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Warning: Bugs in Sierra which affect all MacBook Pro 2010 models
- Thread starter SteveJobzniak
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10 years? That's a lofty goal for any tech company. Phones don't last 10 years. Tablets don't. Computers don't. Even if they *could*, companies would refresh so that people would have to upgrade. If people bought computers once every 10 years, there wouldn't been much of a market, nor competition.
And don't worry, I'm not a juice drinker and, if you can read, I'm not a fanboy. Look at my signature. I have 2 "new" products, neither of which are Macs. I have an iPhone 7 and the Apple TV 4. I'd hardly say a 2010 MBP, a 2006 iMac, and a first gen iPad is "wasting my money on having the latest stuff". To your point, my 2006 (ten years old!) iMac works well. It just doesn't run anything past OS X 10.7 Lion - for obvious reasons. New software necessitates new hardware. People could run a comp for 10 years if the software that the comp originally came with never changes - no new features, no new graphic enhancements, nothing. I'd rather have new features, personally.
And also, my previous post wasn't meant to be confrontational, but I think you took it that way.
I have had Windows Laptops I have used easily more than 10 years. They did eventually start to have physical breakdown problems, like faulty ports and things like that, but they ran quite fine and handled my business personal work quite fine for a decade. I have a PC here from 16 years ago that still runs Windows7 quite fine, but I don't really use it because I have my macs...but...that also came from a time when CPU's were still going through a lot of growth spurts in the industry...so....it would be understandable to toss that one...but I didn't HAVE to. A user with simpler needs could easily use this computer just fine for email, surf the web, check Facebook, etc...which is what the fast majority of users do.
Also, the rules of the 70's, 80's and 90's about computers needing to double in speed every year no longer applies because A) they are kind of reaching a hardware limit of what current chip technology can do and B) most consumers don't actually need a faster computer. If you pay attention, iMac's haven't gotten much faster in quite a while. Even the new mac pro is only marginally faster then my 2010 Mac Pro, 6 years later.
It may have been true in the 80's that everyone had to constantly upgrade their computers to keep up with the advances, but as I said earlier, that is simply not the case anymore. The existing computers that consumers have available to them are perfectly fine to do everything they want to do and much more without breaking a sweat. There is absolutely no technical reason whatsoever that consumers should be coerced into constantly upgrading their laptop or desktop computer.
So why must Apple constantly corner us into upgrading, and yes they do force. Apple is so sloppy with their engineering that their frameworks are constantly deprecating old versions of OSX. Software developers constantly complain about having to jump through hurdles every time a new version of OS X comes out and they are now forced to change some of their code to work on the newest OS X, sometimes in complicated ways in order to continue supporting older versions of OS X. Eventually they say, sorry, this software only works with Sierra and newer...but the poor guy with MBP that has kernel panics on Sierra or his machine was deprecated by Apple to not run with Sierra, is now totally and completely SOL to use the software they are mostly interested in using. Thus they are forced to upgrade.
This is much more the case for Apple's OS X, then it is for MS windows. Microsoft goes to great pains to make sure that each new iteration of Windows will continue to run on many pieces of very legacy gear..including 10 and 15 year old computers. They may not run very well since MS is starting to increase the memory requirement a bit, but still they make sure that backwards compatibility is maintained. Apple goes the other way and installs a "culture of upgrade-itis".
I also have the 13" mid 2010 MBP which has integrated graphics. I think SteveJobzniak just explained why my fan spins up so much more often than it used to. 10.6.8 ran great with great battery life. And after reading the above paragraph, that is what hit the fans and battery life back in Mavericks days, makes sense.
So, does this mean no siri for me? Seems like it should be able to handle it.
It sucks you can't just add a BT4.0 USB dongle to use handoff/continuity, then I could do apple pay. Oh, well, I may just upgrade anyway, I don't think I have any apps that have issues with Sierra.
Your MBP (same as my MBP model) can handle the update to Sierra. I updated last night and used Siri with no issues. It's the 15 and 17 inch 2010 MBPs that are the problem because they have the discrete graphics whereas the 13 inch 2010 only has the integrated. Go for Sierra!
@benji888: Your MBP 2010 13" only has a single graphics card so it isn't affected by the Siri issue (which is that Siri forces the dual-GPU MBP 2010s to use the power-hungry GPU). The only thing you may notice on Sierra is high CPU usage (and fan noise) for a few days while it does a mandatory indexing of all your photos using its new face detection stuff.
[doublepost=1475882444][/doublepost]
I am happy with Sierra. I constantly use the "Picture in Picture" feature of Safari and the OS is rock solid for me.
The only problems are, as mentioned:
- Siri: Everyone with a MacBook Pro 2010 with dual GPUs (like you and me) should disable Siri. Because as soon as you use Siri, your MacBook Pro switches to high-power graphics and it gets super hot, drains the battery and the fans keep spinning until you reboot the machine (to shutdown Siri). Seriously it's not funny, and I wish Apple would stop being such asses and just make Siri use the integrated graphics instead.
Disabling Siri is easy: Turn it off in system preferences and remove the dock icon.
- gfxCardStatus: The official v2.3 uses the high-power GPU all the time. Fixable by downloading v2.4.2i linked to on page 1 on this thread. That completely fixes it.
- BetterTouchTool: Bugged for now. Uses the high-power GPU all the time and there's no workaround. The author may be fixing it this autumn but he's just one guy with a life on the side, so this may be the end of BetterTouchTool. In that case I'll have to find some other app that can give me "4-finger tap = middle mouse click", and window snapping features... oh well, that's a later issue. I hope the author fixes BTT.
- The first post of this thread also lists a few other apps that may have changed behavior in Sierra, to now requiring the dedicated graphics, but I can't remember and so far nobody has verified for me how they behaved in El Capitan...
[doublepost=1475883675][/doublepost]By the way... I don't think Siri will EVER be fixed for MBP 2010s with a dedicated GPU. They clearly use Core Animation (OpenGL) in Siri's GUI to get smooth animations for that ULTRA-MEGA-SUPER-DUPER-IMPORTANT "rolling waveform" picture when you speak to Siri... And because they use OpenGL for that very specific effect, the MBP 2010s trigger the discrete GPU (because only 2011 models and newer are allowed to do OpenGL via the integrated GPU instead, for some screwed up reason only Apple knows). And since applications will stay in "OpenGL mode" forever (until you quit the app), there's no way Apple can release the dedicated GPU on the MBP 2010 after Siri is done showing its stupid pictures. There's really only one thing they COULD do: Split off the OpenGL animation into its own separate app that is quit and launched constantly, so that the MBP 2010 never stays FOREVER in dedicated GPU mode. But who wants to bet the Apple geniuses are going to waste any time on 6 year old hardware? No way.
So guys: Forget about Siri on the MBP 2010 with dedicated GPU. It'll never be fixed. Might as well consider Siri as a non-existent feature on that model.
I'll just convince myself that talking to your computer is for crazy people, and that Siri sucks.
[doublepost=1475882444][/doublepost]
I am happy with Sierra. I constantly use the "Picture in Picture" feature of Safari and the OS is rock solid for me.
The only problems are, as mentioned:
- Siri: Everyone with a MacBook Pro 2010 with dual GPUs (like you and me) should disable Siri. Because as soon as you use Siri, your MacBook Pro switches to high-power graphics and it gets super hot, drains the battery and the fans keep spinning until you reboot the machine (to shutdown Siri). Seriously it's not funny, and I wish Apple would stop being such asses and just make Siri use the integrated graphics instead.
Disabling Siri is easy: Turn it off in system preferences and remove the dock icon.
- gfxCardStatus: The official v2.3 uses the high-power GPU all the time. Fixable by downloading v2.4.2i linked to on page 1 on this thread. That completely fixes it.
- BetterTouchTool: Bugged for now. Uses the high-power GPU all the time and there's no workaround. The author may be fixing it this autumn but he's just one guy with a life on the side, so this may be the end of BetterTouchTool. In that case I'll have to find some other app that can give me "4-finger tap = middle mouse click", and window snapping features... oh well, that's a later issue. I hope the author fixes BTT.
- The first post of this thread also lists a few other apps that may have changed behavior in Sierra, to now requiring the dedicated graphics, but I can't remember and so far nobody has verified for me how they behaved in El Capitan...
[doublepost=1475883675][/doublepost]By the way... I don't think Siri will EVER be fixed for MBP 2010s with a dedicated GPU. They clearly use Core Animation (OpenGL) in Siri's GUI to get smooth animations for that ULTRA-MEGA-SUPER-DUPER-IMPORTANT "rolling waveform" picture when you speak to Siri... And because they use OpenGL for that very specific effect, the MBP 2010s trigger the discrete GPU (because only 2011 models and newer are allowed to do OpenGL via the integrated GPU instead, for some screwed up reason only Apple knows). And since applications will stay in "OpenGL mode" forever (until you quit the app), there's no way Apple can release the dedicated GPU on the MBP 2010 after Siri is done showing its stupid pictures. There's really only one thing they COULD do: Split off the OpenGL animation into its own separate app that is quit and launched constantly, so that the MBP 2010 never stays FOREVER in dedicated GPU mode. But who wants to bet the Apple geniuses are going to waste any time on 6 year old hardware? No way.
So guys: Forget about Siri on the MBP 2010 with dedicated GPU. It'll never be fixed. Might as well consider Siri as a non-existent feature on that model.
I'll just convince myself that talking to your computer is for crazy people, and that Siri sucks.
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If I disable Siri, is there any point to update to Sierra? I regret upgrading to El Capitan as the performance of my Mac gets worse. If upgrading to Sierra could improve performance, even at least slightly better than the version before El Capitan, I would upgrade. Is there major bugs/compatibility issues at this stage?
Performance and stability is identical on both OSs on my MBP 2010. Sierra feels like El Capitan plus picture in picture mode in Safari. Maybe Sierra is a tiny bit faster even. Definitely not slower than capitan.
I cannot use features like Siri and the enhanced Continuity on MBP 2010 so for me it is basically like using Capitan+Safari enhancements. I do notice small polishes that feel better than Capitan. I am happy I upgraded.
Bugs in Sierra: Nothing I have noticed whatsoever.
Compatibility issues: All of my desktop apps (see list on page 1 of thread) are updated by now to be fully compatible, EXCEPT BETTERTOUCHTOOL. And as usual, many musicians plugin vendors are a bit late to update as always (it is a culture thing, musicians try to stay on a stable OS and never upgrade instantly). So if you make music you may want to wait. But logic pro x and ableton and most plugins work perfectly.
PS: I found lots of alternatives to BetterTouchTool/BetterSnapTool. I will wait all autumn to see if BTT's single author has time to fix it. But here are the best-coded replacement apps for BTTs various features:
- MagicPrefs (free; for trackpad 4-finger tap = middle click)
- Windownaut ($4.99; it does window snapping, and "hold down modifiers and move the mouse pointer to move/resize the window you hover over")
- MenuPop ($4.99; lets you pop up the menubar menu anywhere to get to it easier)
But I like BTT's all-in-one philosophy and advanced possibilities so I will see if I can work with the author to fix BTT first. It is better to have it all in one app.
I cannot use features like Siri and the enhanced Continuity on MBP 2010 so for me it is basically like using Capitan+Safari enhancements. I do notice small polishes that feel better than Capitan. I am happy I upgraded.
Bugs in Sierra: Nothing I have noticed whatsoever.
Compatibility issues: All of my desktop apps (see list on page 1 of thread) are updated by now to be fully compatible, EXCEPT BETTERTOUCHTOOL. And as usual, many musicians plugin vendors are a bit late to update as always (it is a culture thing, musicians try to stay on a stable OS and never upgrade instantly). So if you make music you may want to wait. But logic pro x and ableton and most plugins work perfectly.
PS: I found lots of alternatives to BetterTouchTool/BetterSnapTool. I will wait all autumn to see if BTT's single author has time to fix it. But here are the best-coded replacement apps for BTTs various features:
- MagicPrefs (free; for trackpad 4-finger tap = middle click)
- Windownaut ($4.99; it does window snapping, and "hold down modifiers and move the mouse pointer to move/resize the window you hover over")
- MenuPop ($4.99; lets you pop up the menubar menu anywhere to get to it easier)
But I like BTT's all-in-one philosophy and advanced possibilities so I will see if I can work with the author to fix BTT first. It is better to have it all in one app.
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I thought about the same thing... Maybe some type of app that detects when the Siri search popup window has vanished, waits 10 seconds, and then automatically kills SiriNCService if Siri is still unused. But maybe System Integrity Protection would prevent snooping on Siri's activity to detect when it's safe to kill. And all this coding effort would be for old hardware... not sure who's gonna code this. Not me.
The worrying thing is that "SiriNCService" suggests to me that it means "Siri Notification Center Service". It's possibly responsible for the ability to pin Siri search results into the notification center area. So killing the process may sorta defeat Siri's usefulness too.
I really wish they would split it into one (transient) process for the animated OpenGL waveform and another for the notification center widgets... that would solve this. But there's just no way Apple is gonna re-engineer their app to care about 6 year old, quirky hardware anymore.
PS: Here's an idea... Get the "Alfred" app launcher and create a workflow with a Bash Script to "killall -9 SiriNCService", and bind it to a Hotkey Trigger. Then you could use Siri, see that gfxCardStatus shows the dGPU is in use, and remember to press your keyboard hotkey to kill Siri's process. I mean... yeah... this would be pretty easy for us old hardware holdouts to do. It isn't slick whatsoever but it'd let us use Siri... Maybe worth thinking about.
[doublepost=1475951969][/doublepost]Good news... the experiment worked better than expected.
1. Get Alfred.
2. Add this workflow to Alfred:
https://github.com/SteveJobzniak/KillSiriNCService-workflow/blob/master/README.md
3. Use Siri, and then always kill Siri when you're done, via the hotkey you configured for the workflow.
4. Use Steve Schow's fixed gfxCardStatus for Sierra to see when you go in and out of discrete GPU mode. (A link to that is in the readme file above.)
The pinned Siri notification center results still work. I was able to ask Siri to show me files from today, pin the results to notification center, kill Siri via this workflow to release my GPU, but was thankfully still able to double-click on the pinned results in Notification Center to open files. So I really don't know what SiriNCService does. I thought "NC" stood for "Notification Center" and that it was responsible for all pinned search results, but apparently not.
This method of having to kill it via a hotkey and watch its status via gfxCardStatus isn't very slick, but Apple is never going to fix Siri for us, so it's the best we've got on our 6 year old, barely-supported hardware!
I still think talking to your computer is for crazy people, though.
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Yeah.
You can do it via voice command "Hey Siri". To set this up you can follow steps in this thread: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/how-to-enable-hey-siri-activation-on-a-mac-with-sierra.1983003/
You can turn it off via voice command too. Just say "goodbye".
I made a video of the process too:
Just be aware: Activating Siri easily via "Hey Siri" is very clever but has nothing to do with the bugs in this thread. And saying "Goodbye" to Siri just hides the Siri window but won't release the graphics card.
Whenever you've used Siri, the hidden SiriNCService process stays until you reboot and locks onto the high-energy GPU, unless you kill it (via a technique like mine) to release the GPU and return to power-saving graphics mode.
Whenever you've used Siri, the hidden SiriNCService process stays until you reboot and locks onto the high-energy GPU, unless you kill it (via a technique like mine) to release the GPU and return to power-saving graphics mode.
Might want to remove the Siri icon from the dock and the menubar so you don't accidentally click on them and activate it, which according to previous posters causes it to switch to the Discrete GPU until you restart your computer or possibly kill the process (don't know if this works).
Thanks for the suggestion. If I remove the Siri icon from the dock, can I get it back later?
There is no Siri icon on the menu bar.
The machine seems to be faster but the clock widget in Dashboard is not working. The pivot of the arms is now centered at 10!
Yes, you can drag it back onto the dock from the 'Applications' folder in Finder. Funny thing you should say that, when I first installed Sierra, I didn't have the icon in the menu bar although the "Show Siri in menu bar" option was checked by default under Siri in the System Preferences. I had to uncheck it and check it again before it appeared in my menu bar.
Everybody, look at the bottom of the 1st post of this thread. I have installed El Capitan today and tested all misbehaving apps to see how they behaved in El Capitan too.
Good news: Most misbehaved there too There is no more reason to avoid Sierra.
Post #1:
https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...h-affect-all-macbook-pro-2010-models.2000559/
Good news: Most misbehaved there too
There is no more reason to avoid Sierra.Post #1:
https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...h-affect-all-macbook-pro-2010-models.2000559/
Correct. It is impossible to switch to the integrated GPU while an app is actively running on the discrete GPU.
Thunderbird requires the discrete GPU. They tried making it use the integrated GPU but gave up because of rendering errors. They will never fix it.
Here are the replacements:
Thunderbird -> Apple Mail. Much slicker client and does everything most people need. I made the switch from 5 years of Thunderbird (with hardcore usage of addons) to just using Apple Mail instead, and it's sooooo much slicker and more modern and a joy to use. No dGPU needed.
LibreOffice -> Apples iWork apps (pages, numbers, etc). They are beautiful and slick. No dGPU needed.
Vienna: No idea. Is it this app? https://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/18789/vienna But anyway, perhaps Vienna can live on the integrated GPU if you shut down all offending apps (Thunderbird, Libre and Vienna) and then when gfxCardStatus shows "integrated" you start up Vienna.
You're welcome. I plan to run this computer for another 2-3 years, and I am very happy with Sierra now.
I have Spotify too (installed it after Sierra) and can confirm that it uses the discrete graphics card on the MBP 2010. There are long threads of people online who are mad about that so I guess it did it on El Capitan too. They haven't fixed Spotify in years. I also tried the Tomahawk app instead (which supports Spotify Premium) but it uses the dGPU too. :-\
Apple Music (via iTunes) uses the integrated GPU. May be worth switching.
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