Reprinted from TidBITS by permission; reuse governed by Creative Commons license BY-NC-ND 3.0. TidBITS has offered years of thoughtful commentary on Apple and Internet topics. For free email subscriptions and access to the entire TidBITS archive, visit http://www.tidbits.com/ macOS 14.6.1, macOS 13.6.9, iOS 17.6.1, and iPadOS 17.6.1 Fix Advanced Data Protection Adam Engst Apple has had a bad week. On 29 July 2024, the company released updates to all its operating systems with a few minor changes in macOS 14.6 Sonoma and nothing but bug and security fixes for everything else (see '[1]macOS 14.6 Enables Double Display Support for 14-inch M3 MacBook Pro,' 30 July 2024). We noticed no problems after installing, so we gave our usual recommendation for minor updates that don't address zero-day security vulnerabilities'wait to install until it's convenient. Usually, showstopper problems will be reported within a few days, and Apple will pull or replace the release quickly. This time, it took over a week. On 7 August 2024, Apple pushed out macOS 14.6.1 Sonoma, iOS 17.6.1, and iPadOS 17.6.1 with release notes saying, 'This update includes important bug fixes and addresses an issue that prevents enabling or disabling Advanced Data Protection.' Apple also released macOS 13.6.9 Ventura with slightly more concise release notes that say, 'This update addresses an issue that prevents enabling or disabling Advanced Data Protection.' (For more information about what's involved here, see '[2]Apple's Advanced Data Protection Gives You More Keys to iCloud Data,' 8 December 2022.) Indeed, when I went to System Settings > Your Name > iCloud > Advanced Data Protection and clicked the Turn On button, I was prompted for my Apple ID password, but the password dialog disappeared after I typed a single character, the System Settings screen flashed, and I was presented with the error below. On subsequent tries, the setup got farther, but I wasn't willing to remove my old devices from my account to complete the setup process. Apple's security updates page says the updates don't address any vulnerabilities with CVE entries, and [3]Howard Oakley reports that the only changes are to the Security framework and some keychain-related files. The question, then, is what might be included in those 'important bug fixes.' There have been a small number of complaints about macOS 14.6. In TidBITS Talk, Ronald Lynch reported that, after updating to macOS 14.6, [4]he lost access to Pages templates he had stored in the Template Chooser and couldn't create new ones. Installing macOS 14.6.1 didn't bring back his previously stored templates but allowed him to create new ones. In other forums, multiple people have reported [5]extreme slowdowns and [6]problems [7]with Bluetooth [8]pointing devices, plus individual complaints about [9]mounted NAS volumes disappearing from the desktop and [10]enterprise authentication issues. As yet, it's unclear if these were general bugs or issues specific to particular setups. Nor have follow-up posts said whether or not they were fixed by macOS 14.6.1. iOS 17.6 has triggered complaints about [11]dropped network connections and [12]notifications not working, along with the perennial problems with battery life that usually resolve within a few days once iOS rebuilds indexes and caches. Again, I haven't seen any subsequent reports about iOS 17.6.1 either way. There is one new complaint about macOS 14.6.1 related to headless Macs (those without displays). A TidBITS reader reported that he wasn't able to connect to a headless Mac mini after updating. He had to turn Remote Management off and back on to regain the ability to connect remotely. If you are updating a headless Mac, connect it to a keyboard, mouse, and display before updating, and toggle the Remote Management setting in System Settings > Sharing > Remote Management before removing them. My revised advice about updating to this set of updates is as follows: * If you're still running macOS 14.5, iOS 17.5, and iPadOS 17.5 with no problems, stick with them for a bit longer. None of the identified security vulnerabilities in those releases are actively being exploited in the wild, so there's no big win in updating right away. Revisit the question in a few weeks. * If you updated to macOS 14.6, iOS 17.6, and iPadOS 17.6 but aren't having any problems and don't intend to turn Advanced Data Protection on or off, stick with them for another week or two to make sure Apple didn't introduce any more bugs in the latest updates. * If you updated to macOS 14.6, iOS 17.6, and iPadOS 17.6 and are having issues of any sort or want to turn Advanced Data Protection on or off, update right away to take advantage of Apple's fixes. There's no question that Apple dropped the ball here. Advanced Data Protection may be a relatively new feature used by only a tiny percentage of the Apple audience, but automated testing should have caught the error I experienced. Perhaps Apple has redirected most of its testing resources to the forthcoming macOS 15 and iOS 18, but that's no excuse for causing trouble for the current user base with a weakly tested update. References Visible links 1. https://tidbits.com/2024/07/30/macos-14-6-enables-double-display-support-for-14-inch-m3-macbook-pro/ 2. https://tidbits.com/2022/12/08/apples-advanced-data-protection-gives-you-more-keys-to-icloud-data/ 3. https://eclecticlight.co/2024/08/07/apple-has-released-sonoma-14-6-1-and-13-6-9-security-updates/ 4. https://talk.tidbits.com/t/after-macos-14-6-pages-can-not-find-templates/28456?u=ace 5. https://discussions.apple.com/thread/255700727?sortBy=rank 6. https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/macos-sonoma-14-6-bug-fixes-changes-and-more.2432485/post-33296176 7. https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/macos-sonoma-14-6-bug-fixes-changes-and-more.2432485/post-33298754 8. https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/macos-sonoma-14-6-bug-fixes-changes-and-more.2432485/post-33300135 9. https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/macos-sonoma-14-6-bug-fixes-changes-and-more.2432485/post-33295344 10. https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/macos-sonoma-14-6-bug-fixes-changes-and-more.2432485/post-33295474 11. https://discussions.apple.com/thread/255700082?sortBy=rank 12. https://discussions.apple.com/thread/255703260?sortBy=rank Hidden links: 13. https://tidbits.com/wp/../uploads/2024/08/macOS-14.6-ADP.png .