Strange crash of Monterey Beta 10

[Washington _Coyote]

While installation of Beta 9 & 10 went smoothly, I do still experience occasional crashes of Mail Application. Today my Mac Pro Late 2013 crashed while it was idle and I was away from it for a good while. I found it restarted on it's own. At first I suspected a power blip, but it wasn't the case. System then tried to generate a crash report, but this too crashed. Bravo Apple! you are doing a truly great job writing software. I wonder if Apple has any standards as to what can be released as "developer beta" or a "public beta"

 

[richmond62]

I don't think you really need to say "Bravo Apple!" as ANY beta software is, well, 'beta', and if you are not prepared to take the possible consequences, don't make sarcastic remarks, just stick to the normal releases.

 

[Washington _Coyote]

Squelching criticism, even if it involves sarcasm is never good. At best it indicates weakness and a sensitive ego. All it does accomplish is to kill that "canary in a coal mine". Sarcasm also does not disqualify one from participating in Apple Public Beta program, of which I have been a member for quite a while. This is the first time that I am publicly commenting on beta releases because these seem to be getting worse and worse, and there seems to be no place for public beta testers to file a non public comment.
Both Big Sur and Monterey have had more than a "normal" share of teething problems, including functionality issues with formal releases of Big Sur. There should be standards that determine at which level of stability and functionality system is eligible for a beta testing release. I would expect public beta to be very close to a candidate for the final release, not something that even fails to install. Severity of some of these problems is most likely indicative of systemic problems that Apple is experiencing, and is failing to solve. It is also obvious that Apple is rushing these releases without much, if any of it's own testing.
I've been working with computers since 1974, and with Apple computers since 1989. I am also a little bit of an Apple evangelist, but at this moment perhaps a reluctant one.

 

[Killerbob]

I had the EXACT same thing happen. My Mac Pro 2013 just sat there, doing nothing, and crashed. I was able to do compile a crash report, which was sent off to Apple.

In that the screensaver still has issues, could that be the culprit? Also, are you using an A/V?

I have TeamViewer, CCC, BitDefender, Divvy, QSirch, Adobe CS, MacUpdater, and Parallels Toolbox running in the taskbar at all times…

 

[richmond62]

I suppose I should count myself extremely lucky having had my 2018 Mac Mini go "all the way" through MacOS 11 and 12 beta releases with only a small problem relating to monitor settings.

There has to be a way to criticise, but Apple are probably not the sort of people to react to sarcasm.

 

[Killerbob]

We just have to remember that when we download an Alpha or Beta version of ANY software, we forfeit the right to complain of any issues.

That said though, it does seem like the last years macOS testing has been more cumbersome - but that is part of the package…

 

[randolorian]

The right thing to do in this situation is submit this experience in the Feedback app that comes with the beta. The beta program exists to find problems like this with the goal to have them fixed before the final release.

 

[Washington _Coyote]

Greetings,
To answer Killerbob's question: No, no A/V and no external hardware attached. My Mac is pure Apple with no mods, and I keep it clean and free of any system "extensions" or applications that could corrupt it. The only hardware that I ever connect to it are my iPhone and iPad, both new, as well as my external Time Machine SSD. Also, when I do not run an application or do not intend to use it soon, I close it. I don't have a screen saver, and at this moment I don't have a cat that could "type".
The only two apps that were idling during that crash were Safari and Mail. The Mail seems to be having some issues and sometimes it crashes, usually on startup. At least it always generates a crash report, that I always send to Apple. Unfortunately the system crash and the resulting restart failed to generate a report. I saw a window pop up saying: "Gathering Data" and the app froze. Last two system releases: Big Sur, both public beta and formal releases as well as Monterey betas have been quite buggy. Other than that the only time I ever experienced a kernel panic or any other system crash was on the very first release of OS X, and never since.
My beef with Apple is that (I think) they seem to be violating their own standards, and release to the public beta versions that have not been properly vetted and tested. I would be very surprised if Apple does not have some internal standard for vetting sequential releases. I also worry that Apple is going to throw under "the bus" its users who still run hardware that Apple doesn't want to support. If you have an Intel Mac, be prepared for the worst.
Richmond62, could you please share some details of your 2018 Mac mini, this could perhaps help us understand similarities or differences.
Randolorian, thank you for reminding me about Feedback Assistant.
My Mac Pro (Late 2013) is 8-Core Intel Xeon E5 3GHz, graphics AMD FirePro D500 3 GB,
64 GB. System Firmware Version: 429.40.7.0.1

 

[Washington _Coyote]

Sarcasm has a meaning and a value of it's own. It is intended to be biting, and can be an indication of irritation. Perhaps some of us got used to Apple software being far superior to its competitors, and my sarcasm is a sign that this Apple evangelist finds current Apple software releases seriously lacking.
It would be fair to say that big corporations are at their most vulnerable when they think that they are invincible and beyond any criticism. This is usually the point when empires start to decline and eventually fail. I would hate to see Apple fail and I would prefer to stay a happy (or semi happy) Apple user into my dotage. If Apple executives think to be superior to everybody on this Earth, than there is no hope. Maybe someone on the high enough level at Apple reads these blogs and pays attention.
We still love you Apple, but at the same time we see you having problems.

 

[richmond62]

I do understand your point about sarcasm: but I also feel that Apple has become arrogant and overwheening so sarcasm will just wash off it like water of a duck's back.

My ongoing project to get Haiku OS to start behaving itself semi-sensibly on some of my spare hardware, as well as
my reliance for my business on Xubuntu and Zevin OS should give you some idea about how wary I am of putting all my eggs in the same bag.

A while ago Microsoft was being widely criticised by Apple (among others) for getting swollen-headed and so on; and all that the result seems to have been is that Microsoft go on that way, while Apple are behaving, arguably, even worse.

So from a virtual monopoly we now have a duopoly; neither of which are probably very healthy in the great scheme of things.

Apple is remarkably like my microscopic EFL school (50 kids), once children start leaving and stop paying I start
panicking and either close-up shop or get my act together fairly swiftly. The main difference is that in the city where I operate I have about 25 direct competitors, while Apple has a cult of true-believers, as does Microsoft, who have all
left their critical faculties out in the rain.

 

[Washington _Coyote]

Same crash today, right after I installed newest beta. At least this time the system generated report that went to Apple. What the report said is way beyond my lever of understanding. They are supposed to release Monterey publicly tomorrow. Are they ready?

 

[richmond62]

"Are they read?"

Well, the way I read things, all software released nowadays is 'beta' as the pressure, real or assumed, to keep endless, inexorably "upwards" is so great that no-one ever has the time to produce a finished thing.

I dumped MacOS 11 for the betas of MacOS 12 when 11 was so obviously rubbish and should have been labelled something like 10.16 gamma.

I work on a regular basis with a programming suite that contains 20 year old bugs: why? Because the
powers that be behind the thing are so badly hypnotised about "the next thing" that they have forgotten
that however sexy someone may look if their kidneys aren't fixed they are going to need constant dialysis.

 

[Killerbob]

I must admit I am one of the happy macOS users. I have had challenges during betas for sure, but that I expect. And, I'd much rather have issues knowingly on a beta platform. I actually think macOS 11 is fine - I put some pressure on my Macs and it is stable. I also think that the testing of macOS 12 is fine. There has been issues, but again, that is expected...

 

[Washington _Coyote]

First, there is no reason to accuse Apple of anything sinister, they are simply having some teething problems with their last two Mac OS systems. There have also been some unwelcome changes to Safari and some other applications. It may make sense for Apple to follow that old adage: If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Added cool functionality is great, but if people are used to a certain layout, don't change it, it will only irritate people, who will now be making mistakes. Apple could certainly improve on its Mail application. It would be nice to be able to create "archive folders" for various email exchanges. Also, there have been other problems, the ones I don't want to mention for a reason.
One great feature of Apple software has always been that transitioning to a new revision has always been easy, so keep it.
That said, I had one crash where Beta 8 failed to install, leaving me with a corrupted SSD. At first I tried to recover using Time Machine, but this too failed, and some of the error messages made me feel that my TM got corrupted too. In the end I had to use Apple Internet Tools to reformat SSD and reinstall from Internet, and the TM survived intact. Out of fear, I am now going to keep two different TM backups. That Beta 8 bug is a clear indication that something serious escaped someone's attention, and that someone pressed "return" key too early. Unreasonable deadlines for instance do this to people.
Mac OS is great, but Apple has managed to set a high standard for itself, and lately they seem to have a problem meeting it. Public Betas are not intended to be problem free, and we all expect them, but something like Beta 8 should have never happened.

 

[C-141 Pilot]

I'm still on Big Sur, but I frequently come back to the computer and find that it crashed and restarted. It's been happening for about a year. The log says something about a Sleep/Wake issue. I don't remember having the problem before I replaced my OEM 1TB SSD with an OWC Aura Pro X2 2TB SSD, but that might not be related.

 

[zarathu]

While installation of Beta 9 & 10 went smoothly, I do still experience occasional crashes of Mail Application. Today my Mac Pro Late 2013 crashed while it was idle and I was away from it for a good while. I found it restarted on it's own. At first I suspected a power blip, but it wasn't the case. System then tried to generate a crash report, but this too crashed. Bravo Apple! you are doing a truly great job writing software. I wonder if Apple has any standards as to what can be released as "developer beta" or a "public beta"

Do you even know what beta software is?

 

[Washington _Coyote]

Do you even know what beta software is?

Correct answer to this question is given on the software panel of your system preferences. The current public beta is 12.1 Beta 2. I am afraid to install it, so there may be a newer beta, but I suspect that there is none. It may be a good idea to read Mac blogs, just to see if there are any issue with that beta.