{"id":47003,"date":"2025-03-10T20:40:39","date_gmt":"2025-03-11T00:40:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/?p=47003"},"modified":"2025-03-10T21:08:50","modified_gmt":"2025-03-11T01:08:50","slug":"tricked-into-installing-macos-update","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2025\/03\/10\/tricked-into-installing-macos-update\/","title":{"rendered":"Tricked Into Installing macOS Update"},"content":{"rendered":"

Howard Oakley<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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Over the last few years, many have reported that their Macs spontaneously updated or even upgraded macOS when they didn’t expect them to, and often against their wishes. This can occur when Software Update in System Settings has Install macOS updates<\/strong> turned off. Explanations of how Apple appears to be able to override that setting have so far been lacking; this article explains how it happened overnight to my iMac Pro, when it updated itself from Sequoia 15.1.1 to 15.3.1.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

As a result, it had periodically notified me of updates to 15.2, 15.3, and most recently 15.3.1, each of which I had politely declined. Those notifications became more persistent, and one or two gave me either of two options, to update now, or later that night, and couldn’t otherwise be dismissed. I therefore chose to defer the update until the night, and nothing came of them.<\/p>\n

One of those notifications, though, decided to end my procrastination and added a background activity named com.apple.SUOSUScheduler.tonight.install to the DAS-CTS scheduling system. In the small hours of the morning, DAS rescored its list of activities, and decided that it was time to dispatch that task[…]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

As he says, “Software update notifications tricked the user into unwittingly agreeing to perform a macOS update.” There’s no button to decline the update or just close the notification. All you can do<\/a> is click on the notification itself, avoiding the buttons. This will open System Settings, which you then have to close. If you do click a button, the user is “given no second chance to confirm they intended the update to take place.”<\/p>\n\n

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Once the update had been scheduled by DAS, the only way to postpone or abort it would have been to shut the Mac down. Activities scheduled by DAS-CTS are hidden from the user, who has neither awareness nor control over them.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

The situation on iOS is similar, where there is no option to decline an update. You can only tell it to install Later<\/strong>, and then when it asks for your passcode you have to tap Cancel<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n

Ric Ford<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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Tom Mulhall, another longtime Mac expert, emailed us that Apple force-updated iOS against his will, just as Apple did to Howard Oakley’s Mac.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Oddly, I just turned on my iPad after not using it for a week, and despite being set to automatically update the OS it was a few months behind and didn’t offer an update until I went into Settings.<\/p>\n\n

Previously:<\/p>\n