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PSA: Latest macOS Ventura 13.4 Beta Doesn't Play Nice With Content Filter Apps

Damn. For 15 years I'd thought I'd been protecting myself from macOS beta flops like this, by dutifully running a Time Machine backup the night before updating to a macOS beta first thing in the morning. (Maybe Time Machine did back up the system 15 years ago?) Anyhow, thank you @patearrings for confirming what I've just learned the hard way.
 
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jerrykrinock said:
Damn. For 15 years I'd thought I'd been protecting myself from macOS beta flops like this, by dutifully running a Time Machine backup the night before updating to a macOS beta first thing in the morning. (Maybe Time Machine did back up the system 15 years ago?) Anyhow, thank you @patearrings for confirming what I've just learned the hard way.
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The Time Machine still is making an external ASR volume for you. So you go through the process of a DFU restore which is a complete wipe and FW reset to factory settings, then you use Migration Assistant afterwards to restore your system settings/apps/data to what you had before. This is what they would do at an Apple Store if your system had something wrong/corrupted to make sure its a fresh factory install.

This using the normal re-install MacOS with Time Machine is not without its limitations.

I also use the legacy bootable copy option with Carbon Copy Cleaner which is a snap shot of everything at that time or even simpler you can just so a standard back up without the MacOS volume that is enough to be recognized as a Apple Software Restore (ASR) volume.

Example of the process I use with CCC
 
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Yep - as mentioned above, the TM backup *used* to back up everything and you'd do a complete restore from it.

More recently, probably due to the APFS filesystem, that changed and the TM backup now doesn't back up the system (MacOS) volume at all. You need to first restore that and then use Migration Assistant to restore the rest from the backup.

***

It's confusing as the terminology doesn't match (at no point do they call this a simple "restore" or 'recover from backup"). In fact, the last time I did this, I booted into Recovery and it kept asking if I had a backup, and when I selected "yes" it then said the TM backup was corrupt. That was worrying until I realised that the option has been removed but the error messages remain. So I did a MacOS restore (internet recovery) and then used Migration Assistant and was very relieved to find out that I ended up with a perfect restore.
 
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adrianlondon said:
Yep - as mentioned above, the TM backup *used* to back up everything and you'd do a complete restore from it.

More recently, probably due to the APFS filesystem, that changed and the TM backup now doesn't back up the system (MacOS) volume at all. You need to first restore that and then use Migration Assistant to restore the rest from the backup.

***

It's confusing as the terminology doesn't match (at no point do they call this a simple "restore" or 'recover from backup"). In fact, the last time I did this, I booted into Recovery and it kept asking if I had a backup, and when I selected "yes" it then said the TM backup was corrupt. That was worrying until I realised that the option has been removed but the error messages remain. So I did a MacOS restore (internet recovery) and then used Migration Assistant and was very relieved to find out that I ended up with a perfect restore.
Click to expand...
Until you open PHOTOS and then see that your updated photos version is no longer compatible with the older version of MacOS you installed. This can even happen with just incremental builds i.e xx.1 to xx.2 of MacOS.
 
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Indeed, it would have been very thoughtful of Apple to have warned users: By the way, don't rely on Time Machine to back up your system any more when they made these filesystem and security changes 5-10 years ago. Had I thought about it for 10 seconds, I could have realized this myself, but, you know, we have busy lives.

And busy I was, for the last two days, doing the wipe and reinstall of the production macOS, using instructions given here and here. I recommend reading both articles to get all of the nuances. Of course, when restoring from Time Machine I was warned that downgrading to a previous system was not recommended, and indeed there were a number of issues to clean up…
  • Had to do all of the new-out-of-box crap: Enter Wifi password, language, fingeprint, iCloud, etc.
  • All of my Full Disk Access and Accesibility permissions had been wiped.
  • Mail.app database needed to be rebuilt.
  • Most open tabs in Safari were gone.
  • Last week's macOS security patch.
  • Although it apparently remembered that Rosetta 2 had been installed and therefore did not warn me when I launched an Intel app (such apps just crashed on launch without explanation), Rosetta 2 needed to be reinstalled (Terminal command `softwareupdate --install-rosetta`).
…not to mention approving a lot of Terms and Conditions :(

So I bought a 1 TB SSD, and a license for Carbon Copy Cloner, with which I intend to do a real backup before any macOS beta updates from now on. I am also going to consider maintaining separate partitions for development and beta macOs testing of my macOS apps, but as a one-person developer I've resisted this because I'd rather be testing while working.

Anyhow, thank y'all for the help.
 
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patearrings said:
Ok. followed the instructions you guys posted here. Went into macos recovery and just selected "reinstall macos" and as i expected it would, it just reinstalled the SAME build. So i am still on 5059b and still have the same problem with little snitch.
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quick solution

- go to the os recovery
csrutil disable
reboot

- normal boot
go to terminal:
systemextensionsctl list
sudo systemextensionsctl uninstall "bundleID" "name"
reboot

- recovery os
crsrutil enable
reboot
 
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temp solution simply:
Turn any filters in System Settings->network settings->Filters OFF, and that should work for the time being. Turning LS monitoring off alone isn't enough.

edit: fixed in RC
 
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Looking at some of the developers feedback, it seems this is a bug introduced in this beta, and maybe why it's not gone to public beta. I am hopeful that we'll see an updated beta that fixes this today?
 
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I pity developers for Apple hardware. It seems like a constant game of cat-and-mouse, or whack-a-mole. Every new Apple OS breaks software, and developers are left scrambling to find workarounds (if any) to repair functionality.

Meanwhile, Microsoft and Linux developers don't even need to maintain their software because it just works for years to come. Even Android developers probably have an easier time with longevity.
 
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