and firmware out of sync, leading to a chance of brick-on-update. You haven't seen any issues? Then you're either very unobservant, mistake buggy behaviour for works-as-intended, and/or incredibly lucky to be using some tiny subset of the OS that doesn't have noticeable faults.

For the rest of us, devs included, we've been through the betas or releases and seen plenty. Given that Apple's own release notes list some of the things they fixed in their own OS then clearly even Apple know they have bugs and yet, "Not a single problem", you confidently state. I guess Apple are wrong about their own bugs too, then.

I've seen plenty myself and, TL;DR, Sonoma has been an utter dumpster fire - a new low for Apple's ever-declining software quality. I've got it on my work machine but it's not going anywhere near my Mac at home.

 

[jkmoses]

Wow, so it must be the first entirely bug-free operating system in the world! /s

Honestly, these "works for me" posts are so tedious and pointless. There is a huge number of forum threads across Mac sites, the Apple forums and the likes of Reddit from people discussing bugs. LOTS of bugs. Including the infamous very serious f-up where they've got the recovery partition and firmware out of sync, leading to a chance of brick-on-update. You haven't seen any issues? Then you're either very unobservant, mistake buggy behaviour for works-as-intended, and/or incredibly lucky to be using some tiny subset of the OS that doesn't have noticeable faults.

For the rest of us, devs included, we've been through the betas or releases and seen plenty. Given that Apple's own release notes list some of the things they fixed in their own OS then clearly even Apple know they have bugs and yet, "Not a single problem", you confidently state. I guess Apple are wrong about their own bugs too, then.

I've seen plenty myself and, TL;DR, Sonoma has been an utter dumpster fire - a new low for Apple's ever-declining software quality. I've got it on my work machine but it's not going anywhere near my Mac at home.

I think this thinking goes both ways. Maybe it does "work for him" because, for what he uses it for, there aren't any showstopper issues. I feel the same way - Sonoma has been great for me. So get off your high horse and let people state THEIR experience just like you did.

 

[Moshe1010]

I hope they will fix the annoying bug that saves files as hidden on desktop

After the Sonoma update, downloaded files… - Apple Community

discussions.apple.com

 

[Polinsky]

Honestly, these "works for me" posts are so tedious and pointless.

What is really tedious and pointless are the global statements that "this is the worst thing that Apple has ever done" or "this is the worst OS ever", and on and on and on. Nothing to back up these statement which are completely unbelievable. If you people hate Apple so much and if they make such terrible products and software, then why in the hell are you using Apple products?

 

[GMShadow]

Sonoma works fine for me. Not a single problem.

That's great. I get kernel panics, but maybe I just imagined them and all the other problems.

 

[harriska2]

I hope they will fix the annoying bug that saves files as hidden on desktop

After the Sonoma update, downloaded files… - Apple Community

discussions.apple.com

For real?

 

[n-evo]

Wow, so it must be the first entirely bug-free operating system in the world! /s

Honestly, these "works for me" posts are so tedious and pointless. There is a huge number of forum threads across Mac sites, the Apple forums and the likes of Reddit from people discussing bugs. LOTS of bugs. Including the infamous very serious f-up where they've got the recovery partition and firmware out of sync, leading to a chance of brick-on-update. You haven't seen any issues? Then you're either very unobservant, mistake buggy behaviour for works-as-intended, and/or incredibly lucky to be using some tiny subset of the OS that doesn't have noticeable faults.

For the rest of us, devs included, we've been through the betas or releases and seen plenty. Given that Apple's own release notes list some of the things they fixed in their own OS then clearly even Apple know they have bugs and yet, "Not a single problem", you confidently state. I guess Apple are wrong about their own bugs too, then.

I've seen plenty myself and, TL;DR, Sonoma has been an utter dumpster fire - a new low for Apple's ever-declining software quality. I've got it on my work machine but it's not going anywhere near my Mac at home.

Goes both ways really. It just sounds like you're annoyed with someone for not experiencing any noticeable issues with macOS Sonoma and sharing their experiences. Every Mac OS X/OS X/macOS version to date has had (sub)forums filled with people complaining about various problems. So that in itself really doesn't say much.

I'm using macOS Sonoma since day one of its public release on my MacBook Pro at home and haven't run into any noteworthy issues either. As you point out there's no such thing as 100% bug free software. But all in all macOS Sonoma has been rock solid on my end. Sorry to hear you're experiencing the opposite.

 

[Corefile]

Must be a pretty bad bug in RC1.

 

[spunkybart]

A 2nd release candidate does not inspire confidence

 

[GMShadow]

What is really tedious and pointless are the global statements that "this is the worst thing that Apple has ever done" or "this is the worst OS ever", and on and on and on. Nothing to back up these statement which are completely unbelievable. If you people hate Apple so much and if they make such terrible products and software, then why in the hell are you using Apple products?

That's a very lovely straw man you set up to knock down there. You must be very proud.


It's buggy, plain and simple. I complain about it because I want Apple to improve. Most of the time I'm fine with the occasional hiccup, but iOS 17 and Sonoma are easily the worst pairing since iOS 8 and Yosemite. iOS 17 has mostly gotten to a tolerable state; Sonoma has not.

I have multiple Macs that throw kernel panics because of Apple-caused issues, I have Messages bugs where it just decides I don't need notifications anymore, I have bugs where it acts like it tried to update in sleep while not doing anything, there's the sporadic Safari 17 bugs with text entry...it's a bad release, plain and simple.

Screaming "if you don't like it LEAVE" is pointless.

 

[jz0309]

Wow, so it must be the first entirely bug-free operating system in the world! /s

Honestly, these "works for me" posts are so tedious and pointless. There is a huge number of forum threads across Mac sites, the Apple forums and the likes of Reddit from people discussing bugs. LOTS of bugs. Including the infamous very serious f-up where they've got the recovery partition and firmware out of sync, leading to a chance of brick-on-update. You haven't seen any issues? Then you're either very unobservant, mistake buggy behaviour for works-as-intended, and/or incredibly lucky to be using some tiny subset of the OS that doesn't have noticeable faults.

For the rest of us, devs included, we've been through the betas or releases and seen plenty. Given that Apple's own release notes list some of the things they fixed in their own OS then clearly even Apple know they have bugs and yet, "Not a single problem", you confidently state. I guess Apple are wrong about their own bugs too, then.

I've seen plenty myself and, TL;DR, Sonoma has been an utter dumpster fire - a new low for Apple's ever-declining software quality. I've got it on my work machine but it's not going anywhere near my Mac at home.

And your post is just as pointless as you make the others…
No (complex) SW written by humans will ever be bug free period.
I’ve been on the public beta since it was first released and have not experienced issues, for my use cases except 1, and that 1 issue was resolved in the next beta.
So for me, Sonoma has been stable.
YMMV

 

[Corefile]

A 2nd release candidate does not inspire confidence

It suggests shortcuts were taken during beta testing.

 

[MrWeenus]

There's a nasty bug in RC1 where you alt-tab frequently (windows + full screen apps) and windows lose focus (even if the app is selected) or the mouse cursor does not change into what's supposed to (hovering on links).

 

[coolfactor]

Two RCs just means they still haven't fixed the bugs.

Normally I don't have too many problems, but Sonoma's been the biggest pile since Yosemite.

I upgraded to Sonoma this week, and it feels -exactly- like Ventura. I can't find any notable differences, and zero change in stability. It's been rock solid.

What issues are you running into?

 

[coolfactor]

That's a very lovely straw man you set up to knock down there. You must be very proud.


It's buggy, plain and simple. I complain about it because I want Apple to improve. Most of the time I'm fine with the occasional hiccup, but iOS 17 and Sonoma are easily the worst pairing since iOS 8 and Yosemite. iOS 17 has mostly gotten to a tolerable state; Sonoma has not.

I have multiple Macs that throw kernel panics because of Apple-caused issues, I have Messages bugs where it just decides I don't need notifications anymore, I have bugs where it acts like it tried to update in sleep while not doing anything, there's the sporadic Safari 17 bugs with text entry...it's a bad release, plain and simple.

Screaming "if you don't like it LEAVE" is pointless.

In 30 years of using Macs, I've probably experienced 5 kernel panics, total. Usually panics were caused by kexts (kernel extensions) installed by users. What your response failed to elaborate on is what *you* have done to the Macs since installing macOS. Blaming Apple is easy. Looking at the other side of the coin, not so much.

So - what software have you installed that might have installed bits and pieces that exist at a low level of the operating system, such as printer drivers, scanner drivers, etc? When you upgraded, did you do a clean install, or retain all existing software during the upgrade? People have found in the past that doing a clean install often resolves crashing issues that were occurring after an "overlay" upgrade.

As for window focus, I have noticed some oddity in Sonoma with windows, even menus. (Menus are still a form of window, as they get focus when open).

Normally, if you open a menu, and press the Option key, it may change some of the items. Those items may have a longer name, so the width of the menu changes to accommodate, but then goes back to the original width when releasing the Option key. Not so with Sonoma... it stays the same width, which feels like a bug to me. This suggests that they made some low-level coding changes that have broken window and menu drawing. Scary stuff to be messing with code that has worked well for decades.

 

[greenbreadmmm]

I've had weird system hangs/freezes/ even spinning beach balls on my m1max studio since the 14.1s came out. More in the last few weeks than in my 18 months of owning it.

Jealous of those without woes.

 

[JippaLippa]

14.2 will be the release I'll jump on in

 

[bodhisattva]

That's a very lovely straw man you set up to knock down there. You must be very proud.


It's buggy, plain and simple. I complain about it because I want Apple to improve. Most of the time I'm fine with the occasional hiccup, but iOS 17 and Sonoma are easily the worst pairing since iOS 8 and Yosemite. iOS 17 has mostly gotten to a tolerable state; Sonoma has not.

I have multiple Macs that throw kernel panics because of Apple-caused issues, I have Messages bugs where it just decides I don't need notifications anymore, I have bugs where it acts like it tried to update in sleep while not doing anything, there's the sporadic Safari 17 bugs with text entry...it's a bad release, plain and simple.

Screaming "if you don't like it LEAVE" is pointless.

As a long time developer, and not to be confrontational with anyone on the thread, just wanted to state that the majority of all kernel panic issues are caused by bad or not enough RAM, lack of hard drive space, outdated drivers/plugins, broken disk permissions, apps that conflict with each other or the OS, or hardware issues and incompatible peripherals. Rarely does an OS cause kernel panics itself. If booting into safe mode, confirming ram is good, and disconnecting peripherals, you don't get the same kernel panics, the fault rests in some software not playing well with the new OS typically. I don't argue that Sonoma is buggy in some ways, but so has every single release since the pre OS-X days. Windows? Get outta here.. major buggy on every update. It's life when working with software and a large ecosystem of devices all interconnected.

Seeing a version 2 of an RC is not so shocking. Seeing a release in only a single candidate so long that it makes you comfortable only seeing one is an accomplishment. Most software I've worked on has had times when multiple issues were found in the 11th hour. I'd rather catch them and put out 2-3 RC so I could identify how and what was missed during normal testing cycles, betas, etc. As well to ensure that the final live release went out without whatever caused the multiple RC versions.

Never has been a perfect build, never will be. We get as close as we can and then we adjust as we move forward. They are no different.

 

[GMShadow]

In 30 years of using Macs, I've probably experienced 5 kernel panics, total. Usually panics were caused by kexts (kernel extensions) installed by users. What your response failed to elaborate on is what *you* have done to the Macs since installing macOS. Blaming Apple is easy. Looking at the other side of the coin, not so much.

So - what software have you installed that might have installed bits and pieces that exist at a low level of the operating system, such as printer drivers, scanner drivers, etc? When you upgraded, did you do a clean install, or retain all existing software during the upgrade? People have found in the past that doing a clean install often resolves crashing issues that were occurring after an "overlay" upgrade.

As for window focus, I have noticed some oddity in Sonoma with windows, even menus. (Menus are still a form of window, as they get focus when open).

Normally, if you open a menu, and press the Option key, it may change some of the items. Those items may have a longer name, so the width of the menu changes to accommodate, but then goes back to the original width when releasing the Option key. Not so with Sonoma... it stays the same width, which feels like a bug to me. This suggests that they made some low-level coding changes that have broken window and menu drawing. Scary stuff to be messing with code that has worked well for decades.

I didn't install CPU items. The bugs are related to sleep state/core doze problems in sleep mode. It's fun to blame the user, I get it, but that's not the case. These Macs have different use cases, different software sets. The common denominator is Sonoma.

 

[Motawa]

I don't know why but it's so funny to me that they still didn't release the music widget for Sonoma. They even showed it in the keynote back in June(!) it was never in any of the betas. Widgets in general are messy on Mac OS, especially the ones from the iPhone.

 

[hagjohn]

Wow, so it must be the first entirely bug-free operating system in the world! /s

Honestly, these "works for me" posts are so tedious and pointless. There is a huge number of forum threads across Mac sites, the Apple forums and the likes of Reddit from people discussing bugs. LOTS of bugs. Including the infamous very serious f-up where they've got the recovery partition and firmware out of sync, leading to a chance of brick-on-update. You haven't seen any issues? Then you're either very unobservant, mistake buggy behaviour for works-as-intended, and/or incredibly lucky to be using some tiny subset of the OS that doesn't have noticeable faults.

For the rest of us, devs included, we've been through the betas or releases and seen plenty. Given that Apple's own release notes list some of the things they fixed in their own OS then clearly even Apple know they have bugs and yet, "Not a single problem", you confidently state. I guess Apple are wrong about their own bugs too, then.

I've seen plenty myself and, TL;DR, Sonoma has been an utter dumpster fire - a new low for Apple's ever-declining software quality. I've got it on my work machine but it's not going anywhere near my Mac at home.

I'm not having any big show stopping issues either. I have some small issues but nothing to lose my head over. Is anyone sharing their setup/software they are using to help figure out what is causing these issues or is it just a lot of people whining that "this is the worst OS...."?