With the recent release of macOS Catalina 10.15.5 and the related security updates for Mojave and High Sierra, it has been reported that the trick we shared on How To Block macOS Mojave From Upgrading To macOS Catalina no longer works. In this article, we explain what the problem is and why it matters.

What Has Happened

The eagle-eyed have spotted this in the release notes for macOS Catalina 10.15.5

“Major new releases of macOS are no longer hidden when using the softwareupdate(8) command with the  --ignore flag
This change also affects macOS Mojave and macOS High Sierra after installing Security Update 2020-003.”

After updating to macOS 10.15.5 or Security Update 2020-003, we understand that this command no longer works, with Terminal displaying this message…

“Ignoring software updates is deprecated.
The ability to ignore individual updates will be removed in a future release of macOS.”

As we explained in our article How To Block macOS Mojave From Upgrading To macOS Catalina users of earlier versions of the macOS like Mojave or High Sierra would get a prominent Upgrade Button encouraging uses to upgrade to macOS Catalina.

In addition, if the Automatically keep my Mac up to date option was checked and the option to Install macOS Updates was checked in the Advanced options then you could find your Apple computer upgrading itself to Catalina when you are not ready.

In our article we shared a technique using some code typed carefully into Terminal that would stop this from happening and it is that code that the 10.15.5 notes are referring to. So anyone who has installed the recent Security Update can expect to see the Catalina screen make an unwelcome return.

Why Does It Matter

It matters because if you have software that doesn’t support 10.15.5 then you do not want your computer to upgrade itself or constantly reminding you to do an upgrade you don’t want. This is especially important for Pro Tools users as Avid has not approved Pro Tools 2019.12 and above for use with either macOS 10.15.4 or 10.15.5.

The Pro Tools System Requirements for Pro Tools 2018,2019 and 2020 says this…

“⚠️ ALERT: macOS Catalina 10.15.4 is NOT supported ⚠️
We have recently become aware of an issue that may affect certain machines running Pro Tools 2019.12 or later on macOS 10.15.4. When recording or playing back audio, the OS may lock up and require a hard reboot. We have found that Thunderbolt 2 spinning disk drives are more susceptible to this issue.  We are working closely with Apple to resolve this issue with high priority. Until further notice, we recommend that you continue to run Pro Tools on macOS 10.15.3, and refrain from installing macOS 10.15.4. Thank you for your patience.”

As a result, we strongly recommend that all Pro Tools users check to make sure that the ‘Automatically keep my Mac up to date option’ in the Software Update module in Apple’s System Preferences is NOT checked.

In addition, you are strongly recommended NOT to upgrade your computer to macOS Catalina 10.15.4 or 10.15.5. You must ignore the nag screens that will return even if you followed our advice in our article How To Block macOS Mojave From Upgrading To macOS Catalina.

For those using apps from the App Store then it is also important to ensure the check box is also turned off for automatic updates. We have read of Logic Pro users waking up to the latest version, which is either something they did not want to do or it has created issues with third party software.