os x Apple drops discoveryd in latest OS X beta following months of network issues

[+Frank B. Subscriber²]

Apple drops discoveryd in latest OS X beta following months of network issues

After many complaints from the developer community about poor networking performance on Yosemite, the latest beta of OS X 10.10.4 has dropped the discoveryd in favor of the old process used by previous versions of Mac operating system. This should address many of the network stability issues introduced with Yosemite and its new networking stack.

The discoveryd process has been subject to much criticism in recent months as it causes users to regularly drop WiFi access and causes network shares to list many times over, due to bugs. Many developers, such as Craig Hockenberry, have complained about the buggy software and workarounds have been found to include substituting the older system (called mDNSResponder) back into Yosemite.

discoveryd would cause random crashes, duplicate names on the network and many other WiFi-relate bugs. In the latest beta, Apple appears to have applied the same fix as the enthusiasts by axing discoveryd completely.

Looking at Activity Monitor on OS X 10.10 seed 4, discoveryd is no longer loaded by the system

[+virtorio MVC]

About time. 

[Hurmoth]

About time. 

Agreed.

 

It really does interest me, though, what went wrong with discoveryd that it caused problems that apparently Apple couldn't or wouldn't fix.

[+virtorio MVC]

Agreed.

 

It really does interest me, though, what went wrong with discoveryd that it caused problems that apparently Apple couldn't or wouldn't fix.

discoveryd is a good real-life example of why it's not a good idea to re-write something from scratch when you already have a perfectly good working component. 

[Hurmoth]

discoveryd is a good real-life example of why it's not a good idea to re-write something from scratch when you already have a perfectly good working component.

Goes right along with that old saying, if it ain't broke, don't fix it!

[Ambroos]

I think they had some issues with extending mDNSResponder because it's built to work on a ton of platforms. The source code even contains compatibility stuff for Windows CE! Both dropping compatibility code to add new features or adding new features while retaining compatibility are very time-consuming, and it looks like Apple decided to go for a C++ rewrite.

 

Which clearly turned out to be a bad idea. WiFi on my Air has been horrible since Yosemite, most of the time I only got 2Mbps after resuming from standby and the like. After disabling a part of discoveryd (the part that handles Handover, which I don't use anyway) a few weeks ago the amount of times I had WiFi issues dropped to an absolute 0. I'm glad Apple is throwing out discoveryd.

 

mDNSResponder is actually a pretty nice piece of software. Works well on a ton of platforms. I really hope Apple goes this way again, focusing on stability instead of risky changes. I realise I'm not the kind of OS X user Apple wants me to be*, but it'd be nice nonetheless.

 

_{* I don't use any Apple software besides really core OS X and don't have/want any other Apple hardware other than this Air. I think Apple is great at making hardware, and I like OS X for being so Unixy and yet still having a great UI. I just don't like any consumer-oriented Apple software, I think all their other stuff is horribly limited.}

[+virtorio MVC]

I had gotten used to the delay for the internet to start working again on my laptop after closing and opening the lid. Since installing the beta, that delay is gone. 

[ViperAFK]

never had any of those problems on my macbook air