Apple released macOS High Sierra Public Beta 2 on Thursday. The release comes on the heals of developer beta 3, and includes changes in that release.
macOS High Sierra Public Beta 2
Users interested in participating in macOS High Sierra public beta program can sign up at the Apple Beta Software Program site. After registering your Mac, you’ll be able to download the public beta through the Mac App Store. Those who are already signed up can find the update in Software Update in the Mac App Store.
We compiled a list of Macs that support macOS High Sierra.
Changes in macOS High Sierra include: Apple’s new File System—APFS, and brings significant improvements to Mail, Safari, Photos, and Metal 2. Apple will also be building in support for VR engines.
An update … first, I booted into recovery mode and reinstalled Public Beta 2. I still had the problem with Mail, but I was able to send my feedback to Apple this time.
But, most importantly, I went into ~/Library/Mail and blew away the plist file and the entire V5 sub-folder hierarchy … and Mail launched successfully without asking me to import anything! It’s downloading my messages right now, but it is working…
Old UNIX Guy
Something odd happened to me after I installed it I noticed in the App Store after installing is showed I installed macOS High Sierra Developer Beta 3, yet before installing it, it showed it as macOS High Sierra Public Beta 2. So I don’t know what’s going on or what was installed. I’m not in the dev program just a public beta. In about my Mac says I’m running 10.13 beta 17A306f. I’m using a 2015 MacBook Air. Very confusing.
Ack! That’s scary, Old UNIX Guy! Thanks for the notes.
Proceed with caution, if at all … this update rendered my 2011 27″ iMac useless, as it broke Mail completely!
After the upgrade completed and I logged in all my apps started to launch. Except that Mail said it needed to import all my Mail. Um, OK, Public Beta 1 didn’t, but since I had no choice I told it to go ahead. It got ~33% of the way thru importing 160,000 e-mails and barfed with a “you don’t have enough space in your home folder” error. Except I have over 700 GB free.
Rebooted and tried again. Same thing. So I launched Feedback Assistant to let Apple know … and when Feedback Assistant went to upload the report to Apple it died with a network connection lost error (don’t think so … wired Gigabit Ethernet and a 100 Gb Internet link (and no, that’s no typo)).
So I have both a show stopper bug and no way to report it to Apple because their Feedback mechanism has a show stopper bug!
Old UNIX Guy
Thank you for letting us know, updating it on my 2015 MacBook Air now. I use my 2012 Mac mini as my main machine but only installed the Public Beta on my Air. So far no complaints. Just can’t seen to get Dropbox to show in the finder, but I’m sure they will have an update to their app soon.
Our home desktop is a Mac Mini (late 2010) with a Toshiba monitor, a wired keyboard and a Magic Mouse. It had been growing long of tooth, until we swapped the mechanical HD for a .5 TB SSD, thanks to my Pi (http://wap.org) colleague Bruce Brown. Now it’s running Sierra with no complaint, so that buys Apple a bit of time in my book.
Oh, say hi to John Martellaro from me!
Jonathan Bernstein