Apple iCloud Migraines

Check the end of this post for updates. Soon after I posted this the issues popped back up. The saga continues.

Oh, Apple. You make it sound so easy. Can’t sign in with an Apple Watch? Devices having syncing problems or lose connectivity to the Continuity/Handoff magic? Sign out of iCloud and then sign back in. Problem solved? Sometimes. For a time. Not every time.

Signing in and out of iCloud to fix issues can create random headaches as nasty as a migraine. You never know when those migraines are going to hit. You live life a bit on edge anticipating and dreading the next reccurence. You know it will happen. Or you fear it will. And when it does hit, well you know what’s coming.

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I haven’t blogged about things Apple in awhile. Not since this post on Apple’s Design Trap. But it feels like my pace might pick up a bit given the frequency of new kinks I’m experiencing in the Appleverse. Funny, not funny, how these migraines seem to surface in the run up to Apple’s annual new operating system announcements at WWDC and then continue throughout the summer. It almost feels like whether we sign up for betas or not, we’re all along on the summer beta bus for the ride anyway. Especially if we take advantage of the number of services and features connected to iCloud.

Yes. iCloud. Troubled when launched, it is less, though still troubled now. But though it may be less, it’s actually become more mysterious because it’s tied to so much more than when it had its troubled beginnings. When I say mysterious I’m not just talking about how users feel. Talk to an Apple Support rep about an iCloud issue. Beyond advising signing out and signing back in they are by and large as confused by the mystery as the rest of us.

Here’s the story.

I’m a big Apple fan so I come at my criticisms of Apple from the point of view that I enjoy and prefer Apple’s devices and software. I use a variety of Apple’s computers and products. I also subscribe to iCloud via AppleOne. I like to take advantage of quite a few of the features that require an iCloud subscription to benefit from such as Sign in with Apple Watch, Universal Control, Handoff and Continuity. Prior to last fall’s release of  Ventura, iOS16, watchOS9, etc.., iCloud would somehow randomly bungle things up so these features would just stop working. Typically you don’t know that things have stopped working until you go to use one of the features. The problem(s) seemed to be resolved after the Fall 2022 releases of those new OS’s. But as we all know Apple keeps working and releasing updates throughout the year.

After this past spring’s release of Ventura 13.3 the problems appeared again. After the release of Ventura 13.3.1 I didn’t see any of these random cock-ups and dared to breathe a sigh of relief. Premature as it turns out. Even though there were mutliple device categories involved in the 13.3/16.4 round of OS updates I’m pinning this on Ventura because in attempting to track problems down I discovered that there were no issues with any of these features between iPads and iPhones. Turn off the Macs and things worked as designed. Call me crazy but “Turn off your Mac” sounds slightly worse than “you’re holding it wrong.”

Coming back to either of my Macs (MacBook Pro M2 and iMac 24) I could randomly no longer log in with my Apple Watch. That’s a first world problem I know, but hey, it’s my first world so it’s a problem for me if not for any substantial number of users. And of course the error message Apple offers is about as helpful as warm spit.

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For those that don’t know there’s no place to “sign in” using the Apple Watch app on your iPhone. To sign out of iCloud on your Apple Watch you actually have to sign out of iCloud on your iPhone and the reverse is true. So this little not so helpful message should tell you to sign out of iCloud for your iPhone. Oh, and the clever little animation in the above GIF is showing the enjoyable experience I would receive when I tried to toggle the control that lets me sign in with my Apple Watch. Top notch support and design. All around.

Once I arrived at this goodness I would then check to see if any other of the Continuity/Handoff features would be disabled and of course they would be.

Consistently Inconsistent

Now here’s the bigger problem. There’s no consistency to the failures. Sometimes the problem would be on both Macs and sometimes on one of the Macs, (it seemed like they were taking turns). Once I rebooted the MacBook Air to attempt and resurrect the lost iCloud features connection and in that case I had success. Only to see that the connection on the iMac had failed in the time it took to reboot the MacBook Air. In almost all instances there was nothing out of the ordinary added to either machine (that I’m aware of) or me using the machines in any new or different way. Other than an operating system update. (*cough*)

Prior to Ventura I had talked with Apple Support and scoured online sources for solutions when this problem would manifest. There were and are as many guesses to solve these problems as there are people looking for answers. Everything from rebooting to rebuilding your device(s). The same is true in this current moment. In some cases a reboot solves the issues. In some cases not so much.

Others solve it with any number of solutions (Bluetooth on/off, logging a user in and out, etc…). Most who get to the point of logging out of iCloud report some success, only to see the problem come back at intervals ranging from a couple of hours to several days.

Currently I’m in that latter “several days” category. It’s almost consistent at three days. Occasionally sooner. Occasionally longer. The range of unpredictability is at least narrowing. But the bottom line here is this: Apple has no idea how to solve this issue.

So there’s a problem. I can only conclude that it’s related to iCloud and something introduced recently in Ventura that affects Macs given that everything seems to work when the Macs are turned off. Signing out and back in to iCloud will solve it. For awhile. That’s the current state of affairs.

What Apple and those who leap to the “Sign out of iCloud” as a solution to this migraine-like nightmare don’t tell you is the potential series of after shocks you’ll encounter along the way back.

Apple does provide a handy list of the services you’ll lose access to when you sign out of iCloud at this link. And when you decide to take that step Apple will also let you know that you’ll lose any credit cards you have set up with Apple Pay. Apple will also give you the option to save some iCloud data on your Mac. But that advice doesn’t cover what you may or may not have to do to get things back up and running the way you want it to. These are some of my experiences:

Things that happen each time I’ve logged out and back in to iCloud.

First, if you happen to use different Apple IDs for purchases/music and iCloud you’ll have to manually reassociate your purchases/music ID with your iCloud account in the same way you do when you set up a new device. I know I’m not the only old geezer who first got an Apple ID back in the day when I used iTunes and an iPod with Windows, so I’m sure others will have to do this as well.

Second, if you use iCloud Photos and have chosen to save originals to your Mac, you’ll have to make that selection again in the settings for Photos. If you do have to reselect this Photos setting that means you’ll burn bandwidth downloading those originals again at some point.

Third, if you’ve downloaded some music to your device you’ll have to redownload those selections again. Again, Apple doesn’t seem to remember what you’ve downloaded previously.

Fourth, As expected all of your Mail, Notes, Reminders, Calendars, and Contacts have to be redownloaded. (More on Contacts in a bit.) This seems to work relatively quickly with the exception of Mail, Notes, and Contacts which can take some time depending on what you’ve accumulated.

Fifth: Apple does warn you that you’ll lose credit cards in Apple Pay. So you know that going in. Having to go through this process so frequently in recent weeks unfortunately flagged my account at my bank necessitating a phone call to explain what was going on. So I’m not re-adding that card back to Apple Pay until or if this problem settles down.

Things that happen sometimes and sometimes not when I logged out and back into iCloud.

Messages: I’ve got several group threads I hide notifications from. I sometimes have to “re-hide” those notifcations. Sometimes not.

Airpods and Bluetooth: I don’t choose the default Airpod setting that allows Airpods to connect to a Mac automatically. I use the “When last connected to this Mac” setting. That setting sometimes holds and sometimes does not.

The image I use for my avatar on my login screen sometimes comes back as normal. Sometimes not.

Contacts: I mentioned that earlier. On some, not all, occasions Sign Out/Sign In Contacts seems to want to rebuild it’s database completely. I only noticed this after one of these episodes when for the first time my M2 MacBook Air got hot to the touch. In trying to figure out the problem I noticed that the AddressBookSourceSync was the culprit eating tons of memory and processor time. Again, this didn’t happen each time, but it did happen multiple times on each Mac. Note: I hardly ever use the Contacts app on my Macs. Typically any contact I add or change comes from my iPhone.

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Various other settings and preferences seem to come and go. But again, it’s not like I use everything on my Macs every day so who knows when in this cycle of logging out and back in something changed or didn’t.

I get the problem here. Apple has created quite an intricate and appealing series of services that rely on iCloud as a backbone. When things work they work great. But they don’t always just work. Advancing these services and features requires constant development and there’s no real way to make sure every possible detail and permutation is locked down and working on the annual pace that Apple rolls out these operating systems. So, there will be problems. Bugs. Issues. Headaches. Call them what you will. Fix them and move on.

But, if things are moving so fast that your support personnel and documentation can’t keep up then it might be time to re-evaluate the pace. The misleading “fix” in that message in the animated GIF above has been around for at least two generations of Apple operating systems. Frankly at this point, it’s insulting.

iCloud woes date back to its inception. I doubt they will ever truly be solved. But at least give users and your support personnel information that makes sense, explains what your fix may or may not do, and isn’t misleading or sounds ignorant.

Updates: A few hours after posting this the issue happened again after being away from the iMac 24 for a few hours. Nothing going on just the computer normally going into Sleep Mode. As had happened once before, all was working on the MacBook Air until I rebooted the iMac. And then the MacBook Air took the same iCloud dive.

The reboot of the iMac 24 was successful and brought things back on that device. I’ve rebooted the MacBook Air 4 times now and still no luck on that device. That typically means I’ll have to sign out and back in to iCloud. I’ll update again after doing that.

Update 2: Wednesday. I logged out and back into iCloud last night. After the requisite time of letting things settle back in most things that I checked seemed to be working again. Until they didn’t. This morning I tried to open MacBook Air while having coffee and none of the features were working again. So far everything at the moment seems viable on the iMac 24.

Two more reboots of the MacBook Air seemed to right the ship.

Update 3: Thursday. Ran some errands for a few hours today. Returned. Neither Mac would accept Login With Apple Watch and all of the attendant other problems. Rebooting both machines yielded a return of things to the MacBook Air but not the iMac 24.

This is getting old.

*For a variety of reasons this post has been in the creation process over a couple of weeks. During that time the issues I discuss occured mutliple time on both Macs. I anticipate they will continue.

Damn Those Kids and Those 10 Commandments

I’m all in when it comes to establishment clause of the US Constitution. I think it was put in as a response to more topical and pressing reasons that were very much alive in the minds and memories of the founders. Intriguingly, those reasons are proving just as important today even though we have accumulated vastly more knowledge to build our reasoning on. That said, I find it curiously entertaining about the recent news from Texas requiring schools to display the 10 Commandments in classrooms. 

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Curious because, if you’re going to insist on paying attention to the mighty 10, I wonder how much attention is going to be paid to the latter half of the list. You know the ones about bearing false witness (lying), stealing, killing, commtting adultery, and coveting. 

Entertained because, hey this is just another ring in the circus run by clowns searching for a ringmaster. Remember, this is coming out of the same brain dumps that think ignoring and not teaching history is a good idea and that teachers shouldn’t be able to talk about our flaws and differences as individuals and a society.

So, tell me. How’s a teacher going to respond when some youngster asks about the lying, cheating, stealing, killing, adultering and coveting that these modern day clown crusaders practice and praise so openly?

Remember kids say the darndest things. 

And five will get you ten that the last half of the 10 Commandments will eventually get edited out of the picture. 

50 Cognitive Biases In the Modern World

I find this compilation of cogntive biases fascinating. But then I’m biased towards things I find fascinating. (Don’t think I see that on the list.)

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The graphic here is a small screen grab of the entire thing but you can check out the full list at Visual Capitalist. You’ll find all of your favorites and I’m guessing at least a few new ones. (I hadn’t heard of the IKEA Effect before.)

Hat Tip to Cess Grotes on Mastodon for sharing this.

Rules are for Suckers

In the beginning there was one rule. Don’t eat the damn apple.

We’ve been adding rules, regulations, laws, by-laws, and constitutions ever since. Rules may be meant to be broken so I guess we like to break things because we keep making more and more of them. We also like to make rules for others and not ourselves in the same way we think other folks’ rules don’t apply to us. Heck, even those who don’t like rules and regulations as a thing into and of themselves, love making up rules and regulations to try and circumvent the rules and regulations that get in their way. We’re a wacky bunch we humans.

Shellgame

I once leased from and later worked for a theatre manager who had an ever expanding lease. Each time a tenant would do something he deemed inappropriate he would add a new clause to the lease to try and prevent that behavior in the future. He also, at lease signing, had the practice of reading out loud each and every clause in the lease and telling new tenants exactly who was responsible for the addition of each clause. It was always quite a show. Too bad he didn’t sell tickets to watch it.

We don’t like to reigned in. It’s where this whole freedom thing comes from. We want to be free to do what we want. We just don’t want those we disagree with to be free to do what they want. So we make up rules. If we have enough power we make up rules to take away rules from others. Those are the rules.

When someone gets angry and wants to get rid of red tape, they typically have to use “the rule of law” to do so.

That old comfort blanket, “the rule of law,” has seen better days. It may actually just be hanging around like that quilt your grandma made as a reminder of what’s lost. Memories of things long gone. Or perhaps were never really there in the first place.

Consider:

  • The stripping of child labor protections. Who knew folks in Arkansas read so much Dickens?
  • The battle over abortion.
  • Voting restrictions.
  • Guns.
  • Sheriffs who choose not to enforce laws they don’t like.
  • Banning books and libraries.
  • Anything happening in Florida, Arkansas, or pick a red-state.

That list could go on. (And does.)

“The rule of law” only works as a rule when everybody plays by the same rules. Or more importantly pretends to. Sad fact. At no time in history has everyone played by the same rules. We’ve done a lot of pretending though.

Ignoring all the rules when they get in the way seems like the latest trend. Take Clarence Thomas. Take Neil Gorsuch. Please. Take most of the Supreme Court thinking a bit too supreme for most people’s liking. And not caring that they are essentially undermining whatever they aren’t hiding behind those robes.

Take any number of politicians. Throw a dart and you’ll score a bullseye. But I don’t think it’s a new trend.

Are we living in some sort of new age where those of us offended (easily or no) by rule-making rule-breakers really have no where to turn?

No. It’s always been this way. Throughout the history of mankind. Pretending takes too much effort. There’s just no longer any incentive to hide the game, much less the rules. The illusion has been shattered from the top to the bottom. When a huge chunk of the populace can push hard to nominate and elect an indicted decaying orange turd for president, given all that we know, but the system can’t seem or want to find a way to hold him accountable, there’s no system or collection of rules to have faith in any longer. When the chief justice of the Surpeme Court can simply decline to answer questions about the intergrity of his institution what’s the point of that instituion even existing any longer.

Some of those suffering are going through the same kind of awakening that most children do when they discover their parents are human and have faults. Many doing the yelling and screaming about this supposed rule breaking are just pissed that they weren’t shameless or gutless enough to do it first.

The shysters no longer give a damn about things like shame. The suckers and the suckups keep contributing, whether they be small donors or large and it’s better to focus their energy on hoovering up the loose change than  the masquerade.

The rules haven’t changed. The games haven’t changed. The game players just realize they don’t have to work so hard on their act to bilk the bumpkins.

Are We Giving Up On Facts?

Artificial Intelligence remains and will remain all the rage. Whether it be text in Large Language Models or Digital Art creation there’s a rush, gold and otherwise, into this new world fueled by impressive technology. Impressive as it may be, at its core it remains a regurgitation of creations by humans. Which we all know at times have been impressive and at other times less so. (See Today.) Even once it reaches the point when new AI creations are redigesting its own regurgitations, its core will still be based on what has come before.

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Set aside the sometimes laughable mistakes (two different models have declared me dead) and the “who owns this stuff” issues over the text and images these engines are trained on. Set aside the labor issues. (I’m waiting to see the sex-worker protests over AI generated porn spring up.) Those are fundamentally no different than the advent of any new disruptive technology business springing up. See Uber. See the explosion of rented scooters. See food delivery services. Ship it and sort out the problems later. The rush of the immediate craze always meets reality at some point and slows down before settling in, and in some cases fading from the scene.

But this rush feels different. Not the gold rush part. There’s nothing new under the sun there. But the rush to adopt. Which now that I think of it is essentially the same thing.

It feels different because I think it means we’re giving up on facts. Yes, sure these models are being trained on facts. But they are also being trained on a ton of bullshit. Because hey, again, they are being trained on all the stuff we’ve spewed out and is indexable on the Internet.

I may be wrong but I can’t find any reading that suggests that there are any attempts to weed out the wheat from the chaff. We can’t solve that problem in the real world, so I don’t have much hope that anyone even desires to in the artificial one either. On the on hand why do that? Aren’t these just tools for humans to use? And humans do human things like make mistakes, make stuff up, and make trouble. Often while trying to make money.

On the other hand, I’m not sure there will be another hand. If this new technology phase achieves the aims its creators are using to sell it, the next phase will be new tools that promise to do that wheat/chaff separating. Which, in turn, will get fed back into the same machine in an infinite loop that eventually churns out bread that all tastes the same. I can’t wait to read all of the AI generated articles that feature headlines reading “Everything You Need to Know About AI” a decade or so down the road.

There’s no great conclusion here. There’s merely questions. Or maybe just more fodder for the AI bots to suck up. But as I ponder this I am reminded of this quote from Frank Herbert’s Dune:

“Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.”

Essential Reading: The Undertow: Scenes from a Slow Civil War by Jeff Sharlet

Read this book. Highly recommended. 

That’s the summary and the sum. 

I’m a big admirer of Jeff Sharlet. Have been for awhile. That admiration deepened with his latest book The Undertow: Scenes from a Slow Civil War. (That’s not an affiliate link if you’re wondering.) 

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Sharlet likes to get right into the middle and the depths of the topics he’s exploring. He certainly does here as he walks the walk and talks the talk with a number of folks in the MAGA world seeking to understand just how close the embers of their smoldering hatred is to igniting. 

Here’s a quote from the blurb that comes close to doing this book justice:

Exploring a geography of grief and uncertainty in the midst of plague and rising fascism, The Undertow is a necessary reckoning with our precarious present that brings to light a decade of American failures as well as a vision for American possibility.

Make no mistake. While Sharlet’s style makes for more than engaging reading the subject matter is not easy to swallow. But it’s a medicine that I think we all need to take if we want to understand what’s afflicting our national psyche in this era beyond the media moments both social and otherwise.

As someone who thinks we’re already in the early stages of this country’s next Civil War I would argue the word “slow” in the title might have more aptly applied 7-10 years ago. That said, the stories and moments Sharlet relates leave no doubt that the divisions we face are so deep that the chances to bridge them are few and far between and perhaps already out of reach.

Again, I highly recommend the book as I do the rest of Sharlet’s work. If you haven’t seen The Family on Netflix. I’d encourage you to check that out as well as Sharlet’s other work.  

Amazing Story: His Software Sang the Words of God. Then It Went Silent

Every day is a good day when you learn something new. And this amazing story certainly offers something new to me. 

 

TropeTrainer was software that had been taught to sing the words of God.

Then it went silent.

A developer created TropeTrainer, software that helped prepare kids for their bar and bat mitzvahs. He passed away. Due to advances on computers his software abruptly stopped running on new or updated computers and much was lost. 

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Most magical was the voice synthesis, which featured an adjustable timbre and a playback speed, Buchler boasted on his website, that could be set “from unbearably slow to comfortably fast.”

In a wink to exasperated Torah tutors, he devised the slogan “Software With Infinite Patience.”

That brief description and excerpts here risk trivializing this story. So, go read the story. 

The American Catechism Comes To An End

The Rule of Law.

We are a country of laws not men.

No one is above the law.

If you’re of a certain age you can recite those tenets of the American Catechism as easily as drawing breath. I say of a certain age because I’m not sure they drill those fundamentals into the brains of youngsters anymore.

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On the one hand, that’s too bad. On the other, maybe not so much. Those truths, never self-evident, weren’t much more than man-made myths anyway. We’ve been mauling those myths since we made them. They’ve always bordered on being a bromide. Meant to comfort. Meant to explain without the need of any real explanation. There’s always been a finger tipping the balance on the scales of justice and Lady Justice has been known to take a peek from under that blindfold now and again.

The magic behind any myth is the buy-in. When the customers aren’t buying anymore, well that leads to bankruptcy, dissolution, or disaster. Unless of course you’re a bank.

“Indications” are that the indcitment of the decaying orange turd is going to turn into the buttressing of our current American pathology as the media rakes in the ratings while spewing out speculation. I’m surprised they aren’t selling ads at Super Bowl rates as I’m sure they’ll follow the decaying orange turd’s plane to NYC like they followed OJ’s Bronco. But there’s not going to be anything resembling what we’ve come to think of as justice in any of this when all is said and done. I’m guessing we’ll see some sort of deal, artful or not, in the name of preserving our sanity for the sake of healing the country.

I know. Try not to laugh at that last part. Tough to heal a country that tore itself in two almost two centuries ago and has reopened those old wounds now that the bandages have been ripped off again.

We’ve accelerated the mauling of the myths and cratering of the catechism. But there’s a silver lining. There’s no longer a need to bend a knee and recite the litanies. Instead use that energy to find one of the increasing number of lawyers who don’t practice all of the supposed rules of their professsion if you get in trouble. Turns out those rules and regs were just myths also.

So many compare favorably our sacred sayings against the clichéd catcalls condeming third-world countries when political fortunes rise and fall. Well now that we’ve dispensed with another of those long held “we’re better than the rest of the world” legacies about the peaceful transfer of power, I’d put us pretty damned close to admission into that thrid-world circle and getting closer every day. We haven’t accepted that “failed peaceful transfer of power” reality and we’re still clinging like kudzu to that myth as we live through its continuing aftermath.

Bottom line. We’ve been had. We’ve let ourselves be had. We used to like that we’ve been had. We used to live with that quite comfortably just like we lived with most other myths and magical sayings that allowed us to sleep at night. Some are pissed off about it. Others are trying to pretend we can return to past like you can return to bed pulling the covers over your head to avoid the day a little longer.

The day is either here or damned near.

And yeah. I’m pissed.

Ink Diaries: And the Reviews Start Coming In

The cast did a glorious job at Friday night’s opening of Ink at Playhouse on the Square. They received a well deserved standing ovation. And now we’ve got our first review in from the Memphis Flyer, headlined Murdoch’s Legacy: Fast-Paced Ink Delivers at Circuit Playhouse. 

The Circuit cast is solid and the production smartly executed. It’s entertaining from the get-go and stirs up enough issues to provoke discussions long after the final bows.

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Check it out.