[HN Gopher] macOS Sonoma 14.4 removes critical functions from th...
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       macOS Sonoma 14.4 removes critical functions from the
       fileproviderctl command
        
       Author : luckman212
       Score  : 85 points
       Date   : 2024-02-04 15:53 UTC (7 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (forums.macrumors.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (forums.macrumors.com)
        
       | zshrc wrote:
       | HN is definitely going to remember that 14.4 is still in early
       | beta.
       | 
       | But Apple might forget about us and deliver broken software ONCE
       | AGAIN
        
         | FirmwareBurner wrote:
         | Counting down till the commenters start telling everyone to
         | switch to Linux. Not that I disagree with them.
        
           | neilv wrote:
           | https://www.debian.org/distrib/
        
             | badgersnake wrote:
             | Not much help if you've got an ARM Mac.
        
               | Astraco wrote:
               | You're welcome
               | 
               | https://asahilinux.org/
        
               | neilv wrote:
               | Also: https://wiki.debian.org/InstallingDebianOn/Apple/M1
        
               | hu3 wrote:
               | https://github.com/AsahiLinux/docs/wiki/M3-Series-
               | Feature-Su...
               | 
               | A large list of things that don't work and are not even
               | being worked on doesn't sound enticing.
               | 
               | Things like HDMI, WiFi and Bluetooth don't work and are
               | not being worked on.
        
               | neilv wrote:
               | For anyone who doesn't make using Apple hardware the top
               | priority, might be a lot easier to just find more-open
               | laptop hardware that you like, and use stock Debian atop
               | that.
        
               | winterqt wrote:
               | M3 has only been out for a few months. Compare this to M2
               | and M1, where mostly everything works just fine with
               | Asahi: https://github.com/AsahiLinux/docs/wiki/M2-Series-
               | Feature-Su...
        
               | Astraco wrote:
               | Then buy a M2 instead, or a Thinkpad or something.
        
               | ByQuyzzy wrote:
               | Why would you buy a proprietary computer if you don't
               | like its matching proprietary OS? Just doesn't make
               | sense.
        
               | neilv wrote:
               | Some people already have Apple hardware, or like the
               | build quality or aesthetics it, or want the current fast
               | CPU, or are single and think the Apple logo will let them
               | pass as non-nerds in cafes.
               | 
               | I suspect most people would be happier with more-open
               | hardware, even an ordinary consumer laptop intended for
               | MS Windows. But if the barrier is that someone wants to
               | use an Apple laptop, we can work with that.
        
               | behnamoh wrote:
               | Because I want to own the hardware I buy, not be at the
               | mercy of the company that made it.
        
           | bitwize wrote:
           | I use Void btw.
        
           | wkat4242 wrote:
           | It's what I did too (well, BSD, not Linux).
           | 
           | I was just sick of Apple catering mainly to the rich consumer
           | dicking around on Facebook and not to the more technical
           | populace who wants to control what they own. I'm very happy
           | to be off Apple, it really felt like a breath of fresh air
           | and still does 3 years later.
        
         | KennyBlanken wrote:
         | It's not "broken." Apple has been increasingly hostile to
         | "traditional" file servers (dropping AFP support - AFP is still
         | superior to SMB both performance and compatibility-wise) and
         | non-iCloud file sync services. They also disabled third party
         | cloud syncing to folders on external drives fairly recently.
         | I'm blanking but there were other changes in Ventura related to
         | third party cloud sync, too.
         | 
         | There's a reason your iPhone/iPad defaults, every fucking time
         | you try to save a file, to iCloud storage and the "default
         | storage location" option was removed from preferences.
         | 
         | Apple is taking the "frog in the pot of boiling water"
         | approach, slowly pushing everyone toward iCloud file storage,
         | despite it being a dogshit service with numerous problems
         | because the dev team are more interested in coordinating their
         | nail color to their McLaren (I wish I was joking.)
        
           | CharlesW wrote:
           | > _There 's a reason your iPhone/iPad defaults, every fucking
           | time you try to save a file, to iCloud storage and the
           | "default storage location" option was removed from
           | preferences._
           | 
           | I assume you're right about Apple removing the preference,
           | but I just shared a photo, picked "Save to Files" and it
           | defaulted to Cryptomator. In case it's helpful to know, you
           | can also turn off "iCloud Drive" as a Location.
        
       | rzzzt wrote:
       | From the macOS 13 thread by OP:                 > If you don't
       | know what it is, and don't use it - it probably won't affect you.
       | >       > But some people use this tool to control and work with
       | apps that use the        > FileProvider API: such as Google
       | Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox, ShellFish, etc.
       | 
       | I feel like I'm covered by the first sentence, but still curious
       | as to what can be controlled by the CLI tool portions.
        
         | luckman212 wrote:
         | One important thing for me was being able to fix broken cloud
         | storage paths that had become out of sync for whatever reason.
         | This was a frequent-enough issue for my users of Google Drive,
         | and to a lesser extent, OneDrive that I had built some tooling
         | around it into our MDM. This worked by calling the subcommands
         | `fileproviderctl materialize`, `fileproviderctl domain remove`
         | and `fileproviderctl evict` to clear these broken paths and
         | restore the sync to a working state. No longer possible.
        
           | jorvi wrote:
           | It's kind of sad that even after 15+ years, no one has caught
           | up to Dropbox. None of the other cloud providers do proper
           | block-level sync, and I hear much less about Dropbox breakage
           | than other providers.
           | 
           | It does make sense because OneDrive, iCloud and Google Drive
           | are tie-in services. If you use Microsoft 365 / Apple /
           | Android you are "forced" to use them to gain access to
           | certain features, meaning there is no competitive pressure.
        
             | menschmanfred wrote:
             | I'm not sure on what basis you came to your conclusion but
             | I do not have my issues with OneDrive on Mac and gdrive on
             | Windows for ages.
        
               | solardev wrote:
               | They mentioned a specific feature (delta sync) that not
               | all providers support. Onedrive seems to after 2020, but
               | I don't think Gdrive does.
               | 
               | It doesn't matter if you're just syncing a bunch of small
               | files (code, documents, images) but can make a big
               | difference in bigger files (compressed archives, large
               | media assets, etc.)
               | 
               | https://www.cloudwards.net/block-level-file-copying/
        
               | MikusR wrote:
               | Google Drive used to, maybe still does keep versioning
               | metadata in file names
        
             | lttlrck wrote:
             | Dropbox is still superior IMO. I have a Office365
             | subscription but OneDrive can make a huge a mess with
             | default settings if you aren't careful when you set it up
             | on anything but a new machine. It's just less slick overall
             | - plus I really want first class Linux support.
             | 
             | I don't want to pay for two file storage systems though and
             | the 3 host limit on Dropbox is a shame. Without it they'd
             | be all but guaranteed to lock me in and I would (gladly)
             | start paying again in a year or so for more space.
             | 
             | Instead I switched to syncthing, which is great but not as
             | nice.
        
             | jbverschoor wrote:
             | Yeah I have many different cloud storage subscriptions. And
             | although I don't like Dropbox as a company due to the
             | things they did, it is the only thing that really works,
             | all the time.
             | 
             | A "refuse" to "upgrade" to the fileprovider version, as I
             | don't want stupid&slow functionality like iCloud Drive.
        
             | MikusR wrote:
             | OneDrive has had block level sync dor all files for 4
             | years.
        
             | KennyBlanken wrote:
             | Syncthing not only does block-level sync, it does it in a
             | distributed fashion.
             | 
             | https://docs.syncthing.net/users/syncing.html
        
       | gjsman-1000 wrote:
       | 14.4 is beta. If betas can't be beta, they are pointless and
       | Apple shouldn't bother releasing them.
        
         | alberth wrote:
         | I don't even understand what this comment means in this
         | context.
         | 
         | This isn't like a bug that was introduced in the beta, and
         | betas are intended to help find bugs.
         | 
         | This is functionality deliberately being removed, that is
         | wildly known to break cloud storage software.
        
           | jmull wrote:
           | > I don't even understand what this comment means in this
           | context.
           | 
           | Not OP, but it means you should expect beta software to be
           | broken and incomplete.
           | 
           | How would you know this isn't due to a bug introduced in the
           | beta? Seems as likely an explanation as anything else at this
           | point, unless you have some inside information.
           | 
           | A lot of things use a "plugin" organization, and if a certain
           | plugin was missing -- say, due to bug leading to a failed
           | compile, the tool would work fine but the functionality
           | provided by the plugin would simply be missing. Not that I
           | have any insight into this particular case, but just pointing
           | out there are perfectly reasonable ways a bug could cause
           | this.
           | 
           | Also, I've personally disabled features in a beta release
           | when I knew the feature was broken and it would cause long
           | term issues if someone tried to use the broken feature (like
           | data corruption). So it could be deliberately removed but
           | only temporarily.
           | 
           | Or maybe Apple just removed this to be dicks, IDK... But I
           | don't think you do either, do you?
           | 
           | If you do have inside info, can you let us know whyx this was
           | removed?
        
             | luckman212 wrote:
             | It's not a "bug" - I ran `strings /usr/bin/fileproviderctl`
             | on 14.3 and 14.4 and you can clearly see that the commands
             | and their related helptext have been completely removed.
        
             | viraptor wrote:
             | I think Apple got themselves in that position. Features
             | many people relied on did go away lots of times before.
             | Basic things are broken and Apple doesn't care. (dtrace is
             | broken in latest 2 major versions of the system, same for
             | system settings search) At this point, if some
             | functionality disappears, it's not totally unreasonable to
             | expect that it's Apple being Apple.
        
         | latexr wrote:
         | The purpose of making a beta publicly available is so people
         | outside the company can try it out, find what's broken, and
         | report on it.
         | 
         | That's exactly what's happening here. The poster found an
         | issue, reported it to Apple, then commented on it publicly so
         | others who depend on it could be made aware and also report it
         | to Apple (they specifically say duplicate reports help).
        
       | kjkjadksj wrote:
       | 4 versions into the public release and they still haven't figured
       | out how to let users reliably download wallpapers from their
       | servers
        
         | swozey wrote:
         | LOL really? I'm behind on the wallpaper drama but a few weeks
         | ago I installed something that downloaded all of the new Sonoma
         | realtime HD whatever they're called wallpapers to a foler on my
         | NAS so that all my android tvs could stream them as idle
         | screens..
         | 
         | It is like 60gb+ of data I didn't want that getting hammered by
         | 3 different tvs because I have a limit.
         | 
         | Also they're really not that interesting. I find them pretty
         | boring to be honest and prefer Wallpaper engine by far.
        
           | kjkjadksj wrote:
           | Every few months I test to see if its still broken. It's kind
           | of hilarious seeing scrappy startup-esque triaging of
           | longstanding known issues from the crown jewel desktop os of
           | a three trillion dollar company.
        
             | swozey wrote:
             | Yeah I am a huge OSX/macos fan that converted 10-12 years
             | ago and every single job in my last 10+ years has given me
             | a MBP so I know it almost better than linux or windows now
             | (I've been an eng for both).
             | 
             | Whatever goes on in the Apple MacOS meeting rooms every
             | year lately is like, nothing that I could ever imagine in
             | my wildest fever dream. Stage manager? Why do I still have
             | 5 app packages "mounted" on my desktop after 3 years that I
             | eject every few weeks and come right back? Webcam emojis
             | with thumbs, cool. etc etc. That iphone webcam thing was
             | cool for a week but i completely forgot about it until I
             | wrote this.
             | 
             | I can think of so many goofy bugs or weird MacOS
             | idiosyncracies that just never get mentioned that we deal
             | with. I've had SO many Macbook Pros, I have 3 M1s in my
             | house right now and I have like 2x the amount of white
             | chargers than I have of actual laptops nowadays and they
             | all act exactly the same.
             | 
             | When I wake up monday morning and bang on my keyboard no
             | matter what version of OSX it is I have a 40%ish chance of
             | it not waking up without me grabbing the laptop and opening
             | the lid.
             | 
             | 20 years later.
             | 
             | Honestly, nowadays, windows is my "chill and relax" OS.
             | It's windows snapping is amazing. I hate developing on it
             | though, I did it awhile with WSL2 years ago and had many
             | frustrations, like completely breaking my wsl vm somehow.
        
       | WhereIsTheTruth wrote:
       | Apple has hired people from Microsoft Windows's team or what?
        
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       (page generated 2024-02-04 23:02 UTC)