Latest Security Update (2021-004) broke my Catalina Mac Mini

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Level 2

163 points

Latest Security Update (2021-004) broke my Catalina Mac Mini

A few days ago, got a notification that there was a Security Update on my Mac Mini running on Catalina 10.15.7 so I let it do its thing and when it restarted, the progress bar didn't seem to be moving from zero so I just left it and from another room I heard it restart but after a while it reached the same point with an empty progress bar. I was getting a bit anxious and it was late, so I just left it overnight.

The next morning, it had rebooted but everything felt really sluggish - applications took several minutes to open and were unresponsive when they did. I decided to reboot to see if it helped but the reboot took over nine minutes from the Apple logo to icons on the desktop - it had previously been about half a minute.

I lived with this for a few days as I had an online exam to take yesterday and I could not afford to make anything worse - though there were interruptions to my exam. Once that was out of the way, I tried Disk Utility and all the normal things, reset the SMC and PRAM and did some housekeeping (properly removed some applications which I no longer use) - none of which helped - so today, I reinstalled the OS and things became a little more normal. However, the Security Update wanted to be installed again, so I let it hoping that the problem would not reoccur but it did.

The only way around this seems to be to disable automatic updates but that would not seem to be the best long term plan but what else can I do?

Mac mini, macOS 10.15

Posted on Jul 28, 2021 8:50 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

D.I. Johnson

Level 8

35,825 points

Jul 28, 2021 8:54 AM in response to Alf Megson

If rebooting, resetting SMC and NVRAM of your Mac didn’t fix the problem, see if the problem still happens in Safe mode (hold the shift key down at startup). It can take much longer (10 min) to safe boot so be patient.

How to use safe mode on your Mac - Apple Support

Safe mode forces the OS to clear certain caches and logs and do other miscellaneous housekeeping. It's non-destructive to user data so is safe to do. Very often certain weird software behavior is corrected by simply logging in this way as a troubleshooting method. When you're in safe boot, the machine will not be at its best performance, especially with graphics, but that's normal.

Does the problem persist while in Safe mode?

Exit safe mode by restarting your Mac normally and re-evaluate the issue again after a normal reboot.

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Answer 2

Alf Megson Author

Level 2

163 points

Aug 13, 2021 5:58 AM in response to Alf Megson

I finally fixed this on my Mac Mini but problems on my MBP 15 are ongoing so I will start another thread.

As I said, I bought a new SSD but I finally succeeded by doing a fresh install of Catalina then installed the update then migrated my account from the old SSD.

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Answer 3

Alf Megson Author

Level 2

163 points

Jul 30, 2021 8:13 AM in response to Alf Megson

Well, this does not look good.

I bought a new 2TB Crucial MX500 SSD and installed Catalina on it with my 15" MBP. On boot up, it said that it wanted to install the Security Update. Half an hour later, I take a look - the screen is black - the fans spin up when I press a key but nothing else . Okay, I think, leave it and see what happens. Another half an hour later, the same thing. I force reboot and I get to log in but then the Security Update wants to install again.

So, I'm waiting to see what happens and do a little online searching and to my utter lack of amazement, since yesterday when I last looked, there are quite a few other people on other Macs having very similar problems with Security Update 2021-004 on Catalina.

Anyway, I don't think that it can be anything other than the Security update itself at this point. Fresh install on a new SSD works fine, add the update and the problems start.

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Answer 4

_HighC_

Level 1

8 points

Aug 15, 2021 6:32 AM in response to Alf Megson

I have the same problem with my 27 in 2013 imac after applying the latest security update ( 2021-004).

After a two clean installs of Catalina ( 10.15.7) with updates on, I turned all updates off after a number of spontaneous reboots/crashes. I tried to get the OS back there where it was in Feb-March of this year when I remembered it being stable by another clean install and applying only the security patches up to that point ( 2020-001 & 2021-001 ). These can be manually downloaded and applied to the OS.

What I found:

I still encountered a reboot after security update 2020-001 after about 3 days.
I have not encountered any reboots after 2021-001 and its been a week or so, although I did get a message that the "Mac has encountered a problem" but it did not reboot, and I could not find any crash reporting in the console for that incident. Again, I got the message 3 days after the machine was started.

In my case, I think the sluggishness after the crash is due to the the photos app trying to sync itself with iCloud. A folder pops up in photos called "unable to upload to iCloud" and it kicks random photos into it. The only way to stop the behaviour is to toggle on/off iCloud photos from the system preferences. After that you wait for 6-8 hrs ( > 10,000 photos/video ) to sync itself up to icloud.

I think my problem is tied to the graphic card ( Nvidia ) but cannot be for certain. Apple has stopped using these cards in 2015 and Nvidia has stopped supporting Macs.

I just wanted to share my experience with this issue. However I don't consider the issue solved, it is only at a better place.

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Answer 5

Owl-53

Level 10

104,737 points

Jul 30, 2021 2:45 AM in response to Alf Megson

The Security Update 2021-004 on my Ancient iMac late 2012 on Catalina included a Boot ROM update. Can not say if other machines also running Catalina and applied the Security Update 2021-004 received too.

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Answer 6

Aug 15, 2021 5:01 AM in response to Alf Megson

I'm having the same issue, but on a MacBook Po. Installed the latest security update yesterday and ever since my mac randomly crashes continually. I maybe get about 3 or 4 minute of use out of it and it goes down.

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Answer 7

Alf Megson Author

Level 2

163 points

Jul 30, 2021 4:19 AM in response to Owl-53

I found this application, SilentKnight, which I installed and it reported that I'm up to date.

https://eclecticlight.co/lockrattler-systhist/

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Answer 8

Alf Megson Author

Level 2

163 points

Jul 28, 2021 9:27 AM in response to D.I. Johnson

At first, I thought that had helped a bit. The reboot time seemed a bit quicker but I wasn't paying attention but when I tried to open an empty folder, there was SBBoD for about five seconds. I wouldn't even expect that with HDDs but I have an SSD which is just a few months old, less than half its capacity has been used and I haven't exactly been a heavy user recently.

I'll give it some time but I think I could end up reinstalling Catalina tomorrow and giving the Security Update a miss and hope that it gets addressed with the other issues with 2012-004 I have been reading about whilst trying to find answers to my problem.

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Answer 9

Alf Megson Author

Level 2

163 points

Jul 30, 2021 1:17 AM in response to D.I. Johnson

After using my Mac for a day or so after following your advice, I'd say that any difference is marginal. Startup time may be a bit quicker but launching applications is painfully slow, e.g. 20s to launch Telegram (the App Store version).

The only exception seems to be Apple applications, I don't use Safari as my default browser but it launches practically instantly - which to me seems to suggest that there is something in the Security Update which is impeding non-Apple applications.

I'm going to try a clean Catalina installation on a new SSD and apply the Security Update before I migrate my account and see if the problem exists before the migration.

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Answer 10

Alf Megson Author

Level 2

163 points

Jul 30, 2021 4:13 AM in response to Owl-53

Thanks for the information. It certainly opens up another possibility to look into. I think that to some extent (I could very well be wrong, of course), Mac Minis, iMacs and MacBooks have similar guts so maybe there has been a Boot ROM update. I just did a quick search without any obvious results but I will persist.

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Answer 11

Alf Megson Author

Level 2

163 points

Jul 30, 2021 4:43 AM in response to D.I. Johnson

I just had to reboot my Catalina 2012 MacBook Pro and it has the same problem.

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Answer 12

Alf Megson Author

Level 2

163 points

Jul 30, 2021 11:05 AM in response to Alf Megson

On my Mac Mini, I just tried to open About This Mac - it took 1m 50s.

This is ridiculous.

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Answer 13

Alf Megson Author

Level 2

163 points

Aug 15, 2021 5:22 AM in response to caisbrewer

I had the same problem on my 2012 MacBook Pro 15 and eventually almost fixed it the same way as I did with the Mac Mini. Clean install on a new drive, install update and migrate account from old drive. I tried migrating from Time Machine once previously and it was such a mess, I would avoid doing it again.

However, my MacBook Pro boots in Safe Mode by default now. To boot in normal mode, I have to hold the Alt key. I cannot boot in Recovery Mode - it just boots normally, Internet Recovery Mode won't accept my WiFi password and when connected via Ethernet, stops at about 75% and shows the forbidden sign. Obviously, I cannot choose the boot disk by holding the Alt key as that just boots normally now and I cannot boot in Diagnostics mode, reset the PRAM or SMC - though I have tried reseting the PRAM using Terminal.

An internet search initially only found suggestions that it might be a faulty keyboard (shift key) but the keyboard works fine once booted so I doubt that it is that. However, when I searched on YouTube, I found a few videos which showed how to bypass the Safe Boot mode in a similar way to how I did it but as the hundreds of comments under each video indicated, this is not a fix, it only solves the problem for each boot cycle. This seems to have been an issue for some time so not directly related to Catalina Security Update 2021-004 but it wasn't a problem when I last booted my MacBook Pro a few days before the update.

How this problem is so widespread and has not been addressed or even acknowledged is beyond me.

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Latest Security Update (2021-004) broke my Catalina Mac Mini

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