Everything Apple (the Mac heads thread)

10th gen CPUs have 4 PCIe lanes connected to TB3 too which means better eGPU performance.
I set mine up again today, still great.

Nice, have fun with the new machine!

Are there improvements regarding the 720p camera by any chance?
😅

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kl0E8p2IBmw

Oh no, I havent bought this round, waiting for the next, can see how you got the wrong end of the stick there...

set my egpu up agian, with my current MBP (2017).

May get next gen 14inch or a Mac mini.

The home button has stopped working on my iPhone 6s. Has anyone replaced the button themselves?

Looks tricky but doable.

https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/iPhone+6s+Home+Button+Assembly+Replacement/55764

Worst case replace it with a new SE

Or with a refurbished 6s for 1/3 the price..

hi do you think the 2012 macbook pro 2.9 i7 is still worth buying , see they are still going for a lot of dough ?

Retina? 13-inch?

I wouldn't pay a lot for one. One good thing is there's far less performance difference between 2012 and 2020 than there has been over any similar time span, but on the other hand there's a fair chance it won't be covered by the next version of MacOS.

I'd look for something a generation or two newer - the battery life and heat output greatly improved over time.

Hi @grams no it was the non retina version that is upgradable to 16gb ram

Hi with regards to the OS have a 2008 MacBook Pro that’s running Sierra which has given it an extra lifeline . Could probably install the latest OS but that might be pushing my luck maybe ha

do you think the 2012 macbook pro 2.9 i7 is still worth buying

definitely not

For the non-retina, there's probably some odd enthusiasts who want the last machine with upgradeable ram and conventional hard disks and CD drives which would inflate prices a little, but if you don't need those things they're junk.

Hardly a dealbreaker for me could maybe just pull them out and add a couple of SSD’s instead .
What would be another cheapish option for 16+ gb ram then please ?

I received my MBP 2020! Yay!

It's faulty! Wait wut?

Yeah, my first ever Mac... and the fault goes like this...

I have a USB 2 keyboard (Filco) and a USB 2 mouse (Razer) and a USB 3 camera (Elgato)... so I need an external hub... this is OK, I have 3 hubs at my disposal:

• A StarTech.com 7 port USB C hub (5 USB 3, 2 USB C)
  
• A Satechi USB C hub (3 USB 3, 1 Eth, 1 HDMI, USB C power pass through)
  
• An Anker USB C hub (4 USB 3)
  
  

Great... I have hubs.

So I plug all the things in the Satechi, connect it... and after a while the keyboard and mouse stop working. They worked for a while (not obviously hardware issue) and then they stop working. Yet... the camera still works and it's connected to the same device!? Strange.

I try StarTech hub... same thing happens. After a while, 5 minutes... 2 hours... whatever... the keyboard and mouse stop working. But the camera still works! That too is all in the same hub... so the hub is fine, and it's now a different hub, so the common delimiter is the MacBook Pro 2020.

I do all of this again without the mouse... same shit.

I do all of this again without the keyboard... same shit.

I do all of this again without the camera... same shit.

Each time, a reboot will bring the USB devices back for sure, but sometimes that do magically start working, but this is not common.

So now I go online and I learn about SMC reset...

• Left Control + Left Option + Right Shift
  
  

Same shit.

Then I contact Apple, and they have me do:

• Press d whilst it boots, run diagnostic... all good.
  
• Left Option + Left Command (or was it Control?) + P + R - this is Twister on the keyboard, whatever this is did not work - I think this was Safe Mode!?
  
• Disk Utility > First Aid
  
• Create a test user, login as that and does it still happen? Yes it does.
  
  

Exhausted... another 2 calls later and I've made a discovery!

If I put the keyboard in one USB C hub, and the mouse in another USB C hub and the camera in the other USB C hub... then the keyboard and mouse still fail at the same time, and the camera keeps working.

Additionally, in System Information under USB devices, I can disconnect the camera and refresh and the camera is gone, I can plug it in to another device and it's there again... so USB 3.1 works via any hub all the time.

But... when either the keyboard or mouse fail, which are both USB 2.0 devices... then System Information shows them as being connected even if I disconnect them. Even if I move them to another hub they still show as being connected to the original hub.

Weirder still is that this discovery led to something else... it's only the USB 2.0 devices... these fail regardless of whether they utilise the same or different USB C hubs and thunderbolt ports.

At this time they've escalated to an engineer with all this information.

My hypothesis though: The MacBook Pro has a USB 2.0 controller for all devices connected to the system bus regardless of which thunderbolt / usb-c connection it is connected to. And something is wrong with that.

I appear to have a motherboard failure on a brand new MBP 2020. And boy is that frustrating for my first personally owned Apple laptop ever.

I await the engineer, which is probably next week.

I’d prob just return it then buy another, to hell with all that messing about.

Same issue with my MBA 2020 vs. the mouse (KB is wireless) for almost two months, swapped the noname USB-C hub for a "proper" Anker, still the same. What I discovered is, apart from rebooting, if I connect the hub's USB3 to another USB3 hub (posh Dell monitor) and connect the mouse there, it works. I think it's not about hardware as a reboot fixes the issue for me too.

Good to hear somebody dealing with this through the proper channels. I pinged my friend in Cupertino and he promised he'll take a look at the internal bug reports etc., but our communication is one-way most of the time as he can't let stuff slip.

I have figured this shit out.

Apple have an OSX Catalina software bug that is somehow related to the refresh polls for USB 2.0 devices that are directly connected to the motherboard USB 2.0 system bus.

"Directly connected" needs qualifying... if the external USB C hubs are actually terminating the connections the problem doesn't surface, but if the USB C hubs appear to be some kind of transparent proxy then OSX has trouble.

So... what's an example of a workaround that works?

Example 1: A monitor with a USB hub, where that is connected to a USB-C hub to the Mac and the USB 2.0 devices are connected to the monitor... no issues at all. The monitor appears to be terminating the connections and presents them to the Mac with slightly different info the System Information view.

Example 2: Using a CalDigit TS3+ USB-C hub, well that thing can take a lot of connections and appears to use it's own terminating hub within the CalDigit... the USB 2.0 devices connected to it now work.

But... in every example of a transparent proxy USB-C hub that I have (Anker, Satechi, StarTech) the USB 2.0 devices will fail.

Why does the workaround work? If you look at Apple Logo > About this Mac > System Information before and after you will see that any time the USB 2.0 devices appear to the Mac as a USB 2.0 device the issue will emerge. Yet when a USB hub terminates the connection it will present these to the Mac as a USB 3.0 device connected to a USB 3.0 hub... and in this scenario the issue never emerges.

Hence... the bug is in OSX when it sees USB 2.0 devices. Not instantly, so not hardware. And those same devices presented as USB 3.0 via a hub that appears to terminate the USB and present it with slightly different attributes does not exhibit the problem.

Now... it could be that the argument is that my USB 2.0 devices are not compatible with OSX... but my answer to that would be:

1. WTF!? It's USB
   
2. A Razer DeathAdder!?!
   
3. A Filco keyboard?!?
   
4. Both of those!?!?!?! (because I tried each one individually without the other, and they will still error)
   
   

And the cost of this debugging? I'd place it around around £600... for the CalDigit TS3+, the StarTech 7 port USB-C hub, the Satechi USB-C hub, fresh USB cables for the above, fresh HDMI cable for the Elgato CamLink.

There's no point returning the Mac... this is an operating system error, hence it affecting the MacBook Air 2020 too.

I also found this bug described in a load of forums without clear resolution:

• https://discussions.apple.com/thread/250793274
  
• https://discussions.apple.com/thread/251258178
  
• https://discussions.apple.com/thread/250803313
  
• https://discussions.apple.com/thread/251356598
  
• https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/375745/intermittent-detection-of-usb-2-0-keyboard-thru-anker-hub-on-macos-catalina
  
• https://help.elgato.com/hc/en-us/articles/360028234451-USB-2-0-devices-may-have-problems-connecting-to-Mac-USB-3-0-ports
  
  

End of all of this... buy the Caldigit TS3+ USB-C it is awesome.

Yup... your comment and one of the forum posts set me off down a rabbit hole of USB hubs and whether they are a terminating or transparent proxy.

That’s some pretty impressive detective work, are Apple aware of the issue?

On a dif note, Apple missed the boat with smart home gubbins, discontinuing AirPort as the competition just got better. I’ve just imported a Nest Secure alarm and it’s brilliant especially since it links up with all my other nest stuff (obviously).
If I migrate my account to a google one I’ll move to managing everything in google home app which will lead me to buying a nest mwah system so I can manage it all in one app.

That’s some pretty impressive detective work, are Apple aware of the issue?

They will be on Monday.

I don't think anyone has presented to them enough debugging for their engineers to make sense of it. But I'm an engineer, I'm not good with accepting things without understanding them.

Nice work. Did you use any other software other than System Information to enumerate the USB IDs etc? To me the info in SI looked pretty similar on both cases, so I gave up without digging any further. Should've taken screenshots.

I don't know how to use a Mac, so I tried rooting around in Console to look at logs but there was nothing pertinent.

I really did this solely with System Information and refreshing it on every change I took and then deducing what it might be.

Caldigit TS3+ USB-C

For £300 odd? What makes it better than a £80 one? All I need is to hook up a few usb hdd’s

Well I can guarantee it's going to work even if those USB HDDs are USB 2.0 in their controllers.

Check the links of those reporting bugs, at least one reported hard drives failing intermittently... essentially the same bug.

What do you get for your £230 (not £300)?

Every device is connected to a USB 3.0 hub, an external sound card that can drive high ohm headphones and has an optical output, 5 USB-A connectors, 3 USB-C connectors, the power to the hub also powers the laptop (rid yourself of another cable), an SD card reader, a DisplayPort plug... and one very clean desk.

Basically... this isn't an adapter so much as it's a mini-computer providing a full Mac dock in a single cable to your Mac... and anything you attach to it will work even if Apple don't fix their USB 2.0 Catalina bug.

I wish I'd bought this from the outset... because I did buy an £80 one (the StarTech), and an Apple SD Card reader... and was only £100 off the price of this, which was then additionally wasted trying to debug the issue I found.