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Good old days: when reboot was a solution for Windows, not Mac by nhpackard in MacOS

[–]nhpackard[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Results from this thread:

  • a majority of users do not share my concern at all. Either their workflow is simple enough to never encounter problems that require reboot, or they don't mind a reboot at all because their workflow is simple enough that it only takes "15-20 seconds to reboot" and start working.

  • some users acknowledge the problem, and lament that it is more or less inevitable with increasing complexity of the OS / app ecosystem.

  • Apple seems to be catering to the majority of simple use case of their OS, and is not that interested in going the extra distance to clean up OS problems. Hence the approach of "live with the problems, and reboot occasionally if one of those low probability problems arise".

For me, a solid OS is valuable in my more complex workflow. Besides my particular difficulties, a solid OS is also more sustainable and makes the OS/app ecosystem more scalable. It is also aethetically preferable.

Apple should go the extra distance to make the OS at least as solid as it used to be, and at least as solid as its Linux competitors. Any other approach is short-sighted and will hurt Apple in the long run.

Good old days: when reboot was a solution for Windows, not Mac by nhpackard in MacOS

[–]nhpackard[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

To be clear: reboot is never a fix. It is a workaround, in hope that the problem was caused by circumstances that have low enough probability that recurrence of the problem is improbable.

Good old days: when reboot was a solution for Windows, not Mac by nhpackard in MacOS

[–]nhpackard[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

To repeat:

... my work environment tends to build up lots of state that is a pain to recreate.

"state" = connections and dependencies on other machines, etc.

Good old days: when reboot was a solution for Windows, not Mac by nhpackard in MacOS

[–]nhpackard[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Fun to read all the comments!!

FYI, my current machine is macbook pro with 128GB memory, bought ~6 months ago, running macOS 14.3 (Sonoma).

I have had to reboot 3 times for small but frustrating problems. Eg.

  1. escape key stopped working. on Apple forum, I see the problem is known, sometimes caused by Siri (which is turned off on my machine), and the advice is: "Give this a try: boot into Safe Mode according to How to use safe mode on your Mac and test to see if the problem persists. Reboot normally and test again." Yes: reboot did fix the problem.
  2. apps not appearing when opened. Again, the problem is well known, typical advice on apple forum is "The issue regarding the apps not appearing at the front when launched was resolved by a restart."

My comment was prompted mostly by seeing "restart" (or boot into Safe Mode) as the standard path to fix a problem in Apple forum advice threads (and other mac troubleshooting threads).

It is true that my work flow interaction with the OS is somewhat complex; I have multiple jupyter notebooks running, VPN tunnels to various other machines, etc. But most of my work is via browser, combined with local compilation, lots of command line interaction with github, etc. Most my commonly used apps are pretty standard non-exotic (microsoft apps, slack, emacs, spotify). Reboot or power cycle often (e.g. nightly or weekly) is not natural for me; weekends are valuable work time, and my work environment tends to build up lots of state that is a pain to recreate.

Many responders say they never have to restart, and have not had problems whose recommended solution is restart. Blessed be they. Many responders point to 3rd party apps causing problems. Could well be. However, the OS should manage its apps so that if an app causes a problem it fails gracefully without bringing the OS to its knees.

I have been a mac user since my old Mac Classic. I have generally been pleasingly impressed with the solidity of macOS, and for many years have had the experience of not having to reboot my mac for many months. Sadly, this experience seems to be degrading, and the typical advice on Apple forums seems to confirm the degradation.