macos Sequoia causing problems with messages on mac

@BDAqua - was I meant is I cannot tell the difference (if there is one) between a reply to a specific comment and one to the original post. So when someone says, "that did not work for me" I am unsure which "that" they are talking about. All I see is all the posts at the same level in chronological order. But thanks for the reply.

macluddite wrote:

What a go screw yourself "solution".

In their defense, they were just trying to give me a solution that would work immediately, since I mentioned I had good backups. But I get it. As for a solution, I don't see anything related in the upcoming release notes. My feedback issue vanished from the Feedback Assistant. Unsure what that means. Hey, maybe we could all be pleasantly surprised? Maybe? OK, ya probably not.

So sad, so not entirely unexpected. Apple, IMHO, has fallen prey to the same hustle bro tech as many other tech companies. They have forgotten to care about their customers, charge a lot of money for their products, and focus on glitz without function. That's a broad statement, I realize, but it's how I feel about them and most of tech. The only way we're going to get meaningful change is to ditch them (which really isn't much of an option because the alternatives are not much better) or we're doing to have to publicly shame them, and that's even more difficult. I do think writing and mailing actual, physical letters to Apple (and any other company) executives and board members is potentially more effective (though more time consuming) because they don't have automated processes to simply ignore. So, if your response is correct, we're stuck with a new problem we have to work around. So sad, so sad, so sad.

• Sorry, the way replies are threaded here is terrible

Likely the problem is Apple's bizarre choice of display order, the default isn't normal.

Go here...

MarianV’s Profile - Apple Community

Click on Edit Profile &settings near the top at the right, scroll down until you see other preferences>Default Sort Order, chose Oldest.:)

15.0.1 is not addressing the issue for me either with TorGuard nor PIA. The afore mentioned workarounds still work, but without them, Apple services are still not working with the latest version of both.

I'm switching my workflow to another messaging app. Every other one I have installed still works perfect with VPN on and I'm done waiting for a fix from Apple. I still feel like this is a loss for the customer since it's not ideal to tell everyone I message that I'll no longer be using Apple's Message service. Ah well. I'm out!

I have to agree with @mhgrau about installing beta software. It is for sites on the net that review Apple software and hardware and Developers not the average user. Apple would love more beta testers but the way I look at it is Apple is trillion dollar company on paper and they have the resources to beta test there own software using their own Mac's and iPhones and iPads. Leave beta testing to the people that wrote the code, even though I find Sequoia 15.0.1 still in beta.

I am missing messages on my 2023 MBP that I get on my iPhone 15. Also, I can no loner send messages to at least one contact on my MBP. MBP is running Mac OS 15.0.1. Have not been able to manually sync messages.

Thanks for your suggestion. Unfortunately, it didn't work. I'm not currently running my VPN (NordVPN) and I've clicked on the Sync button multiple times, but it has not fixed the problem or done the sync.

Thanks for this advice. It's good and sound, and I plan to follow it going forward. I goofed by jumping the gun, but then I kind of had to as Big Sur was causing other problems. I was getting too far out of date.

Macs Pain wrote:

I never thought the VPN could be the issue... Apple fix this ASAP, please.

Apple doesn't read here in this user-to-user forum for feedback or suggestions. You can, however, let them know your thoughts here:

Product Feedback - Apple

You do know the issue is the message app on Mac OS Sequoia?

You do know that Messages on macOS works fine for the vast majority of people using Sequoia?

The problem you have with Messages is caused by other things you have installed.

TankvilleFarmer wrote:

I haven’t had any issues with using the security measures of my choice together with Apple’s Messages until Sequoia but whatever helps you sleep at night..

I think the point you may be missing is that, in most circumstances, a VPN doesn't improve your security (and may even decrease it). The fact you've had no problems with it in the past doesn't mean it did anything useful.

That's not really accurate. The VPN app is independent from the configuration. Apps like PIA, WireGuard, and even Apple's settings allow VPN configuration changes without reboots. The issue we're all having is not solved by reboots or re-configurations. And I agree with others that Apple's security improvements have not caused me any harm until Sequoia. Actually, up until Sequoia I've had amazingly good experiences with updates considering the magnitude of changes from Apple.

So, it seems that if the VPN is not available on the App store, it's probably going to cause issues. I had to stop using ExpressVPN about 6 months ago because it kept moving the IP address all over the place and it looked like it was coming from a lot of different locations at once. I moved over to Private Internet Access (PIA) and as of last night, it just suddenly stopped being able to connect all together... like out of nowhere. I spent three hours with tech support and couldn't get it resolved. I like PIA because I can have a static IP address. (This is why I pay for VPNs month to month, btw/) I then went to the App store and tried Hotspot Shield VPN. Everything seems to work, for the most part, but I do get dropped connections across various streams. Anyhow, it's b.s. and Apple shouldn't be allowed to pick the winners and losers in the VPN market... they call that a monopoly.