Beta testers not being fed macOS 11.5.1 (Build 20G80)

TidBITS Talk
1

I am a Public Beta Tester. I assume the Big Sur Beta program has completed. Not that Apple actually has announced this fact, but I think it is a safe guess that all development has moved to Monterey.

Apple left me on Mac OS 11.5 (Build 20G71). It simply walked away. It never fed me 11.5.1

So, the workaround is to leave the beta program, which erases the Certificate for the Big Sur Beta.

Then run software update. Then, like magic, the 11.5.1 update appears. Run the update, then if you choose, rejoin the beta program and re-enroll your device. You’ll get a new certificate for Monterey.

Sadly, all communication in the Apple Public Beta program is ONE-WAY. And it does not flow from them to me. Luckily, we have TidBITS.

2

That’s a good reminder—after the beta programs, always be sure to delete those certificates unless you want to keep getting betas.

3

And when you delete the certificates, your Time Machine starts from an empty disk. All the backups you made under the beta are gone.

So get a few backups done under the public OS first before rejoining the Beta Program. Then you’ll have backups available if you quit the beta program.

The same rule applies if you are upgrading your iPhone. Remove the certificates, you’ll stay on the beta you are on, run the update to get onto the latest release version, make new backups.

You will be able to clone your old phone to your new one. If your old phone stays on the beta, it cannot be cloned to your new phone. In theory, you could use your new phone to join the beta and put both phones on the same version of iOS. Which is what is required, even though Apple doesn’t tell you.

In reality, sometimes you might be on a beta certificate for a program that is closed. You can no longer join that beta program with the new phone. That is exactly how I ended up on iOS 15 Beta.

I’m not rejoining the Mac beta to test Monterey. Too early, too many bugs. Very happy with Big Sir.

Still in the beta for iOS.

4

I would never run into this problem because

I NEVER run backups of any sort when I am running a beta OS. I make sure to have excellent backups of device before I go into the beta program. The possibility of creating corruption under the beta and not being able to have anything usable is just too great.

I go into the beta program understanding that I may lose everything changed after I start it–so I never run betas on a machine where I can’t afford to restart from the last good production version I ran.

For example, since my laptop doesn’t contain anything that isn’t on my desktop, I will join install beta OS’s there, but I wait until the production release before I upgrade the desktop.

5

Same here, but of course that precludes any TimeMachine testing for us, so we shouldn’t be that surprised when there are unexpected issues when a new macOS is released. I’ve certainly run into that, but fortunately hasn’t impacted.

6

Part of beta testing is to make certain that important features work correctly. My beta testing includes various backup scenarios. On macOS this includes Time Machine, both continuing old backups and creating new backups, as well as Carbon Copy Cloner with the same scenarios.

I ALWAYS run backups of many sorts when I am running a beta OS.

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