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Electrum issue caused by the MAC update was just fixed | Invezz

source-logo  invezz.com 19 November 2020 06:53, UTC

Apple recently issued a new update for its macOS, but unfortunately, the update caused problems with one of the oldest Bitcoin wallets, Electrum. However, the wallet’s developers reacted quickly, and they already managed to fix the problem with a new patch.

Apple’s macOS update disrupts Bitcoin wallet Electrum

Operating system updates are usually very useful, as they resolve problems, eliminate bugs and vulnerabilities, and bring general improvements. Unfortunately, sometimes they can cause problems with other software, which is what happened to Electrum wallet.

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The issue was noticed very quickly, and it was initially brought up on Github, around August 1st, which was almost immediately after Apple published its update’s beta. Users have noted that the new Mac update, known as Big Sur, bricked Electrum users on the macOS.

Considering the popularity of the wallet, a large number of crypto users were affected by the problem. Electrum’s team was quickly notified, and they started working on a patch, which has been issued yesterday, November 18th.

The team noted on Twitter that the “New Electrum release: 4.0.5. Fixes an issue with MacOS Big Sur. LN is enabled by default.

New Electrum release: 4.0.5. Fixes an issue with MacOS Big Sur. LN is enabled by default. https://t.co/Y2DXoUyOgk— Electrum (@ElectrumWallet) November 18, 2020

The issue and the solution

Interestingly, while Electrum did successfully fix the problem, the root cause still remains unknown, according to developers. It is known that the problem is somehow related to how Big Sur treats the coding language Python, which was used for creating Electrum.

Developers resolved the problem by allowing users to run the wallet from the source, or by bundling an old version of Python into the software. The patch that they released contains the second solution.

While this is the first time that one of Apple’s solutions has negatively affected the Bitcoin (BTC) ecosystem, it is hardly the first time that a patch has caused issues upon release.

Just last week, when version 11.0 was released, an error in Apple servers caused Mac hardware running the update to shut down around the world.

invezz.com