Time Maschine macOS Sequoia

[sstaub]

After the update to macOS Sequoia the Time Maschine Backup become very very slow and unresponsive.
After disabling LuLu the Time Maschine works as expected.

[savami]

Exact same issue here.

I've had multiple issues after upgrading to Sequoia.

Slack huddles would randomly disconnect for a couple of seconds, then reconnect.
Time Machine back-ups not working at all.

Force quitting LuLu from activity monitor did not help. Completely uninstalling LuLu and rebooting did however work.
Time machine just started on its own and no more disconnects on Slack huddles.

[BipBip1981]

Hi everybody.
Same problem with Time Machine and all network action.
For example:
Download last DaVinci Resolve, 6go freeze after 256mo receive
Backup with borg program, very very slow to crash
Uninstall Lulu, all back okok but my time machine backup corrupted... i must restore from my second external hardisk
bye

[objective-see]

Sorry about the issue(s) 😭

Unfortunately this is due to an Apple bug in macOS 15, that is widely impacting many 3rd-party security tools, that then in turn causes macOS networking to break.

This has been reported to Apple, who have confirmed the issue and are hopefully working on a fix.

Read: "Apple’s new macOS Sequoia update is breaking some cybersecurity tools"

[cy-james-lee]

@objective-see , is there any forum, blog or repo where we could get updates on this from Apple? It's affecting the devices I'm in charge of. This is especially disruptive for moving large size files within local network. Current workaround is turning off Apple's firewall in Network setting to do data transfers and then turn it back on.

[Raphmatt]

I also noticed that the new "iphone Mirroring.app" will not work on my computer as long as the firewall using lulu is activated. It will just end in a timeout. If I turn off LuLu firewall in the System Settings, "iphone Mirroring.app" works without any problems.

[TheQuantumPhysicist]

Let me explain something, for those facing these "intermittent" disconnects.

This is a much bigger issue than you think, and will take a tremendous effort to really fix it. I will be a little emotional here because I've been dealing with this problem for years.

This isn't only an issue with LuLu. This isn't an issue with LittleSnitch. This isn't an issue with a specific VPN (I tried both OpenVPN and Wireguard). This isn't an issue with a specific MacOS version. This may even be related to Thunderbolt, because I noticed a few people using docking stations are facing this.

ANY software that relies on filtering will cause this.

And let me start by saying that I'm not sitting here demanding someone fix this while I sleep. I'm ready to install debug versions of networking kernel modules. Install debug versions of anything needed on my OS to debug this and get Apple to move their butt and do something about it.

Here are some links on how bad this is (and the internet is flooded with this, btw, but not big enough for Apple to care):

• https://discussions.apple.com/thread/255233851
• https://www.reddit.com/r/MacOS/comments/104b2uu/littlesnitch_55_and_ventura_131_stability_issue/
• https://forums.developer.apple.com/forums/thread/729348

The biggest problem here is that this issue comes and goes. That's why people don't always complain about it.

I believe it's due to some race condition in some networking component in MacOS. I guess it's the Apple Network Extension. Might be the kernel networking module or thunderbolt... Not sure. But for sure, f**k C that creates this hell for sure.

Some people have this issue once and it goes away. The worst part is, as one of the links above shows and some suggested in this discussion, this creates intermittency in the connectivity of networking interfaces (can be seen in pings). Meaning: Your internet connectivity will come and go. You may or may not notice degradation in the quality of your connection.

Do you know when you'll notice this issue for real? When you start looking! When you start noticing the degradation, and then go to terminal, and type ping <your router address>, and notice that your packets are lost and connections are timing out. Some times it comes and goes. And others I just say f**k it and I long-press the power button to reset the machine. This is insane!

I even purchased a brand-new Mac M3 and tried. Didn't help, and returned it within a few days. So went back to my M1. Some combination of applications and conditions create this problem. I don't know what.

So, wtf are we supposed to do to fix this?

If the developer(s) of lulu need a guinea pig, my laptop is at your service. That's all I can do. Feel free to ping me.

[TheQuantumPhysicist]

@objective-see

May I suggest steps to prove that there's a bug in MacOS that has been there for ages, so that we can get Apple to act?

Step 1: My suggestion is that we create a network filtering extension that does absolutely nothing. Basically remove all the code that makes the filtering behavior depend on the lulu application, and allow it to accept anything and everything. Just inspect the connection, then decide to allow it. This extension should be signed and valid, so normal people who are interested in debugging this problem can install it. Make it available, and I'm happy to install it on my computer. If this extension causes issues, then we have proven that the network extension has a bug.

Step 2: If the issue doesn't happen with Step 1, then we can incrementally keep increasing the contents of that extension and the limitation, like for example, block any connection for 0.1 seconds then allow it, and see what happens. Or maybe set a simple rule to block all connections to a hard-coded address.

We can take more steps of none of this works.

[TheQuantumPhysicist]

For those who think that LuLu is at fault. I uninstalled it. Everything was fine for a day, but then I restarted my VPN server, and got this beautiful screenshot. No lulu, no filter. Something is really wrong with MacOS networking. I'm glad I was able to catch it this quickly to show you, guys, how this looks like. If your internet starts acting crazy, slow, etc, just try to ping your router.

A restart might solve the problem temporarily. A filter makes this problem bad. VPN reconnects + filter makes this problem a nightmare. VPN + filter + docking station with Ethernet is ultra-nightmare, as it happens too often. Welcome to race conditions and C programming.