macOS Sonoma 14.4.1: fixes to USB hubs, Java crashes

Following iOS and iPadOS updates late last week, Apple has released a complementary update to macOS Sonoma with security updates and some big bug fixes.

It's still not fully clear what the update contains in its entirety. The patch notes displayed for a manual update mention the updates provide "important bug fixes and security updates," and that it is "recommended for all users."

The update notes also include a link to details of Apple's security releases. Monday's macOS update, and last week's iOS updates fix an arbitrary code execution flaw in CoreMedia, and a similarly exploitable flaw in WebRTC.

Monday's macOS Sonoma 14.4 update fixes a few problems. USB hubs in monitors weren't working properly under the prior update. Additionally, a bug in the 14.4 release caused Java processes to terminate unexpectedly.

Other users were seeing problems with printing. For some users, the update process removed the core CUPS software, leaving no way for the printer and Mac to interface. It's not yet clear if this has been fixed, and we will update this post as more information develops.

Alongside the macOS 14.4.1 update, Apple also released macOS 13.6.6. Update notes are similarly sparse. The macOS 14.4.1 update is build number 23E224, with the macOS 13.6.6 update holding build 22G630.

10 Comments

pulseimages 8 Years · 656 comments

About 8 months ago

Does the update fix the Mac Optimized Storage bug?

macminion 9 Years · 29 comments

After the MacOs 12.7.4 update, had to reset(uninstall and install) printers in printer & scanner setting to reestablish printer connection.

Grizzmick 8 Years · 7 comments

Does anyone still use Java for anything ?

michelb76 8 Years · 700 comments

pulseimages said:

Does the update fix the Mac Optimized Storage bug?

Who knows what it does, there are no release notes. so no clue how they arrived at the title.

JustSomeGuy1 6 Years · 330 comments

AppleInsider said:

Other users were seeing problems with printing. For some users, the update process removed the core CUPS software, leaving no way for the printer and Mac to interface. It's not yet clear if this has been fixed, and we will update this post as more information develops.

OMG stop already. This is at least the third article in which AI claims that the update may remove CUPS. That doesn't happen, ever. You original article on this linked to a bunch of complaints on Apple's forum NONE of which actually said that that happened. They all mentioned error messages about the CUPS *socket*, which just indicates a problem with the socket - in fact, it appears to be a problem linked to MS Defender in all cases so far, and in all those cases, CUPS was still present and running, and turning off Defender restored functionality.

To repeat, nobody EVER claimed that CUPS was being removed, except you.

Now, knowing if the printing issue with Defender is fixed would be interesting.

(BTW, to go out on a limb, I'm going to speculate that someone at Apple screwed up somewhere in the kernel and the semantics for AF_INET and AF_LOCAL are being confused somewhere that Defender tries to "protect". Should Defender *ever* be looking at local sockets?? Or possibly, MS is messing with filesystem access control where they shouldn't be, and Apple removed a safety rail by accident? Either way, it's a pretty bad bug.)