High Sierra Beta
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Its out and I have it installed. The installation has some peculiarities: Remember this is an early beta and glitches are par for the course.- First I had to download and install an "Installer app"
- The installer app installed helper app and then opened App Store to download the High Sierra Installer
- Not unexpectedly the High Installer Kernel Paniced until I unplugged most of the external devices
- APFS is the default file/volume format, but that can be turned off
- As I hoped the conversion from HFS+ to APFS is non-destructive
- the installer time estimates, contrary to my expectations, were close to dead on
- Total installation time including the HFS+ to APFS changeover roughly an hour (I should have kept closer track of time.)
- First broken app: Safari Technology Preview Safari 11 works but it is pinwheeling a LOT (at the moment lots of things are pinwheeling )
- I attempted to reconnect the Thunderbolt hub I had disconnected for the install but that created an immediate Kernel Panic Tomorrow, I will start adding things back one at a time to see where the stopper is and investigate converting my other drives to APFS
Update: the pinwheeling is apparently Safari related. Quit Safari and the pinwheeling stops.
Last edited by joemikeb; 06/30/17 01:29 AM. Reason: update
If we knew what it was we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?
— Albert Einstein
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Re: High Sierra Beta
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This morning the pinwheeling has stopped. Apparently although the system was operational the HFS+ ➠APFS conversion was still going on in background. I am a much happier camper! Because of my own curiosity and because of the interest indicated here, my initial explorations are going to be centered around APFS. At this point the only difference I have noted (other than several hours of pinwheeling) is Disk Utility says the boot drive is formatted APFS. At the moment I am looking for a way to non-destructively convert my other drives. So far I am having no luck. Disk Utility will happily format a drive APFS, APFS (Encrypted), APFS (Case sensitive), or APFS (Case Sensitive, Encrypted) — but unlike High Sierra's installer, all are destructive. CAUTION I just opened Photos and the first thing it did is update the Photos Library. This does not bode well for any of you who might want to run Sierra (or earlier) and High Sierra. You are going to have backward compatibility issues.
If we knew what it was we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?
— Albert Einstein
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Re: High Sierra Beta
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I have been formatting every drive in sight as APFS (Encrypted) doing HFS+ vs APFS performance testing and trying out different apps. So far the results are: - the same rotating rust drive averaged 18% faster reads and 14% faster writes when formatted APFS (encrypted) than when it was formatted HFS+ (Un-encrypted). The full Quickbench report can be seen here. Interestingly Quickbench identified APFS as "WIndows Sharing (SMB/CIFS)
- Carbon Copy Cloner had no difficulty cloning a data drive from HFS+ to APFS (Encrypted) or from APFS (encrypted) to APFS (encrypted) NOTE: that was a data drive and not a boot drive.
- When cloning a bootable APFS volume to an APFS (Encrypted) volume CCC warns the target volume will not be bootable.
CONCLUSION: APFS may be optimized for SSDs, but it is also offers superior performance on rotating rust. I am having a hard time trying to find something not to like about APFS. INTERESTING GLITCH I attempted to print a page from Apple Help by clicking on the share icon and selecting print. The image appeared correct in the print dialog window but when it printed either to the printer or to a PDF it comes out as what can best be described as garbled Japanese and/or Chinese characters. (My second High Sierra Feedback report 🤓)
Last edited by joemikeb; 07/01/17 12:29 AM.
If we knew what it was we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?
— Albert Einstein
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Re: High Sierra Beta
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TIME MACHINE BACKUP KERFUFFLE - Time Machine will only backup to drives formatted HFS+ and not to an APFS drive
- Time Machine will not allow backups from an encrypted APFS volume to an un-encrypted volume
- Time Machine and DiskUtility both support encrypted HFS+ volumes
- At this juncture Time Machine automatically excludes APFS (Encrypted) volumes from backups and unless there is a secrect key to the kingdom I have no yet discovered they cannot be removed from the list of excluded items.
(Sorry Artie but emojis are the only adequate way of expressing my opinion of this Catch 22.) I keep saying to myself, "Self" — that's what I call myself when I am muttering under my breath — "this is an early beta and you've been down this road before. Lets make that my third High Sierra Feedback report." But I really want to express myself in stranger language than that. Surely this will be caught and fixed.
If we knew what it was we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?
— Albert Einstein
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Re: High Sierra Beta
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Joined: Aug 2009
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Joined: Aug 2009
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When your emotions runneth over you've got to do what you've got to do, but I've got no objection to FTM smilies, and, in fact, I frequently use them myself. What I object to is the command-control-shift guys, which I find extremely difficult to discern to the point that I've almost always got to enlarge them to see what they are, so I can then try to figure out what they mean. In their attempt to be expressive of the entire range of human emotions they've blurred together and become obscure, forcing both writer and reader to work harder than should be necessary to make good use of them. Just my opinion. Not being facetious here... just asking from lack of context, but did you really mean " Time Machine and DiskUtility both support encrypted HFS+ volumes" or did you mean APFS volumes?
Last edited by artie505; 07/01/17 10:06 AM. Reason: Cleanup
The new Great Equalizer is the SEND button.
In Memory of Harv: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire
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Re: High Sierra Beta
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Not being facetious here... just asking from lack of context, but did you really mean "Time Machine and DiskUtility both support encrypted HFS+ volumes" or did you mean APFS volumes? Disk Utility can format a drive as HFS+ (encrypted) and if you select a new target volume for Time Machine that volume will be formatted or reformatted HFS+ or HFS+ (encrypted) As a fan of the Command+control+space emoji, I use them a lot in texting, but I wish they could be made larger here. In most apps changing the font size enlarges the emoji quite well but those are actually gif images and the size tag does not work on gifs. 😠:loudly crying face: (That gives me an idea however, I might be able to use HTML) 💡:lightbulb:
If we knew what it was we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?
— Albert Einstein
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Re: High Sierra Beta
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Joined: Aug 2009
Likes: 15
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Joined: Aug 2009
Likes: 15 |
Not being facetious here... just asking from lack of context, but did you really mean "Time Machine and DiskUtility both support encrypted HFS+ volumes" or did you mean APFS volumes? Disk Utility can format a drive as HFS+ (encrypted) and if you select a new target volume for Time Machine that volume will be formatted or reformatted HFS+ or HFS+ (encrypted) Thanks. I follow it now. You're one heck of a beta tester! In their attempt to be expressive of the entire range of human emotions they've blurred together and become obscure, forcing both writer and reader to work harder than should be necessary to make good use of them. ...the size tag does not work on gifs. 😠:loudly crying face: (That gives me an idea however, I might be able to use HTML) 💡:lightbulb: Did you forget the or make my point?
The new Great Equalizer is the SEND button.
In Memory of Harv: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire
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Re: High Sierra Beta
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Joined: Aug 2009
Likes: 16
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OP
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...the size tag does not work on gifs. 😠:loudly crying face: (That gives me an idea however, I might be able to use HTML) 💡:lightbulb: Did you forget the or make my point? I was making your point thus the :lightbulb: comment.
If we knew what it was we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?
— Albert Einstein
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Re: High Sierra Beta
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Joined: Aug 2009
Likes: 15
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Joined: Aug 2009
Likes: 15 |
...the size tag does not work on gifs. 😠:loudly crying face: (That gives me an idea however, I might be able to use HTML) 💡:lightbulb: Did you forget the or make my point? I was making your point thus the :lightbulb: comment. (Not that the lightbulb wasn't immediately recognizable.)
The new Great Equalizer is the SEND button.
In Memory of Harv: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire
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Re: High Sierra Beta
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FAILURES TO DATESo much is working well that it is a lot easier to note the failures I have encountered. Once again this is an early beta and much of what is not working now will be fixed sooner or later. - Time Machine backups from an APFS (encrypted) drive — I don't know about non encrypted
- Bootable CCC clones TO an APFS volume — encrypted or otherwise— they clone but are not bootable.
- SoftRAID — reliable kernel panic. (Still working on this)
- CleanApp 5.1.2 — hangs reliably
- TechTool Pro 9.5.1 — Hardware tests run normally but confusing reports of volumes on APFS formatted drives. Almost all volume analysis and repair features greyed out and unavailable.
- Drive Genius 5.0.1 — Correctly identifies the boot volume as formatted AppleAPFSMedia, but also shows an overlapping volume diskos3, on the same drive but all the repair and rebuild functions are greyed out. The volumes on the HD data drive are correctly identified but like the boot drive, most of the functionality is greyed out on the APFS volume.
- OnyX refuses to open and exits cleanly no HIgh Sierra version available yet
- Tinkertool and Tinkertool System needed to be updated but are working
Actually not bad for an early beta.
If we knew what it was we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?
— Albert Einstein
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Re: High Sierra Beta
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Joined: Aug 2009
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Joined: Aug 2009
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I don't know about your situation, but my SSD and its 13 second chime to desktop boots has made beta testing that necessitates restarting considerably less unpleasurable an experience than it used to be, although having to enter my password three times after every restart has more than compensated. -->
The new Great Equalizer is the SEND button.
In Memory of Harv: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire
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Re: High Sierra Beta
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...although having to enter my password three times after every restart has more than compensated. --> My boot time I’d longer than 13 seconds, but this is an early beat release. My greatest annoyance arose when I elected to encrypt the boot drive. I use a Bluetooth keyboard and trackpad and Bluetooth often doesn’t turn on until the user has been selected and and the password entered – Which means I have to keep a wired keyboard and mouse around for use when I cold boot. . But that problem preceded High Sierra. My question to you is about the three passwords. What three passwords? – I am getting along just fine with only one!
If we knew what it was we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?
— Albert Einstein
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Re: High Sierra Beta
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Joined: Aug 2009
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Joined: Aug 2009
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...although having to enter my password three times after every restart has more than compensated. --> My question to you is about the three passwords. What three passwords? – I am getting along just fine with only one! After every start and restart I've got to deal with these three guys . I'm pretty sure it began with Sierra, and I've accepted it as a new consequence of my login and keychain passwords differing. Has that been a bad assumption?
The new Great Equalizer is the SEND button.
In Memory of Harv: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire
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Re: High Sierra Beta
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Easy fix. Somewhere along the line your account password has been changed but not the password for your keychains. - Launch Keychain Access
- Select one of the keychains
- on the Keychain Menu Bar select Edit > Change password for keychain "XXXXX" ...
- For curent password enter the password you have been using to unlock that keychain
- For the new keychain enter the exact password you are using for your account
- Repeat these steps for each of the three keychains involved
If we knew what it was we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?
— Albert Einstein
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Re: High Sierra Beta
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ANOTHER APFS TRIAL
I got to thinking about TechTool Pro's ProToGo and EDrive and decided to see if by any chance it could create a bootable image of High Sierra. The answer is no it cannot. As I have said the developers of Diskwarrior, Drive Genius, and TechTool Pro have a long row to hoe getting compatible with High Sierra and APFS. On top of that much of their value and justification in the past has been rendered questionable if not moot by APFS.
If we knew what it was we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?
— Albert Einstein
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Re: High Sierra Beta
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NEW SAFARI SECURITY FEATURESI have referred to this in another thread where I was talking about Safari Technology Preview. As far as I can tell Safari 11.0 in High Sierra is the same as the Safari Technology Preview I was running in Sierra. IMO the most notable new feature is found in Safari > Preferences > Websites where on a site-by-site basis Safari allows the user to control access to - Reader
- Content blockers
- auto play
- Page zoom
- Camera
- Microphone
- Locations
- Notifications
As far as I can determine they all work well but…. (there is almost always a "but" isn't there?)… while having control on a site by site basis is perhaps essential, that means it has to be configured individually for each site which can be time consuming not to mention annoying. It might be better if these were on an opt-out rather than opt-in basis? NOTEThere is now a Safari Technology Preview Release 34 (Safari 11.0, WebKit 13604.1.27.0.1) that is compatible with High Sierra. I have not encountered any obvious differences between it and Safari 11.0 so my guess is any differences are deep under the hood.
Last edited by joemikeb; 07/06/17 01:28 PM.
If we knew what it was we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?
— Albert Einstein
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Re: High Sierra Beta
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MORE ON SAFARI'S WEBSITE FEATURESSafari's new website access features can be accessed through Safari > Preferences > Website or through adding the Website icon to a customized tool bar. The more I play with them the better I like them. This feature is available in… So you don't have to be running the High Sierra beta to be able to try them out.
Last edited by joemikeb; 07/06/17 02:03 PM. Reason: add URL
If we knew what it was we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?
— Albert Einstein
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Re: High Sierra Beta
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MY PUBLIC BETA TESTING SCRIPTWhen I installed the original OS X public Beta (OS X 0), - I become acutely sensitive to the smallest and most insignificant hesitation, blip, whatever afraid I am about to discover I have boxed myself into an untenable corner I cannot escape from — High Sierra is no exception!
- To my relief that has not happened yet — that too includes High Sierra.
- Inevitably my hyper sensitivity sends me scurrying to investigate fix minuscule issues I have been living with because I was too busy to dig out the solution before then — that too includes High Sierra.
- Digging out solutions inevitably finds me taking a fearless inventory of apps and weeding out those I never use, can't remember what they do, developer has dropped out of sight, etc. — that too includes High Sierra.
- Somewhere along the line I become aware of the tangled rats nest of wires on the back and under my computer desk and spend an afternoon reshuffling and re-organizing the wiring — that to includes High Sierra
- I end up looking at my re-roganized computer desk, marvel at how smoothly the computer is running, wipe the sweat from my brow and congratulate myself on another successful beta installation (or is that dodging another self inflicted bullet in the foot) — that too is true of High Sierra
That does not mean everything is perfect or there is no more work to do. With High Sierra there are a few issues yet to be resolved before I am ready to call it complete. - I have OWC's Thunderbay mini RAID array enclosure configured RAID 5 under SoftRAID 5.6. The enclosure was working perfectly under Sierra but under HIgh Sierra but if the enclosure is attached and powered up about the time the drivers load the system kernel panics — reliably every time. SoftRAID Tech Support is on the problem. The same thing happened with the early Sierra betas.
- Time Machine and APFS (encrypted) formatted drives don't play nice with one another. Apple has been notified and I am confident they will solve this — eventually.
- CCC will clone the boot drive but the clone is not bootable and I don't know about recovering from a CCC clone.
That leaves me with no workable Time Machine media until Apple fixes Time Machine which does not give me any warm fuzzy feelings My consolation is all of my critical data is mirrored on iCloud. 😟🤞🹠.
If we knew what it was we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?
— Albert Einstein
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Re: High Sierra Beta
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CCC will clone the boot drive but the clone is not bootable.... Specifically, don't you mean that a CCC clone of an APFS volume to another APFS volume isn't bootable? It's already been established that a CCC clone of an APFS volume to a HFS+ volume IS bootable. (Thanks for figuring out how to enlarge emojis. <p style="font-size:36px;"> </p> It doesn't work with smilies, but they're not obscure like emojis, so it doesn't really matter.)
The new Great Equalizer is the SEND button.
In Memory of Harv: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire
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Re: High Sierra Beta
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Specifically, don't you mean that a CCC clone of an APFS volume to another APFS volume isn't bootable? It's already been established that a CCC clone of an APFS volume to a HFS+ volume IS bootable. I have not personally verified that, but I will let you know when I do.
If we knew what it was we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?
— Albert Einstein
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Re: High Sierra Beta
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THE RESULTS ON SAFARI ARE INI don't have the facility to test this myself, but OWC's Rocket Yard has tested and reported on the performance of Safari 11 and Safari Technology Preview compared to Chrome, Opera, and Firefox. Take a look at the Rocket Yard article for details but in general the ranking from fastest to slowest was: - safari Technology Preview
- Safari 11
- Opera
- Chrome
- Firefox
With one exception, thruput, Firefox was a distant last and the two Safaris switched the lead back and forth. It is interesting the runners up, Opera and Chrome, are both based on a Webkit branch. It would appear the age of the Firefox engine is showing. 😎
If we knew what it was we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?
— Albert Einstein
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Re: High Sierra Beta
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Specifically, don't you mean that a CCC clone of an APFS volume to another APFS volume isn't bootable? It's already been established that a CCC clone of an APFS volume to a HFS+ volume IS bootable. I have not personally verified that, but I will let you know when I do. I have verifies that using CCC and cloning from an encrypted APFS drive to an HFS+ volume does create a bootable clone, but on initial examination... - Booting from the clone is slow — so slow that the screen blanked before the screen display came on. FWIW the test drive is USB 3.
- The cloned drive is NOT encrypted so that protection is gone
- The cloned drive can freely open files on the encrypted APFS volumes
This will take a lot more investigation, but it appears cloning can easily defeat any protection from APFS (encrypted) drives. 🙅â€â™‚ï¸ UPDATESee the following post. You can clone to an encrypted HFS+ volume which is good, but the venerability to an unencrypted clone is a major security gap. Time Machine won't allow you to choose an unencrypted backup volume for an APFS encrypted — but I haven't gotten that to work — yet.
Last edited by joemikeb; 07/10/17 11:08 PM. Reason: Update
If we knew what it was we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?
— Albert Einstein
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Re: High Sierra Beta
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If we knew what it was we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?
— Albert Einstein
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Re: High Sierra Beta
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If we knew what it was we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?
— Albert Einstein
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Re: High Sierra Beta
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If we knew what it was we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?
— Albert Einstein
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