Forced upgrade to Sonoma: can it be stopped?

If still need be…

Open Terminal and run each of these one at a time

/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Versions/A/Support/lsregister -kill -r -domain local -domain system -domain user

sudo /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Support/lsregister -kill -seed -lint -r -f -v -dump -domain local -domain system -domain user -domain network

killall Dock

sudo mdutil -E /

sudo mdutil -i on /

Rebuilding a drive index can take a long time, so be prepared to wait whether you do it through the System Preference panel or the command line.

My 2018 MacBook pro just updated itself to Sonoma from Ventura. I was holding off because one of the household computers is too old for Sonoma... WTF apple? I only had the 'security updates' set for automatic..

BDAqua wrote:

killall Dock

For those keeping score at home, you'll need to restart at some point after this command. I had assumed it would be like relaunching the Finder. Supposedly these system tasks automatically restart themselves. Not this one.

I did go ahead and do the other two commands, but the otherwise the UI was pretty useless without the Dock, so I restarted. Spotlight is still doing its reindex after the restart. Hopefully my apps come back after it completes.

BDAqua wrote:

Thanks for the report, took awhile here but Dock eventually came back without a restart‽

Doesn't matter. Didn't work anyway.

I have found the problem and a workaround. It seems that when you restore from Time Machine, none of your apps will be recognized until you launch them. Of course, Apple apps are exempted. I just need to go through and manually run all my apps.

BDAqua wrote:

Ah, I only use Clones, TM has only let me down when I needed it.

Not going there!

At any rate, the situation appears to be resolved. The last and final hiccup was an undetectable "Install macOS" app on the machine I used to make my bootable installer. I managed to fix that by moving it to /tmp and restarting. Then Apple's supersuperroot was able to delete it.

Hi all, another forced update user here today. I made a thread for my issue here before finding this: Sonoma installed itself - Apple Community

I've also submitted a bug report to Apple. Hopefully we get an answer as to why this has happened. I use Pro Tools and other legacy software not qualified for Sonoma and now most of it isn't working.

I was forced to upgrade on 1/16/2024. I find it interesting and my Time Machine backup stopped working. The USB stopped working. An unplug and replug usually fixes this. However, this time a restart was necessary. After the restart, which took suspiciously long, the login screen came up Sonoma.

Not cool Apple. In 20 years, I've never experienced this.

Bryan Mac, this reminds me that when it happened to me, I restarted because I was trying to copy files to an external hard drive via USB. They wouldn't copy and it kept hanging so I restarted to try and resolve the issue. It did resolve the file copy issue but lo and behold Sonoma appeared.

I'm not sure if dumping the USB like that is part of the install process, but it's something that happened to me too.

I had exactly the same issue yesterday.

The Sonoma notification appeared and I dismissed it, but at the next reboot it upgraded to Sonoma without ever ask for permission.

Apple must stop this immediately. Whether by bug or by design it must stop now.

I am a Developer and have been doing this since 1986. Today my 16" MBP went from Monterey to Sonoma without my permission. I was intentionally keeping it on Monterey for testing purposes. It will take a full day to take it back to where it was. Apple was never like this when Steve was around.

One last update for those following this issue. After using my restored computer for over a week, I'm finding quite a number of corrupt files. I was able to fix some of them in my git projects. And just now I found a corrupt file inside Xcode. I fixed that by reinstalling Xcode. But I have a 1 TB hard drive. I've only touched a few GBs since the restore and a scary amount of that data was corrupt. What else is corrupt? Are my iCloud documents corrupt too?

I'm turning off Time Machine so I don't do any more damage. I can't trust any backups since the last one from Monterey before the forced upgrade.

Tomorrow I'll get started on rebuilding this computer. Luckily for me, I practice what I preach. I have another computer that's just as good that I can use while I rebuild this one.

I used to be a big fan of Time Machine. This has shaken my confidence significantly.

etresoft wrote:

Based on my experience, there are really only two upgrade options - now or later.

Fully accepted. Like many people, however, I want it to be later ... that is, when I decide to upgrade.

I need to have stable systems; automatic updates put that stability at great risk. That's why I block all automatic updates to as great an extent as possible.

Still trying to get iCloud to download files. There is no "just do it" command. You have to uncheck the "optimize" button, because the description is wrong. When it says "The full contents of iCloud Drive will be stored on this Mac if you have enough space" it's lying. But even that doesn't work.

I seem to have stumbled upon a method. Run "brctl monitor" in the Terminal. Then try to control-click or right-click on "Download Now". This will cause Finder to lock up with a beachball. Control-C to break out of brctl to release the Finder. Try this procedure two more times. That seems to have kicked it off.

The only remaining cloud download icons are on the Desktop and Documents folder inside my iCloud Drive. But they are already fully downloaded. brctl says they need a sync-up.

Is there a way to check (or better yet, set) softwareupdate settings via Terminal? So far, my research has not come up with any Terminal commands to do that.

If only softwareupdate --ignore had not been deprecated!

Yup.

Happened to me as well last week. Thanks Apple!

To whom do I send the bill for 14 hrs of work trying to and failing to revert to a Time Machine backup, then having to format the drive, reset the machine to factory OS, upgrade to Monterey, update to most recent version and then install all applications I had on my system?