If you want to see exactly when your machine will hit this, I threw together a fish shell function that calculates the precise timestamp, mostly vibe coded.
This made me remember some folks that are "I never reboot my MacOS and it's fine!". Yeah probably it is but I'll never trust any computer without periodic reboots lol.
> It will not be caught in development testing — who runs a test for 50 days?
You don't have to run the system for 50 days. You can simulate the environment and tick the clock faster. Many high reliability systems are tested this way.
Does anybody else find these AI-authored blog posts difficult to read? Something about the writing style and structure just feels unnatural, it's hard put my finger on it.
At the very least, the writing takes way too long to get to a point.
have multiple macOS machines with 600-1000+ day uptimes, which do TCP connections every minute or so at a minimum, they are still expiring their TIME_WAIT connections as normal.
these kernel versions:
Darwin Kernel Version 20.6.0: Thu Jul 6 22:12:47 PDT 2023; root:xnu-7195.141.49.702.12~1/RELEASE_ARM64_T8101 arm64
Darwin Kernel Version 17.7.0: Wed Apr 24 21:17:24 PDT 2019; root:xnu-4570.71.45~1/RELEASE_X86_64 x86_64
I got tired of the AI writing before finding out if they even attempted to contact Apple about this issue? Does anyone know?
Also, massively over-dramatised. Yes, a bug worth finding and knowing about, but it’s not a time bomb - very few users are likely to be affected by this.
Knowing the nature of OS kernels, I’m guessing even just putting a Mac laptop to sleep would be enough to avoid this issue as it would reset the TCP stack - which may be why some people are reporting much longer uptimes without hitting this problem, since (iirc) uptime doesn’t reset on Macs just for a sleep? Only for a full reboot?
Anyway, all in all, yeah hopefully Apple fix this but it’s not something anyone needs to panic about.
Nobody keeps their Macs running for more than 49.7 days? We have Windows Servers here (with long-term TCP/IP connections) that are only rebooted every 6 months to apply patches.
Macs that no longer get reboot-requiring updates by Apple usually have long(er) uptimes. :) My record here with my primary Mac mini was a bit over a year. Only to be forced to reboot because of a power outage.
Generally it feels like sometimes you boot into a stable "session" that can go on forever, but often enough you boot in a "session" and something goes wrong quickly and you'll have to reboot after a week or two. But I do experience the same with my Raspberry PI. :)
I rarely restart my Mac mini, and I have never had such an issue beyond my internet provider suddenly stopping properly working in the middle of the night.
38 comments
[ 5.9 ms ] story [ 61.4 ms ] threadguess i'm marked safe!
calc_tcp_overflow_time.fish: https://gist.github.com/daveorzach/64538f82a89fa24e5d134557c...
monitor_tcp_time_wait.fish: https://gist.github.com/daveorzach/0964a7a67c08c50043ff707cf...
You don't have to run the system for 50 days. You can simulate the environment and tick the clock faster. Many high reliability systems are tested this way.
At the very least, the writing takes way too long to get to a point.
these kernel versions:
Darwin Kernel Version 20.6.0: Thu Jul 6 22:12:47 PDT 2023; root:xnu-7195.141.49.702.12~1/RELEASE_ARM64_T8101 arm64
Darwin Kernel Version 17.7.0: Wed Apr 24 21:17:24 PDT 2019; root:xnu-4570.71.45~1/RELEASE_X86_64 x86_64
so... wonder what that's about?
Also, massively over-dramatised. Yes, a bug worth finding and knowing about, but it’s not a time bomb - very few users are likely to be affected by this.
Knowing the nature of OS kernels, I’m guessing even just putting a Mac laptop to sleep would be enough to avoid this issue as it would reset the TCP stack - which may be why some people are reporting much longer uptimes without hitting this problem, since (iirc) uptime doesn’t reset on Macs just for a sleep? Only for a full reboot?
Anyway, all in all, yeah hopefully Apple fix this but it’s not something anyone needs to panic about.
Sometimes it just stops networking completely, turning the wifi adapter on/off brings it back just fine. It's also a good time to reboot =)
God I wish Apple offered first party support for Linux on Mac computers.
Generally it feels like sometimes you boot into a stable "session" that can go on forever, but often enough you boot in a "session" and something goes wrong quickly and you'll have to reboot after a week or two. But I do experience the same with my Raspberry PI. :)