Does ‘Automatically Keep My Mac Up to Date’ Install Catalina on Mojave?

catalinamacmacosmojavesoftware-update

Given a Mac running macOS Mojave, does turning on the checkbox "Automatically keep my Mac up to date" in System Preferences > Software Update mean that Catalina will automatically be installed?

I want only minor updates and security patches to be installed automatically, not the major OS upgrades. I do not yet want to step up to Catalina.

I found this useless Apple support page about the Advanced panel that simply repeats the text of the checkboxes’ labels as a pseudo-explanation. (Tip: Click the Helpful? > No button at bottom of that page as feedback to Apple.)

Best Answer

No it does not.

I have Mojave and it installed several updates yesterday automatically but a major system upgrade has to be authorized manually. So it is telling me it is there and available but not installing until I give permission.

Edit: I have the updates checked in the advanced panel and it did not install Catalina. See:

I suggest it is a question of understanding: "install system updates" is relevant to the current system not changing to a new system

Related Solutions

Mojave Performance – Why Does loginwindow Keep Freezing?

I've noticed the exact same hanging loginwindow issue since upgrading to Mojave 10.14.5. As @Dev and some of the other responses pointed out, there are some common applications which seem to contribute to this. Little Snitch is the culprit in my case and have found the following solutions work best as a workaround. My system is also configured for automatic login.

The immediate solution to fix the hanging loginwindow is to ssh into the host which hangs and run this simple script (or one-liner) to stop loginwindow and then start it again using launchctl.

#!/bin/sh
sudo launchctl stop com.apple.loginwindow
sleep 2
sudo launchctl start com.apple.loginwindow

sudo launchctl stop com.apple.loginwindow && sleep 2 && sudo launchctl start com.apple.loginwindow

The long-term workaround solution until Objective Development and/or Apple addresses this problematic behavior in their code is to instrument a launch daemon which executes a modified version of the above script at startup.

Create script in /usr/local/bin named fixHang.sh
```
sudo touch /usr/local/bin/fixHang.sh
```

Edit the script and paste in the content below.

sudo nano /usr/local/bin/fixHang.sh

#!/bin/sh
logFile="/Users/Michael/loginwindowdaemonscript.txt"
echo "------------BOOT BEGIN $(date)----------"
ustart=$(date -j -f "%a %b %d %T %Z %Y" "date" "+%s")
timestamp=$(date)
loginPIDChar=$(ps -ef | grep -v "grep" | grep "/usr/libexec/UserEventAgent (Aqua)" | awk $'{print $2}' | wc | awk $'{print $1}')
loginPID=$(ps -ef | grep -v "grep" | grep "/usr/libexec/UserEventAgent (Aqua)" | awk $'{print $2}')
echo "$(date) - START" >> "$logFile"
echo "$(date) - loginwindow PID: $loginPIDWindow" >> "$logFile"
echo "$(date) - UserEventAgentAqua PID: $loginPID" >> "$logFile"
while [ "$loginPIDChar" == "0" ];
do
        echo "$(date) - BEGIN LOOP" >> "$logFile"
        sleep 2
        echo "BEGIN CHECK" >> "$logFile"
        loginPIDChar=$(ps -ef | grep -v "grep" | grep "/usr/libexec/UserEventAgent (Aqua)" | awk $'{print $2}' | wc | awk $'{print $1}')
        loginWindowPID=$(pgrep loginwindow)
        echo "$loginWindowPID" >> "$logFile"
        echo "loginPIDChar = $loginPIDChar" >> "$logFile"
        if [ "$loginPIDChar" != 0 ];
        then
                timestamp=$(date)
                loginWindowPID=$(pgrep loginwindow)
                echo "$timestamp - KILL PROCESS # $loginWindowPID" >> "$logFile"
                sudo kill -9 "$loginWindowPID"
                sleep 5
                echo "$timestamp - BREAK LOOP" >> "$logFile"
                break
        else
                timestamp=$(date)
                loginWindowPID=$(pgrep loginwindow)
                echo "$timestamp - PROCESS NUMBER: $loginWindowPID" >> "$logFile"
        fi
        sleep 2
        echo "$(date) - END LOOP" >> "$logFile"
done
sleep 5
newloginWindowPID=$(pgrep loginwindow)
uend=$(date -j -f "%a %b %d %T %Z %Y" "date" "+%s")
echo "$(date) - fixDuration: $((uend - ustart)) seconds" >> "$logFile"
echo "$(date) - oldLoginWindowPID #: $loginWindowPID" >> "$logFile"
echo "$(date) - newLoginWindowPID #: $newloginWindowPID" >> "$logFile"
echo "------------BOOT COMPLETE $(date)----------" >> "$logFile"

Save out the file (Ctrl+O + [ENTER]) and exit nano (Ctrl+X + [ENTER])

Make script executable and change ownership to root:wheel

sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/fixHang.sh
sudo chown root:wheel /usr/local/bin/fixHang.sh

Create a launch daemon in /Library/LaunchDaemons which when loaded will execute the fixHang.sh script on startup

sudo touch /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.startup.fixhang.plist
sudo nano /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.startup.fixhang.plist

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>com.startup.fixhang</string>
    <key>LaunchOnlyOnce</key>
    <true/>
    <key>LimitLoadToSessionType</key>
    <array>
        <string>Aqua</string>
    </array>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>sh</string>
        <string>-c</string>
        <string>/usr/local/bin/fixHang.sh</string>
    </array>
    <key>RunAtLoad</key>
    <true/>
</dict>
</plist>

Save out the file (Ctrl+O + ENTER) and exit nano (Ctrl+X + ENTER)

Change ownership of /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.startup.fixhang.plist to root:wheel
```
sudo chown root:wheel /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.startup.fixhang.plist
```

Load the launch daemon for execution at startup

sudo launchctl load /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.startup.fixhang.plist

Mojave Upgrade – Warning That Server is Out of Date

Appears to have been some kind of bug. Later on received an app update that fixed the issue.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Mojave Performance – Why Does loginwindow Keep Freezing?

Mojave Upgrade – Warning That Server is Out of Date

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