Is Catalina a Good Upgrade Yet?
eclecticlight.co
eclecticlight.co
Dear Apple:
Eat your false pride and do a reset on macOS – in WWDC 2020, don't add a new major macOS release, and don't have a new release name with funny stories of how your crack marketing department came up with it. Accept that you messed up, just like you messed up with the Mac Pro and tried to save face by saying that you "painted yourself into a thermal corner" (but didn't say why you went into radio silence for years). Then work on a stability focused release without adding major new features. We know you don't focus or spend as much on Mac/macOS as you do on iPhone and iOS. Introspect and realize that you bit a whole lot more than you can chew (even with hundreds of billions of dollars in cash) with macOS Catalina.
Fix the design, fix the data loss issues, fix the Time Machine issues, fix the iTunes "replacements", fix the performance issues of APFS on magnetic hard drives, fix Catalyst, improve your QA/QC...the list of big ticket items is long enough to keep your tiny macOS team busy for another year or two.
Follow a tick-tock cycle if you can't solve this with your current organization structure and people – one feature release a year, followed by (another) one whole year for stabilization and tiny incremental improvements.
It takes a big mind to accept mistakes, accept them sooner than later, and then correct them. It's high time for you to grow up (being in the top two or three in market cap and all) and start doing this. You'll find people more accepting of deficiencies/issues and more willing to wait for fixes when you communicate like an adult and treat your customers as adults.
[P.S.: If I have to lose some virtual points for this critical comment, so be it]
Is your point that you believe other people are just hallucinating their problems, or that you believe they've 'used it wrong' and brought problems on themselves, or that if you personally haven't experienced a bug, then it's not an important bug?
It happens when the sightings are emotional. For instance:
The Colorado Mystery Drones Weren’t Real
The mysterious drone sightings that captured national attention were a classic case of mass hysteria.
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/884xv3/the-colorado-myste...
Flip side of same phenomenon is the "snappier" meme.
BTW, I did finally upgrade to Catalina last week and it’s been going fine, with the exception of losing 50% of my Steam library to the 32-bit graveyard....
When someone loses their data because they don't know how to use a computer it is easy to just blame the vendor.
In theory this is more or less what they have been doing (with both iOS and Mac), they just have been batching up the stabilization and slapping a whole new version number on it. But I don't disagree.
Better yet, stop shipping iMacs with magnetic hard drives. This is 2020.
The other purpose is backups. Again if my backups are slow, who cares?
I care very very very much about the speed of the drive that stores my video files. I need to be able to open and seek through them quickly so I can find the clip I'm looking for. When you're working with ProRes stuff, this becomes a big deal.
Luckily, good quality spinning hard drives can be fast enough, at least for my needs. Unfortunately, they're only fast enough when they're not running APFS. :(
Nothing prevents you from putting for videos on an HFS+ volume and use it from Catalina. It just can't boot from one.
In my opinion the base included option should be a reasonably sized M.2 SSD, with an option to increase the size of said M.2, or to add a 1TB (or larger) 2.5" drive as an extra if more storage is needed.
Can someone please point out what the issues are? I am not challenging this statement, it is just that I am not aware of any specific issues with Time Machine so I am a bit worried about any problems (and if there is anything I can do to mitigate the risks). I am using a separate, third party cloud backup but I still count on Time Machine for day-to-day operations.
Thanks in advance to anyone that could give me more info about this.
I suspect the root cause is some 3rd party software interaction. But since the 3rd party software I have is installed and required by my employer, it's hard to do an A/B comparison.
"The only visible symptom is that a few minutes after each backup starts, it ends without copying all that it promised at the start of the process."
So you mean it ends "too quickly"? How can you tell if it missed some files?
I need + 15 gb free for TM swap stuff.
Apple is notorious for not giving ANY feedback so i only found out after sesrching for a long time on google.
Apple please stop silently failing without messages.
Anyway, as your digital life flashes before your eyes, TM helpfully offers to delete all your backups and start with a fresh disk image now, or delete all your backups and start with a fresh disk image later. And you can't blame it, really, because the filesystem has had some unknown, nonzero amount of corruption for an unknown, nonzero amount of time. For all anyone knows or can prove, the whole backup is random garbage.
This fractal of failure is specific to backups over WiFi. Backups to USB-connected disks aren't that reliable either, because HFS+, but USB backups have all the nines of reliability compared to network backups.
For what I understood it happens when the macbook is forced to go to sleep/loses connectivity while in the middle of a backup. It doesn't cleanly unmount the remote file system and it causes data corruption.
There are some ways of "restoring" the remote FS but they may or may not work, are very slow, opaque (what actually was fixed?) and flaky.
I just switched to an external USB drive for Time Machine and not looking back
Since then I only use Carbon Copy Cloner [0]. It has very very very excellent documentation and it is well the worth the purchase. The documentation covers lots of backup scenarios, how to do recovery and dealing with error cases. It also lets you create bootable backups on external drives, though I have only used it for backups over the network.
I'm not affiliated, but I can't praise their work enough.
I lost probably a day (to a day and a half tidying things up and cleaning up stuff that was not my fault) and of course I have no decent way of managing audiobooks now.
Rsync is a good tool but CCC gives massive quality of life. Some of that won’t even be possible with rsync. And rest would require building a complicated set of scripts. Paying Bombich, to deal with all the headaches and mac os shenanigans, $50 every couple of years is a much better deal.
And its not a lock-in like other backup tools. You can access specific files inside the backup without CCC.
CCC + Arq cover all my bases when it comes to backup and restore.
[1]: https://eclecticlight.co/2019/11/11/time-machine-and-backing...
I don't care about marketing gimmicks, fancymoji, "mail stationery" or other crap. I care about having a stable operating system where I can get work done. I care about having a Mail.app that WORKS.
I think we are in an unfortunate situation where Apple's solutions (hardware+software) are far better than the competition, but still suck. And competing with Apple these days is immensely difficult: you need to have huge capital reserves (which Microsoft has), and execute well on good combined hardware+software designs (this is where Microsoft doesn't quite hit the mark).
I wish Apple had a competitor which would make "it Just Works" hardware and software. But I'm afraid we are stuck for the time being.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-11-21/apple-ios...
Catalina could certainly do with a refinement release for internals (e.g. APFS) as well as UI polishing.
Disclaimer: I've been using Catalina as my main OS since it came out.
$ sudo softwareupdate --ignore "macOS Catalina"
$ defaults write com.apple.systempreferences AttentionPrefBundleIDs 0
$ killall Dock
$ sudo softwareupdate --reset-ignored
But my use case is almost exclusively programming and Blizzard games, so maybe the problems are centered around particular types of software or something.
There is several software that doesn't work with Catalina. In my case RingCentral meetings. But in general people shouldn't downgrade to it... it is 100% a downgrade, as it removes features available in the previous version.
The vista prompts appeared every time an app was doing something that required elevated privileges which, back then, was all the time.
This issue is totally overblown and, TBH, I like to know what application has access to what data on my machine. If the price for that is a one-time prompt per application, I'm willing to pay that.
If you are not and you are willing to forego the security advantage, then use spctl to disable Gatekeeper
Ableton: https://help.ableton.com/hc/en-us/articles/360009770040-Live...
For example, just today I tried to save a file on top of an existing file, and when the system panel prompted me, I said Replace. That appeared to be accepted but after the panel closed the app failed to actually save, citing something about how I do not have access to the target file. I used the Finder to trash the old file and retried, and then it worked. From a user point of view, this is exactly the kind of work-around that should never be required, and I can imagine some people not even trying and just thinking everything is broken.
And as an app developer these things are even more frustrating because I literally cannot tell all the ways a user “might” have an issue anymore. How many awful combinations of file-related failures are there? How many obscure messages are possible, and is a message even displayed for every case?
If a system is really complex, it is not only hard to get it right once but it is really hard to keep it right over time. I am worried that all these special cases will just be fixed and re-broken for months on end.
1) Some weirdness around XCode and XCode Command Line Tools that made installing node-gyp a huge pain. I mean, look at these instructions and tell me if this is something you want to deal with: https://github.com/nodejs/node-gyp/blob/master/macOS_Catalin...
2) Change of default shell in 10.15 from bash to zsh. Kind of minor, but Apple doesn't want to use Bash 5.2 because of licensing. Great.
3) Lack of support for 32 bit programs. This is actually a big deal for me, since a course I am taking requires the use of WinBugs (I know, we should use STAN :) ), which is only available in 32 bit pre-compiled binaries. There is an unfortunately large amount of software like this!
2. I tried zsh briefly, then just used the bash that you can install via homebrew.
Perhaps when the keyboard fails, someday, I’ll replace it, instead of just upgrading the RAM and drive.
Kidding aside, I would like to get a newer version someday with better screen resolution and size, but Apple seems to have many missteps to recover from the last 5 years or so.
I’m assuming an implied “/s” at the end of your comment.
Since getting High Sierra, everything's been really smooth, but the Sierra -> High Sierra upgrade actually bricked my computer. It was perpetually stuck in the installation phase, bailing after 45 minutes because it couldn't unmount my partition. To Apple's credit though, after I used recovery mode to reinstall the OS, everything worked and my data was intact.
I accept your point of view, but the GP was suggesting this is another in a long list of bugs introduced into Catalina. Since, anecdotally, I have first hand experience of this affecting me on other platforms as well as previous macOS versions, logic and reason suggest that the problem was not in fact introduced in Catalina, but lies squarely at the foot of Mozilla. Not everything is fair and balanced. I believe, in this case, that Mozilla are solely at fault, not any of the OS vendors/distributors.
Apologies if this comes across as tetchy; I've been dealing with pettiness and unreasonableness all day. My intention was not to defend Apple (or anyone else) or to besmirch Mozilla. I was merely trying to be helpful by pointing out that this problem affects the same software in the same way on different platform.
No OS should ever fall over because of a misbehaving application. That's one of their fundamental jobs, and failing at it is a defect. The fact that all the major OSes do doesn't vindicate them; nor is it particularly surprising that Catalina doesn't pull away from the pack. It is, however, disappointing.
That is one way of looking at it. I'd argue that it's not a particularly usefully of looking at it. Ideologies aside, your last sentence says a lot. The fact remains that buggy software from a cross platform vendor is causing this issue across the platforms they provide the software for. Be under no illusion, the issue is Mozilla's a no-one else.
Oh, and one of the times it crashed I distinctly recall setting it on the table too roughly and hearing a ping sound emanate from the closed laptop. When I opened the lid I saw the kernel panic screen. I'm chalking that one up to shock. It's been completely fine since though.
I’ve been using Macs since 1996 and have not experienced regular kernel panics on any of them since the early 2000s when I started using Mac OS X Public Beta. Your experience is frustrating but it’s the exception, not the norm. The fact that you can find other people, on forums like HN, who have also experienced problems is indicative of the selection bias of the Internet, nothing more.
Run the built-in hardware test, extended version. If it finds any fault, take it straight in for service. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201257
If AHT shows no errors, clean install macOS. As in, wipe it totally, and reinstall. This is tedious but I expect Apple support will recommend it anyway. And if you've already done it, it might save time.
What kind of shock? It's not like they have spinning disks anymore.
I personally had so many bugs with Catalina that I decided to just wipe my device and start afresh with a clean install of Catalina off a USB stick. It helped a great deal, but I still have some bugs.
It looks like a lot of testing at Apple is done on either clean builds, or a simple upgrade from a year ago (while most real-life users have 3-4 upgrades stacked on each other)
Those were the days.
So, first off, sincere sympathy. I feel you, I've been there.
My current recommendation to people is: whatever you do in your personal life (Apple, Android, Windows, whatever), keep your Apple-related work environment completely segregated — that usually just means one dedicated Mac and the test iOS devices. Do not use any of it for anything else than work. Do not mix a home server with work-Mac-related stuff and personal life. Do not use the same AppleID. Do not mix anything.
It's generally a good approach anyway, regardless of one's development platform/target.
It then becomes natural to e.g. never worry about NFS and simply use the "recommended" Apple path — like some Thunderbolt drive, or whatever MacOS networks with these days.
The downside that it obviously induces additional cost is debatable:
- developing for Apple systems usually translates to higher income, and Apple is somewhat "fairly" (at least in their mind) forcing some extra burden of cost on developers, but it's likely marginal for said devs (although hostile to developing markets, at first glance).
- work-related machines generally fall under different tax regimes than personal stuff, and while we surely all dabble into the grey area, it's always better to have it 100% legit work or personal but not both. Insurances etc. may care too.
So... Yeah. I hope you can segregate and rationalize the work-Mac(s) to follow Apple's best practice (whatever they push as "This is the way" for MacOS).
I've done what you suggested in this paragraph, and do this as well. It means you can't use a personal iPad with Catalina's Sidecar feature, which just sucks knowing a second monitor is almost right there.
to create a directory called /newroot, sudo $editor /etc/synthetic.conf and add the word 'newroot' on its own line, then restart.
I was planning on working on a macOS product but I will hold off for a couple of years and see what happens with the platform. Depending on a diva like Apple that introduces breaking changes without notice is a risky business.
For example, Cocoa and OpenGL are clearly on its way out but nobody knows how long they will be supported. SwiftUI is probably the way to go but it's not supported by the majority of macOS devices.
Now this would be a serious challenge. Everything from APIs to the ecosystem to the apps themselves have licenses and, righteous or not, would be game for lawsuits left and right should the project be a head turner at some point.
This ex Apple OSX engineer in fact paints it as doomed from the start:
https://www.quora.com/Would-it-be-ever-be-possible-to-clone-...
"Cloud first, Mobile first"
Satya Nadella
As your Quora link points out - it's not feasible to do this. The killer features of macOS - the UI framework, all other OS frameworks, the interesting drivers integrating all of this - are not available. macOS more than other OSes is an integrated package. And that stuff is not open source.
The parts of macOS that are open source are just sufficient to allow you to make your own Unix-like distro. OpenDarwin and PureDarwin are efforts that bolt on open source tools, X11 and desktop environments on top of Darwin. The result is an open source desktop like FreeBSD or some Linux distro. Then it turns out that the macOS kernel is not really a killer feature of anything, and if you're looking at an open source desktop you'd better run FreeBSD or a Linux distro anyway.
Technically, PureDarwin is binary compatible with macOS. You can take the macOS version of, say, tar or grep, and it will run on PureDarwin. Any command line utility that doesn't integrate with macOS specific frameworks (i.e. all the stuff they import from FreeBSD, stuff from MacPorts) will probably work. That's not very interesting though. All that stuff is there on Linux and FreeBSD too.
Your Quora link gives some big time and team requirements for this to happen, but it also touches on the fact that there's really no business model and lots of legal risks involved. At this point, I don't think an open source clone of macOS is ever going to happen. If we're going to get something that's close, it's not going to be based on the Darwin kernel, but something in the direction of Darling [1].
Devices don't show up in the finder. Devices do show up but no info is shown. Devices physically plugged in don't show up. Devices do show up but files tab is empty.
When it does work there is no indication it's working. Drag a file to an app and ... nothing, 100% silent. No copy progress bar, no spinner, no indication what-so-ever that it is or is not working.
I don't get how they can keep making buggy OS upgrades like this. I mean is the wealthiest company in the world too cheap to hire a good QA team? Or do they just assume those who bitch on their forums are their QA team?
I refuse to pay for the upgrade, and just use Libre Office now.
Further more I am looking into best compatible linux system to run on the hardware.
So far I have read that the cinnamon based manjaro linux should be reasonable.
I just tried the packagefile from the link, and after installing I am still stuck with MS office 365.
At this point, libreoffice does the job, and I cant be bothered to invest more time to get MS office, 2016 edition 64 bit, or whatever would be applicable in my case, to work like before catalina.
thanks for the tips though.
I have the late 2013 MacBook Pro as well, and I've only just upgraded to Mojave a few months ago (and did an SSD upgrade to a NVMe+adapter [1] while at it).
[1] https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/upgrading-2013-2014-mac...
Linux on laptops is like osx on any machine. It only runs on Linux hardware well from what I hear. I'm quite skeptical of that even given my previous experiences running it.
I'm currently considering an xps 15 as I had ordered a Lenovo p1 and after almost two months they still haven't shipped it. Cancelled that garbage. The laptop space in 2020 is frankly shit, way worse than it was in 2014. It's devolved. Microsoft doesn't even make an os anymore, just malware that goes by the name "Windows" so there is literally no alternative for people who refuse to use such malware. Apple, Lenovo, Dell, or some crappy (hw wise) clevo Linux laptop like the system 76s. Maybe it's time to go back to a desktop as technology keeps devolving.
I have too considered system76 as well as lenovo t480, so far the mac can still do the work I need.
Apple seems to have moved most of the iOS maintenance functionality from iTunes over to iOS itself.
Personally, I have an iCloud storage plan, and I don't use iTunes regularly anymore except when upgrading phones.
All I think anyone wanted was to remove the iDevice setup and sync stuff from iTunes.
I’d also kill to have a preference to remove Apple Music from the top of the music management interface.
This world flawlessly for me.
Here's what works for me, if I dock my laptop and find that the screens are reversed:
1. Unplug monitor A, wait for screens to stabilize.
2. Unplug monitor B, wait for screens to stablilize.
3. Plug in monitor A, wait for screens to stabilize.
4. Plug in monitor B, wait for screens to stabilize.
And that fixes it every time. My "default" monitor is set to be my laptop's monitor. Try reversing the roles of A and B if it doesn't work.
If you use spaces as well — I also find it helps to have an empty space as the first space for each monitor.
This is ridiculous.
I've actually been considering switching the imac to linux but it seems to be a bit of a hassle in terms of hardware support. I booted it once from a usb stick but that messed up my bt keyboard/trackpad pairing so recovering from that was a bit of a PITA.
I’ve always been a big proponent of Apple, and they’re still better than the alternatives for me, but I can’t recommend Apple to a new user until there’s a noticeable improvement in their quality control.
Where I work we turned on the ability for people to upgrade now. Before it was dodgy with all the pop up requests that were overwhelming. It seems to be a non issue in 10.15.2 and later.
I haven’t really come across anything that impedes our workflow at work.
I'm ready to upgrade to a new Apple desktop, and none of the options are even remotely enticing for the amount of money they require.
I just don't like the state of things anymore and 99.9% of what I do doesn't need MacOS. Though there is some investment into the ecosystem that will hurt a bit.
Would have to repurchase Serif products on Windows. As much as I enjoy Linux from time to time, I don't know that I could see myself moving to it full-time
I'd still be scared of an update completely borking everything though...
More seriously at this point most of the annoying issues seem to have gone away.
The lack of 32bit still prevents me from playing a few games, but I will continue to blame those developers rather than Apple - OSX has only supported 64bit platforms for a decade, there’s no excuse for any new software having been 32bit only in the last 5 years at least.
Running two Catalina machines, I feel confident in saying that it is now a solid setup.
It is of course a disgrace that it took em 6 months to stabilise the OS.