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MacOS forcibly upgrading to Sonoma?

G

guilder

New Member
Just a heads up in case you're a MacOS user and have incompatible plugins / in the middle of a project and don't want to upgrade just yet. Reading some reports of both Intel and Silicon MacOS users having their Macs automatically upgrading to Sonoma without their OK (some have auto security updates on, some have it turned off.) . Some links and a possible prevention below:

"This might or might not work, but it worked some years ago with prior macOS versions. Basically, when macOS tries to create the update installer in /Applications, an app of the same name that is locked and there already causes it to fail to creating the installer, thus stopping the fiasco.

Create a locked application (any application, just duplicate something) with the same name as the macOS Sonoma installer into the /Applications folder, as shown.

I am unsure, but I think the correct name is “Install macOS Sonoma.app”. You might also want an “Install macOS Ventura.app” etcetera if you are on older OS versions.

Even if there is an unauthorized update, this ought to error-out the process when the download finishes. And set those preferences above to not download."
macperformanceguide.com

Botchware: Apple Forcibly Upgrading Macs to macOS Sonoma without User Permission or Input + How to Defeat Upgrades

macperformanceguide.com

Ventura magically updated to Sonoma​

forums.macrumors.com

Ventura magically updated to Sonoma 😱

Spent half a day downgrading my MBP M1 from Sonoma to Ventura last week (they don’t make it easy) and was happy for about 2 days until I had to reboot due to a black unresponsive screen. Surprise surprise, booted straight up into Sonoma again 🤔 I only have ‘security updates’ enabled and not...
forums.macrumors.com forums.macrumors.com

Forced upgrade to Sonoma: can it be stopped?​

Forced upgrade to Sonoma: can it be stopp… - Apple Community

discussions.apple.com discussions.apple.com

Apple just force-upgraded me to Sonoma​

talk.tidbits.com

Apple just force-upgraded me to Sonoma

That was infinitely preferable. It also made it easy to save the installer.
talk.tidbits.com talk.tidbits.com

MacOS Monterey automatically updated to Sonoma after attempt to normally restart​

Click to read more...
 
guilder said:
"This might or might not work, but it worked some years ago with prior macOS versions. Basically, when macOS tries to create the update installer in /Applications, an app of the same name that is locked and there already causes it to fail to creating the installer, thus stopping the fiasco.

Create a locked application (any application, just duplicate something) with the same name as the macOS Sonoma installer into the /Applications folder, as shown.

I am unsure, but I think the correct name is “Install macOS Sonoma.app”. You might also want an “Install macOS Ventura.app” etcetera if you are on older OS versions.

Even if there is an unauthorized update, this ought to error-out the process when the download finishes. And set those preferences above to not download."
Click to expand...
Looks like this blocking method no longer works.

Re: Blocking MacOS Sonoma installer

even with restricting install assistant did not work for me, does it work on your end?
community.jamf.com community.jamf.com
 
Well that’s rude and obnoxious. I can’t imagine this is intended behaviour but with Apple these days who knows?

It should be possible to write a script which periodically checks for the existence of that app and removes it if present, or at least alerts you to its presence.
 
It's not meant to happen as there's a preference in System Settings that controls whether you get updates automatically, security updates automatically or do everything manually (including checking for updates).
 
yup. happened first at work to co-workers on 2019 mac pros running Monterey and i finally figured out that it secretly did that at home twice to me. wasted days on recovery and bricked the monterey install. i have 3 boot drives so i could figure what was happening and im holding my breath on this last reinstall of Monterey.
 
I saw this thread went it went up... As an FYI I'm on Monterey and haven't had this happen to me. I've always keep all update preferences disabled, so this seems to be the workaround - disable all update preferences... A small price to pay to avoid getting forced to a new OS that still has some kinks... I also think this wasn't intentional, but a colossal bug on Apple's part. I don't see why on earth they'd do this intentionally, as it's the kind of policy that results people getting fed up enough to switch platforms altogether...
 
jcrosby said:
I've always keep all update preferences disabled, so this seems to be the workaround
Click to expand...
I only have "Search for Updates" active, everything else is switched off. Never had an issue with that config.

But in the Apple Community discussion mentioned in the OP is a posting (MartinR, 24th Jan. 2024, 08:02 AM), that might explain, why some people had a forced install ... a different user account with different update settings.

Worth checking, I think, though on Reddit someone reported of a forced install though his computer only has one user account.

PS: Can it be, that it only happens to Monterey users?
PPS: On Reddit some people reported, that also Ventura users had been asked to enter their admin password to start the Sonoma install. Clicking cancel worked. So it might maybe be a bug in Monterey?
 
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Aymara said:
PS: Can it be, that it only happens to Monterey users?
PPS: On Reddit some people reported, that also Ventura users had been asked to enter their admin password to start the Sonoma install. Clicking cancel worked. So it might maybe be a bug in Monterey?
Click to expand...
After I saw this post I did a little searching and I saw people with multitude of OS's reporting the same thing.
 
jcrosby said:
I saw people with multitude of OS's reporting the same thing.
Click to expand...
It was a wrong guess, as I already found out myself ... still trying to find out, why this shit happened for several people.

First ... it seems, it happened with Sonoma 14.2.1 ... and second I found a hint in the Macrumors discussion, where someone reported, that he checked this with Apple support and they found out, that the SoftwareUpdate.plist config file had different update settings, than the system preferences GUI showed.

So I checked my system in Terminal:

/usr/bin/defaults read /Library/Preferences/com.apple.SoftwareUpdate.plist

It seems I'm fine, only searching for updates is activated.
 
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