Apple Replaces Problematic 'Discoveryd' Process With mDNSresponder in 10.10.4 Beta 4
In today's fourth OS X 10.10.4 beta, Apple made a significant behind-the-scenes change that could result in improved networking performance for some users -- the removal of the "discoveryd" process. As noted by MacRumors forum members and 9to5Mac, in OS X 10.10.4 beta 4, the discoveryd process has been replaced by mDNSresponder.
Since OS X Yosemite debuted in October, there have been ongoing complaints about discoveryd consuming CPU resources, draining battery life, and causing issues with Wi-Fi. These problems have lingered for several months, even after multiple bug fixes and performance improvements included in OS X 10.10.1, 10.10.2, and 10.10.3.
Discoveryd was introduced with OS X Yosemite, replacing mDNSResponder for managing Mac networking tasks, but it's led to a host of problems like those listed above along with issues like slow wake from sleep, failures to resolve DNS names, duplicate machine names, and more, as detailed in a post earlier this year by Ars Technica. Several developers have also complained about discoveryd in Yosemite, including Instapaper's Marco Arment and Iconfactory's Craig Hockenberry.
It's no secret in the tech community that discoveryd is the root cause of so many problems. There are even crazy workarounds. With so many issues, you'd expect some information from Apple explaining ways to mitigate the problems.
The removal of the unstable discoveryd process in OS X 10.10.4 beta 4 may improve network stability problems for many users who have been experiencing continual issues. With the removal of discoveryd, Apple has reverted back to using the earlier mDNSresponder process that was used before discoveryd was implemented with OS X Yosemite.
Popular Stories
iOS 18 is expected to be the "biggest" update in the iPhone's history. Below, we recap rumored features and changes for the iPhone. iOS 18 is rumored to include new generative AI features for Siri and many apps, and Apple plans to add RCS support to the Messages app for an improved texting experience between iPhones and Android devices. The update is also expected to introduce a more...
The first approved Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) emulator for the iPhone and iPad was made available on the App Store today following Apple's rule change. The emulator is called Bimmy, and it was developed by Tom Salvo. On the App Store, Bimmy is described as a tool for testing and playing public domain/"homebrew" games created for the NES, but the app allows you to load ROMs for any...
Game emulator apps have come and gone since Apple announced App Store support for them on April 5, but now popular game emulator Delta from developer Riley Testut is available for download. Testut is known as the developer behind GBA4iOS, an open-source emulator that was available for a brief time more than a decade ago. GBA4iOS led to Delta, an emulator that has been available outside of...
Apple today said it removed Game Boy emulator iGBA from the App Store for violating the company's App Review Guidelines related to spam (section 4.3) and copyright (section 5.2), but it did not provide any specific details. iGBA was a copycat version of developer Riley Testut's open-source GBA4iOS app. The emulator rose to the top of the App Store charts following its release this weekend,...
Last September, Apple's iPhone 15 Pro models debuted with a new customizable Action button, offering faster access to a handful of functions, as well as the ability to assign Shortcuts. Apple is poised to include the feature on all upcoming iPhone 16 models, so we asked iPhone 15 Pro users what their experience has been with the additional button so far. The Action button replaces the switch ...
A week after Apple updated its App Review Guidelines to permit retro game console emulators, a Game Boy emulator for the iPhone called iGBA has appeared in the App Store worldwide. The emulator is already one of the top free apps on the App Store charts. It was not entirely clear if Apple would allow emulators to work with all and any games, but iGBA is able to load any Game Boy ROMs that...
Top Rated Comments
Not having an OS riddled with security vulnerabilities would be a compelling feature to me.
Seriously, ever since Lion, the quality of the desktop software has been going down significantly and the features have been more and more redundant and insignificant. Here's Mavericks for me:
_ file sharing doesn't work as it should and connecting to servers other than by doing cmd-K is a lost cause. Forget about keeping shortcuts in the Finder.
_ Quicktime doesn't work with anything else but .mov, it's ridiculous
_ QuickView, by extension (with the whole missing QT API documentation, no support for Perian, missing third-party codecs thing) won't preview any video other than .mov and .mp4
_ Airdrop has never worked with me
The state of iTunes is just sad. The worst software ever made as the centre of your media and devices! Saying that it's not intuitive and convoluted would be the euphemism of the year. Friends with many years on Apple products, and regular iTunes users, keep asking me "hey, how do I add music to my phone?". It's not funny! Properly backing up your photos has to be done outside the app, and disabling seemingly unecessary cloud services threaten to wipe out your phone! All of these things should be simple and straightforward.
None of the new features of recent OS X iterations make my workflow any easier or faster. However, the bugs slow me down.
10.6.8 is so far, undeniably, the gold standard in efficiency in OS X workflow. And I should know, I've been on this train since MacOS 6!
As much as I love social media features on my phone, they should not be significant additions to our desktop OSes. All these "new features" shows how little Apple now understands its desktop user-base.