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Thunderbolt Updates - Why?

Posted: 7. Aug 2017, 23:08
by granada29
When I boot macOS under VirtualBox (any version of macOS from Mt Lion thru High Sierra) on my Mac Mini, Apple Software update in the VM keeps wanting to update the Thunderbolt firmware.

System Information in the VM says there is no T/Bolt hardware (as expected).

The firmware for the real physical hardware is up to date.

I know I can tell softwareupdate to ignore that update, but I was just wondering why it happens. VirtualBox is not emulating a T/Bolt adapter as far as I can tell, but somehow softwareupdate is still detecting the hardware and then thinking its running an older version of the firmware.

Any suggestions?

Re: Thunderbolt Updates - Why?

Posted: 7. Aug 2017, 23:57
by socratis
How did you create the VM? Anything to do with P2V? Rawdisk?
You understand that this doesn't make sense in the setting of a "normal" VM, right? So, something is not "normal" about your VM. More details needed. Plus a VBox.log.zip for one of the affected VMs. Preferably not something in beta. El Capitan would be a nice stable example...

Re: Thunderbolt Updates - Why?

Posted: 8. Aug 2017, 04:33
by granada29
VM is using rawdisk.
Guest is macOS 10.11.6 El Capitan
Host is 10.12.6 Sierra
VirtualBox Version 5.1.26 r117224 (Qt5.6.2)

Log attached.

Re: Thunderbolt Updates - Why?

Posted: 8. Aug 2017, 07:17
by socratis
granada29 wrote:VM is using rawdisk.
You could have mentioned that from the get go, but since I know your history, I thought that you were using rawdisk ;)

Simple. The software update is going through the list of installed packages/options. It finds that you have Thunderbolt installed in the system (the real one). It checks to see if the update for the Thunderbolt firmware is installed, it doesn't find it in the current version in the firmware and it wants to update it. And it fails. Rinse and repeat...

Re: Thunderbolt Updates - Why?

Posted: 8. Aug 2017, 08:14
by granada29
socratis wrote:You could have mentioned that from the get go, but since I know your history, I thought that you were using rawdisk ;)
Ooops - sorry about that. For what I am doing with VirtualBox, testing my software on newer and older releases of macOS, I find it easier to use rawdisk because I can then just boot that partition in native mode if I start getting weird problems or am doing something that relies on real hardware (e.g. wireless adaptor).

Yes - I think that your explanation about installed packages sounds right. duh!! Should have thought of that myself.
Thanks for the help.
B