OS X 10.10.4 Beta 6 Released for Testing

Jun 15, 2015 - 19 Comments

OS X Yosemite

Apple has released the sixth beta of OS X Yosemite 10.10.4 to Mac users who are participating in the developer and public beta programs.

The new build arrives versioned as 14E36b and is downloadable from the Mac App Store Updates function as usual, assuming the user is opted-in to receive beta software, or is currently running a prior beta version. Developers can also access the download through the Apple Developer Center.


OS X 10.10.4 seems to be primarily focused on bug fixes and resolving various issues impacting Macs with OS X Yosemite, with perhaps the most notable under-the-hood change being a return of mDNSResponder to replace the problematic discoveryd networking daemon. That adjustment could mean a resolution for lingering network difficulties that some OS X Yosemite users have continued to experience, despite multiple OS X 10.10.x releases aimed at addressing them.

Though Apple has not mentioned a specific timeline for OS X 10.10.4 to be made available to the public, typically the beta process goes through several releases before a final public version is distributed. Being the sixth beta build of 10.10.4 could suggest that OS X 10.10.4 will be available to all users sooner rather than later.

OS X Yosemite and further 10.10.x releases are likely in maintenance mode as focus shifts to the next major revision of OS X, named “El Capitan” and versioned as 10.11, which will be released later in the year during the fall.

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Posted by: Paul Horowitz in Mac OS, News

19 Comments

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  1. JT says:

    Just my two cents…

    Yosemite has been a total calamity. Not trying to be rude, or demeaning, but those who have not noticed any problems, seem to fall into the following categories, unilaterally.

    1. Don’t care or unaware of system performance / degradation
    2. Operate within very simple network(s) (min interop)
    3. Have little to SECURITY / PRIVACY awareness / concern
    4. Rarely or inadequately optimize their systems

    I’ve been blown away by the poor attention on Apple’s behalf to exposure, performance and overwhelming disregard for stability in Yosemite thus far. 10.10.4 is the last chance before we drop 28 OS X & IOS devices forever. Apple has suppressed so many threads and reports of problems since Yosemites inception. Gotta hand it to their “spin” management… truly next to none. They were known for having a marked advantage for those in Creative Arts and were building a business capability. Today, Photo & Video needs are better served on MS or Linux. Their biz applicability, well… shaky at best now if these matters aren’t finally put to rest.

  2. AngryBunny says:

    I’m so happy that many of the posters have had no Wi-Fi issues. You should feel quite grateful. But myself and 1000’s of other Mac users and even those in tech industry who live and breath this stuff have had horrible problems with Yosemite and discoveryD. The problem is very REAL. Apple would not spend the time and money to address this issue if it was not a problem. I cannot wait for the return of mDNSResponder. Hopefully then I will have the same flawless OSX experience that others have claimed here to have.

  3. Rudy says:

    I have had minimal problems with Yosemite. I believe once they fixed the send mail problem the only residual has been a propinquity to go to the default screen saver. I think this is a software conflict since it seems happen after I work with certain apps.

  4. Inderjeet says:

    As many as it takes to get the quality of the update to be as bug-less as possible, especially as this may the last update to Yosemite before they shift to El Cap completely. Complex software like an OS update takes months to test, validate, and finish.

    The whole reason Yosemite was buggy as heck was because they didn’t take their time to do it right.

  5. Phred says:

    I bought my first Mac four months ago. It came with Yosemite. So far I am not impressed at all. We pay a premium for Mac products, so we expect them to work.

    I had better see a huge improvement or I have no choice but to wipe the OS in favor of Linux.

    • Johnny says:

      Actually, we pay for “pretty” products that are slimmer, smaller, simpler, and gorgeous. Working as a definitive design requirement were tossed out years ago.

  6. Linda says:

    I have endless problems with Yosemite and Wi-Fi on brand new Cisco Meraki access points. There are no issues with simpler access points such as home or internet cafes.

    There are those who say that the yosemite issues are in part due to the way OS X Yosemite (does not) handle 802.11h Power Constraint Information Element.

    https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6825371

    The way Apple has delayed a solution of Yosemite Wifi reflects very poorly on the use of Apple in the enterprise.

  7. tomi says:

    All of the older Macs with upgrades to 10.9.5 seem to be having time out problems connecting to a secured wifi network. Even 10.8 has these problems with the upgrades which are not clean installs on older Mac. It is so wide spread now that I find it almost unbearable when having to service the systems on these older machines.
    I know work arounds which ultimately resolve the problem, however, some of them are not a permanent solution to the system.

    There is no future here, doesn’t Apple see this? Yosemite is a metaphor for Apple jumping off a cliff.

    Go back to basics, nobody wants their working machine turned into a toy under the guise of following fashion at the sake of productivity and reliability. Sickened by all this as an Apple consultant for almost 2 decades. An El Capitan should line them all up and shoot the lot of these idiots making these decisions.

    • Cheryl Strak says:

      Have an 2010 iMac and went from the Lion to Maverick to Yosemite only using wireless connection and never had any hiccups! No problems at all. Go figure.

  8. Sebby says:

    I thought I saw a firmware upgrade for my iMac 2011 in this update.

    Is it real?

    The Wi-Fi issues are definitely real, for some of us. Probably the crowd on here are either running relatively recent Macs and/or often do clean installs, both of which would mitigate these. Even on my Ethernet-only iMac I’m very happy for the return of mDNSResponder. (YAY!)

    El Capitan should get all the love as it’s obviously more focused on actually being what OS X should be, but I think Apple would be wise to keep Yosemite around too, and Mavericks. And I’ll jump to Win10 if I must.

  9. fred242 says:

    I certainly have had more crashes with Yosemite than with all the other OSX releases put together barring 10.0.

  10. SpanishGuy says:

    I started to use Mac OS X with a Lion-preloaded Mac Book Pro in 2011. I’ve never had a WiFi issue in all this time and OSs.
    My two cents.

  11. waesou says:

    Wi-fi on my MacBook Pro has been fine it’s brand new 2015 model, so I suspect it got a lot of attention. I think the troubled Macs were slightly older, but what do I know.

    Anyway, changing the networking infrastructure makes me nervous to update. The last thing I want is internet problems, so let us hope OS X 10.10.4 does not introduce issues to those not having any.

  12. franz says:

    I had no problems with wifi drops with Yosemite either. The only issue with the betas is that cdock quit working.

    • BuffyzDead says:

      FYI

      …cdock developer is working on updating his application, so it supports the latest Yosemite and the upcoming El Capitan

    • kanmac says:

      I use DockMod now, since it works with Yosemite and am quite happy with it. A question I had concerning the app was answered quickly.

  13. Wombat Petter says:

    I’ll update to this, but really I just want OS X El Capitan so that I can forget about the mess that is/was OS X Yosemite. Truly a fumble from Apple, I hope whoever was involved with OS X Yosemite development at the company is condemned to use the first terrible public release for the next year on their personal Macs, dropping wi-fi and all. What a big defecation it is. Give me El Capitan final.

    • Kr00 says:

      Speak for yourself. I’ve had no issues and all the people I know, have no issues with Yosemite.

    • Elmo says:

      Hilarious. He is waiting for El Capitain to fix Yosemite. You will jump from one operating system mess to another. El Capitain will have its own issues. Apple only cares about “pretty” now, and could not care about security, reliability, or robustness.

      El Crapitain is going to be the same.

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