macOS Golden Gate 27.0 Beta 5 - What’s New?

[Luftkopf]

What country code do you have in that plist file? Mine had CN.

Maybe I did something by adding/deleting languages (I do have Mandarin simplified and traditional keyboards installed). It might be just me! I probably broke it somehow 🙂

I learnt about the plist country code by googling, so it seems to have affected a few others, but it's looking to be a rare thing, and the fix (now I know it) is easy.

My .GlobalPreferences.plist doesn't even have an entry for 'Country'.

I am intrigued.

 

[adrianlondon]

My .GlobalPreferences.plist doesn't even have an entry for 'Country'.

I am intrigued.

Ah. Now I wonder why mine does. I'll try removing it completely and see what happens ...
<one reboot later> The flag works, and the country key didn't recreate itself.

 

[Luftkopf]

Ah. Now I wonder why mine does. I'll try removing it completely and see what happens ...
<one reboot later> The flag works, and the country key didn't recreate itself.

When I get a moment I think I'll try and do a little digging and see if there's anything out there about it.

 

[F1Mac]

System data now takes 30 GB more than beta 4. Annoying, especially when you don't know where it comes from. Anyone else experiencing a similar situation? In beta 4 my system data was about 60 GB, now around 90 GB.

 

[Luftkopf]

System data now takes 30 GB more than beta 4. Annoying, especially when you don't know where it comes from. Anyone else experiencing a similar situation? In beta 4 my system data was about 60 GB, now around 90 GB.

System Data is an opaque catch-all that contains any number of things including, I think, files that are marked as purgable, such as large chunks of the Photos library. My Photos library says it is taking up over 100 GB, yet in System Settings it says Photos take up 9.4 GB, and I have 241 GB System Data.

 

[aperfectcircle]

B5 seems to be more stable, at least so far in respect of the issues the last two betas have yielded.

Since B3, I’ve had constant crashes with Microsoft apps (installed via the App Store), and so far they have all been stable.

The constant fans that appeared in B3 and resolved in B4 are still resolved. But iStat Menus still reports no data from sensors as has been the case since B3.

Bar iStat Menus showing no sensor data, B5 has been perfectly stable with great performance on my M1 Max MBP.

 

[SketchyClown]

System data now takes 30 GB more than beta 4. Annoying, especially when you don't know where it comes from. Anyone else experiencing a similar situation? In beta 4 my system data was about 60 GB, now around 90 GB.

My System Data ballooned to a whopping 189GB after the update.

I did a search for Time Machine snapshots, and it had a lot!

Ran the Terminal command to thin them out, and it instantly dropped to 42GB.

 

[LeVan]

My System Data ballooned to a whopping 189GB after the update.

I did a search for Time Machine snapshots, and it had a lot!

Ran the Terminal command to thin them out, and it instantly dropped to 42GB.

For those in need,

Code:
sudo tmutil thinlocalsnapshots / 9999999999999999 1

best to first run Oynx and in Maintenance (Under 'Verifying:') select Delete APFS snapshots (local Time Machine snapshots)

 

[rwilliams]

My System Data ballooned to a whopping 189GB after the update.

I did a search for Time Machine snapshots, and it had a lot!

Ran the Terminal command to thin them out, and it instantly dropped to 42GB.

Wow, this worked! I'd manually deleted Time Machine snapshots, installed Mole from Homebrew, and I was still hovering around 130 GB of System Data after installing Beta 5. I ran the terminal command you provided and now I'm down to 42 GB. Thanks!!!

 

[GregoryPeckEPA]

View attachment 2651835

favorites bar still cut off by address bar

I will never not be triggered by the fact they made input fields into something that looks like a button 🤬

 

[GregoryPeckEPA]

For those in need,

Code:
sudo tmutil thinlocalsnapshots / 9999999999999999 1

best to first run Oynx and in Maintenance (Under 'Verifying:') select Delete APFS snapshots (local Time Machine snapshots)

I don't know why you added all those numbers. Running the following trims all snapshots:

sudo tmutil thinlocalsnapshots /

Also wouldn't recommend using Onyx to mess with snapshots as they are handled by tmutil and if you use some third party tool to wipe them, the service won't know that occurred, which could lead to corruption or failures in backups down the line.

Moreover, the local snapshots, while they show up as "data' aren't really data. The snapshots are hardlinks, and apfs is really advanced in how it handles shadow copies and links in general. Which makes the system data reports unreliable at best.

Additionally, snapshots and other data no longer needed (sometimes deleting files doesn't actually delete them physically) aren't removed right away to increase the longevity of your drive, but rather on demand. Wiping them out manually just stresses your SSD needlessly and kind of cobbles apfs' more advanced functionality.

 

[LeVan]

I don't know why you added all those numbers. Running the following trims all snapshots:

sudo tmutil thinlocalsnapshots /

Also wouldn't recommend using Onyx to mess with snapshots as they are handled by tmutil and if you use some third party tool to wipe them, the service won't know that occurred, which could lead to corruption or failures in backups down the line.

Moreover, the local snapshots, while they show up as "data' aren't really data. The snapshots are hardlinks, and apfs is really advanced in how it handles shadow copies and links in general. Which makes the system data reports unreliable at best.

Additionally, snapshots and other data no longer needed (sometimes deleting files doesn't actually delete them physically) aren't removed right away to increase the longevity of your drive, but rather on demand. Wiping them out manually just stresses your SSD needlessly and kind of cobbles apfs' more advanced functionality.

We all can see that indeed you do not know why those numbers were included. I found that "sudo tmutil thinlocalsnapshots /" command here on MacRumors, with the explanation:
"Delete all local snapshots at once"
Code:
sudo tmutil thinlocalsnapshots / 9999999999999999 1
or
sudo tmutil thinlocalsnapshots / 1000000000000000 4
Explanation:
/ = the volume to thin (usually your main drive)
9999999999999999 = an arbitrarily huge number (forces it to purge as much as possible)
1 = urgency flag (1 = immediate) (4 = very urgent)

Your post is contradiction itself, saying sudo tmutil thinlocalsnapshots / is enough and later saying it is not advisable to delete the snapshots at all.
I assume the developers at Oynx know more about that than any of us do, and in actual use over several years, I and others have not seen any bad effects from using sudo tmutil thinlocalsnapshots / (large nimber 1)
If you don't want to use that command, fine, don't....
But using it did save a lot of SSD space for several people.

 

[xnsys]

Is anybody having issues with this build and the internal trackpad not providing any click feedback?

 

[Superhai]

We all can see that indeed you do not know why those numbers were included. I found that "sudo tmutil thinlocalsnapshots /" command here on MacRumors, with the explanation:
"Delete all local snapshots at once"

I just want to point out that there is a difference between thinning and deleting. `sudo tmutil thinlocalsnapshots /` does thinning, and `sudo tmutil deletelocalsnapshots /`does delete (you can also choose other mount points than `/` as well, and other options based on your needs). Thinning is usually the recommended as the system can decide what to remove but it does not in general delete the snapshot if it is necessary to diff the last backup, but deleting gives you more control, however then you can't revert to the snapshot you deleted. I recommend the articles by Howard Oakley at The Eclectic Light Company who does an in-depth explanation on everything snapshots and Time Machine.

One important thing to know and note, the snapshots by themselves does not take up more space (on APFS) if it is snapshotting existing data (which is important, it is not a backup - in the sense that data is stored redundantly), but various utilities does not report this as duplicate data and consider this occupied space (some are deliberate and some not). But snapshots do need to store information about each snapshot as well as changes ("diffed") to the last backup, so they will still use space and can become very large.

The backup is something else, backup will commit these changes and based on when the last completed backup was done and the current snapshots will decide how much space the snapshots needs.

Pausing automatic time machine backup will also delete snapshots, but it could take some time (a couple to ten minutes or so).

 

[mactracker]

In macOS 27 Beta 5, Siri AI gains a hidden local math tool. The new MathComputeTool, part of Siri's lightweight Skimmer planner can evaluate a range of operations locally without reaching for the server. Not only does the new tool let Siri do math offline, but it can process natural language math queries much quicker even with an internet connection.

Beta 5 gives Siri AI a faster, local tool for math queries, even when offline

In macOS 27 Beta 5, Siri AI gains a hidden local math tool. The new MathComputeTool, part of Siri's lightweight Skimmer planner can evaluate a range of operations locally without reaching for the server. Not only does the new tool let Siri do math offline, but it can process natural language...

forums.macrumors.com

 

[Dust-by-Monday]

In macOS 27 Beta 5, Siri AI gains a hidden local math tool. The new MathComputeTool, part of Siri's lightweight Skimmer planner can evaluate a range of operations locally without reaching for the server. Not only does the new tool let Siri do math offline, but it can process natural language math queries much quicker even with an internet connection.

Beta 5 gives Siri AI a faster, local tool for math queries, even when offline

In macOS 27 Beta 5, Siri AI gains a hidden local math tool. The new MathComputeTool, part of Siri's lightweight Skimmer planner can evaluate a range of operations locally without reaching for the server. Not only does the new tool let Siri do math offline, but it can process natural language...

forums.macrumors.com

So…a calculator