Since 10.15.1. update apropos is broken

I noticed the same thing, and confirmed that it started with 10.15.1.

The command actually works, but it spits out nearly 300 lines of “Not a directory” errors.

I initially thought that perhaps it wasn’t handling symlinks correctly, but many of the errors are not from symlinks so the problem is something else.

I was also concerned at first that the problem might be deeper than just “makewhatis” but after a little more investigation not so much.

I’ve added a function to my .zshrc as a workaround:

apo() { apropos $1 2>/dev/null }

It seems to work as a qad solution.

I usually use man -k for such searches. On Mojave...

apropos smb

cupsaddsmb(8)            - export printers to samba for windows clients

mount_smbfs(8)           - mount a shared resource from an SMB file server

nsmb.conf(5)             - configuration file for SMB requests

smb-sync-preferences(8)  - synchronize SMB server preferences

smbd(8)                  - SMB server daemon

smbdiagnose(8)           - gather information to aid in diagnosing SMB file sharing issues

smbutil(1)               - interface to the SMB requester

which is the same as...

 man -k smb

cupsaddsmb(8)            - export printers to samba for windows clients

mount_smbfs(8)           - mount a shared resource from an SMB file server

nsmb.conf(5)             - configuration file for SMB requests

smb-sync-preferences(8)  - synchronize SMB server preferences

smbd(8)                  - SMB server daemon

smbdiagnose(8)           - gather information to aid in diagnosing SMB file sharing issues

smbutil(1)               - interface to the SMB requester

Does man -k work properly on 10.15.1?

Thanks for the tip about the apo workaround -- what a pain to have to wade thru 300 or so lines of errors every time you do a "man -k" -- how in the world did this ever not get discovered before 15.1 got released???

Nope. Both commands are really the same, and 'man -k' does the same thing.

I've mounted the RO directories RW and re-run makewhatis. Still doesn't work. All the individual whatis look fine.