Software program developer Photon just lately posted a few curious bug that they present in macOS involving TCP networking, which is extensively utilized by computer systems for web connectivity. Apparently, if a Mac that’s on-line is left on for precisely 49 days, 17 hours, 2 minutes, and 47 seconds, the Web connection stops working.
The problem does have a repair: restart the Mac. This resets the connections and will get them working once more. Nevertheless, the countdown additionally restarts, so if the Mac is left on for one more 49 days, 17 hours, 2 minutes, and 47 seconds, the bug makes its look once more, and the Mac must be restarted.
Photon’s put up supplies particulars on the foundation of the issue, which includes a 32-bit integer overflow within the macOS XNU kernel. Photon says there’s a flaw in the way in which Transmission Management Protocol (TCP) timestamps are tracked, inflicting connections to cease working after 49 days.
Most individuals, nevertheless, have by no means skilled this bug as a result of they’ve restarted their Mac for some motive, often to finish an set up of a macOS replace. Apple simply launched macOS 26.4.1, which got here two weeks after macOS 26.4, so these are two situations the place a Mac needed to restart just lately.
Photon is engaged on a repair for the bug, although its put up doesn’t say whether or not Apple has been notified. We anticipate Apple will situation a repair in a future macOS replace. It’s additionally not clear what variations of macOS are affected.
In case you are operating a Mac that should keep on on a regular basis, resembling a server, you must restart it at a handy time, simply in case. You’ll be able to see how lengthy a Mac has been left on through the use of the Terminal by typing uptime after which urgent Return. Utilities resembling Particulars and iStatMenus permit present uptime statistics.
