10.15.5 Battery Management and new MacBook Pro

[FastLaneJB]

I have my new 2020 MacBook Pro 13 coming hopefully on Monday and I was hoping 10.15.5 would have been out from beta before then so I could start it off from the beginning with the new battery management feature to protect the battery. I like a lot of you probably are not all that mobile at the moment because of the virus and not expecting that to change in the short term so the laptop will mostly be on mains all day.

Has anyone ran the beta and hit any issues? Also noticed anything worth mentioning around this feature?

I'm thinking obviously of enrolling for the public beta and putting it onto my new laptop but once it goes final coming out of the beta program as generally wouldn't do this but I feel this feature is important enough to go for.

 

[tommiy]

Maybe a bit off track as I have decided not to update my MACOS until there is a more reliable release. I've remained on 10.15.1 as a result of all the issues that relate to external monitors with Catalina. However, I'm using al dente from this post to manage my battery while not mobile.

 

[FastLaneJB]

Maybe a bit off track as I have decided not to update my MACOS until there is a more reliable release. I've remained on 10.15.1 as a result of all the issues that relate to external monitors with Catalina. However, I'm using al dente from this post to manage my battery while not mobile.

Oh nice, I didn't know of this utility but have similar capabilities on my Windows laptop. One of the annoyances of Apple was they didn't do anything like this at least until 10.15.5. I suspect that's not as good as controlling it yourself.

Won't be able to go back an OS version as it won't support the CPU's in the new models. What's the external monitor issues though with Catalina I should be looking out for?

 

[Taz Mangus]

Oh nice, I didn't know of this utility but have similar capabilities on my Windows laptop. One of the annoyances of Apple was they didn't do anything like this at least until 10.15.5. I suspect that's not as good as controlling it yourself.

Won't be able to go back an OS version as it won't support the CPU's in the new models. What's the external monitor issues though with Catalina I should be looking out for?

People are reporting kernel panics when the computer comes out of sleep. You can read more about this in the thread: MacOS Catalina 10.15.3 - crash panic(cpu 0 caller 0xffffff801faa2d1c): Sleep transition timed out after 180 seconds while calling power state change

 

[tommiy]

Oh nice, I didn't know of this utility but have similar capabilities on my Windows laptop. One of the annoyances of Apple was they didn't do anything like this at least until 10.15.5. I suspect that's not as good as controlling it yourself.

Won't be able to go back an OS version as it won't support the CPU's in the new models. What's the external monitor issues though with Catalina I should be looking out for?

I honestly do not know exactly where to start on that question but here is the very high level items:
1. External monitor resolution incorrect after waking from sleep or switching HDMI in/out
2. Many adapters stop working between versions of Catalina...ie. work before an upgrade will not work afterwards
3. Catalina continues to poll external HDMI ports when asleep. If your using a auto HDMI switch it continues to switch back to the asleep MAC
4. External thunderbolt docks stop functioning after upgrade to 10.15.4

There are simply many issues. You can find many here but you can also find alot on Apple Communities. Also, it appears many of these issues are associated with firmware upgrades that come with each release. So trying a new release on an external drive results in upgrade of the firmware, if that firmware is the item causing the bug then there is simply no going back, you can not revert.

External Displays do not work after upgrade to 10.15.4
Catalina Colour Problems on external Displays
Catalina gets the resolution wrong

Simply do a search here for HDMI and you will find alot. A number have reverted to creating EDID overrides to resolve the graphic drivers switching to think they are a TV rather than a display etc etc etc.

Due to a large waste of time debugging 10.14.6 and 10.15.1 with Apple I've decided i'm not upgrading anymore until I know all of this has been resolved. I have manual work arounds that work on 10.15.1 that I am happy to continue to use rather than inheriting other issues via minor updates.