The MAC OS upgrade Catalina looks amazing and seems to have sorted out a few bugs I had. HOWEVER, it has completely buggered my iTunes. Admittedly I have a large library. 2.24 terabytes. But it worked fine before. Since the upgrade the new ‘Music’ app simply sits there with ‘artwork loading’ or ‘activity in progress’ displayed while my machine slows to a crawl around it. If I leave it for any length of time, (hoping it’ll sort itself out) it just crashes in my absence.
Yes, I know, I should have waited…
–>
It forced me into a loop, when I tried to upgrade, in that it kept saying I didn’t have enough space, and to “eject” it, but then it wouldn’t allow that to happen (I’m simplifying…)
Had to call Apple help 3 times before I got rid of it.
Hoping it doesn’t try to “upgrade” again when I’m not looking, and trap me again.
Very vexing.
I was going to say, are you insane? Apple releases are always full of bugs and the early adopters find them for them. I have a Mac for my music room machine and I never upgrade it until it becomes impossible not to. I missed several major releases all together because I didn’t need them. I might have gone to High Sierra last year I think which introduced “enhancements” which mean it takes much longer to start up than it used to. Thanks Apple. I don’t use any Apple software either, other than notepad and the email client. The rest I find unusable. When it dies I’m getting a Windows machine.
I know. What an idiot. I just thought… I don’t know what I thought. I wasn’t thinking.
Anyway, I’ve done a thing where I’ve asked it to get artwork, and I can see it ‘processing album artwork ‘Getting 2,331 of 15,217’ and counting, so at least I can see progress.
Warnings from vendors of various music-making software not to upgrade yet because things may well stop working. Apparently there will be no more support for 32-bit apps from this update onwards and many 64-bit apps are currently encountering problems.
Not very good for musicians and other creatives who rely on Apple hardware/OS for their livelihood.
I upgraded to Catalina recently and it has foxed me – constant resets needed to play music through external speakers. Buggeration!
I read yesterday of another who lost most of his album artwork after upgrading.
I intend hanging onto Mojave for the foreseeable as I still have a handful of programs that are 32 bit and so won’t work with Catalina, which has no improvements I need AFAICT.
I’ve got 2 licenses and a USB dongle for video playback software totalling about £1200. The 2 internet activated licenses are on old machines that won’t update any more but my personal machine will have to be updated at some point. Hopefully, the software company will have sorted out any bugs by then. One update a few years ago took them almost until the next OS to sort out.
I updated last night and this morning it was still loading my settings, I forced a restart and it loaded within 5 minutes and seems to be working perfectly, no problems with “Music” (iTunes doesn’t exist any more) despite my music catalogue also being rather large.
Some concerns with Photoshop CS6 but Adobe are supposedly working on this and it’s something I’ve hardly used for ages.
{Clears throat}
“Buy a Fiio”
Yeah, but …. (continued on page 273)
I’m leaving well alone, until it reaches .4 or .5. Apart from anything else, the download time on our 2mb broadband is massive.
I’m on the latest version of Mojave on my production Macs, with the latest version of all the Adobe software I need, and I cannot afford to lose time from an install gone bad.
The Mojave upgrade was the first I’ve ever done since System 7 which I thought had buggered the Mac, with Black Screens Of Death. Fortunately, resolved this.
I’ve had loads of emails from music companies saying not to update until they are have fully tested their products with it.
I’m with Twang. I don’t upgrade unless I absolutely have to.
Running mac OS Sierra here.
Same for me with emails from (mostly music) software companies saying hold out
I have Mojave on my studio computer and laptop and they are both running perfectly. Not upgrading anything till I absolutely have to!
From my favourite plug in maker….
Dear Softube user,
We recommend that you wait until Softube software compatibility with Catalina is announced before updating.
Our development team is working diligently to ensure that all Softube software is compatible with Catalina. Complete Catalina qualification will be released in a future Softube software update.
We will make future announcements about macOS Catalina compatibility on our website.
Important: to prevent macOS from updating automatically, uncheck the “Install macOS updates” option in System Preferences > Software Update > Advanced options.
Please remain on current versions of macOS until further notice.
Thank you for your continued support,
Softube
Apple make preview releases of new operating systems available to developers for many months before a new OS launch to allow them to get their software ready for the new OS. Time and time again it appears that software vendors wait until the new OS ships before even thinking about updating.
Been there myself with a piece of music hardware many years ago. I was waiting for drivers for Mac OS X 10.3 – the vendor was suggesting that I ran Mac OS 9 until these drivers arrived.
I suspect the problem is that change control is everything and Apple continue to adapt the code up to (and after) publication date, so small companies with few people simply wait until the early adopters knock to bugs out of it.
Quite right too. Apple, Microsoft etc. have great big teams of programmers and testers working on their OS’s all of the time, not just when an update is due to be released. Small software companies have maybe one or two, usually tasked with other jobs to do at the same time as checking OS compatibility.
And whoever heard of a completely bug-free OS update?
Big companies never ever install the latest updates of anything as they know it’ll be full of bugs. Give it a year and it might be usable. 18 months better.
There’s equally annoying issues with iOS 13. I’m getting spurious notification badges being displayed with several apps, battery usage is horrible (although it may be may battery that’s on the way out) and the new ‘long press’ UI changes are confusing.
As it’s no longer possible to revert to iOS 12 as Apple have stopped signing installations, I may pick up a new Android phone very shortly.
I had the same battery drain issue after upgrading my iPhone 7. Quitting all the apps running in the background and then re-starting the phone seems to have solved it.
Apple have previous for including battery draining in updates – it’s deliberate, to get you to buy new hardware. They did it with the iPad 2.
Or “to prolong the life of your hardware by maxmising the battery charging efficiency” in iSpeak.
There is some science behind their claim, as Lithium Ion batteries are most efficient when fully charged from 40% charge. Although I have been designing products with LiIon batteries in them for 20 years and I have never had a battery fail – usually the buttons fall off or the USB socket breaks well before then.
Thanks for the warnings guys.
I will delay updating, despite the regular prompts from Apple.
Just checked my Auto Update is safely off!
Updated the main iMac and notebook with no issues, but have not yet update the MacMini that is the one that actually handles my iTunes library – I’ll hold off on that one for a while.
Overall seems okay, but still not used to the new separate music and TV apps. Couple of first world problems though – I used to grab the square iTunes cover art for TV series to take stuff downloaded from BBC iPlayer – now it’s all gone funky and no longer square. Also on the TV app, now all downloaded movies and TV are together and hence use need fo use the same format for the various columns – screwing up my copy to excel database formatting of all the DVDs etc I have ripped.
Still struggling here. It’s a memory issue. I start and fire up Music, which then begins trying to load/find artwork, and gobbles up memory to do so. After about 20 minutes or so the machine is unusable. Repeat chorus. Repeat till fade.
Or you could sell the Mac and learn how to use a proper Computer – get a far better machine for a fraction of the price running Windows or Linux and get MusicBee to manage your music library.
True, but I’m a bit old dog/new tricks about it. When I first started at work we used typewriters. When they finally introduced computers they were Macs, and because I’d been trained on one of those I got one for home. Almost 30 years later I’d never even used a PC until my son got a Windows laptop, which I find impossible to navigate.
I’m the same. I went straight from an Atari 1040ST for music to a Mac in the early 90s. Logic only runs on Macs since it was bought by Apple. I’m no Apple Fanboy but from what I’ve seen, the Mac OS does seem a lot less hassle than PC. Less chances of a virus, quicker updates etc.
I’ve used both since the early 80s and I much prefer Windows. I never have virus problems etc and the way everything is organised is so much easier for me. I can never bloody find anything on Mac, Finder is rubbish, bits of the Library are hidden etc. Immensely irritating. I only use it for recording and to be fair as a hardware platform it’s solid. I don’t use any Apple software and when I’ve tried I find it incomprehensible. iMovie? Unusable!
I use Mac and Windows although I use Mac a lot more. Since Windows 8, I have trouble navigating to programs and although 10 is a lot better, I have to use the Cortana search for anything not on the desktop. I can see a time when I’ll use an old Mac which won’t update and run Windows in Bootcamp rather than shell out for a new Mac or plasticky Windows machine. OOAA.
Agree about iMovie though.
Macs aren’t proper computers?
Ok, my experience. I’ve used windows pcs since 1987, macs since 1993. I’d say up until Mac OS X was introduced that there wasn’t a lot in it. Prior to OS X, a software crash usually took down the OS, but since then, it doesn’t.
I’ve currently got five Macs, three of which get used most days, plus enough bits to build another ‘cheese-grater’ Mac Pro.
I’ve actually kept a note of how many times these computers have completely frozen in my ownership, which goes back – in one instance – to 2000.
Five. The last was on installing Mojave, when I got a Black Screen Of Death. Easily resolved.
The software they run crashes now and again – and its memory-hungry software – but I save regularly, or have an autosave running. You cannot fault the hardware on a Mac – its good quality.
Last week our Windows 10 computer froze once completely, and had one Blue Screen Of Death. A freeze a week seems par the course. Its predecessors were little better.
I’d use a windows computer in a flash if I thought they were more stable to run serious software, but from my long experience, they are not. Windows 10 is a quite dreadful piece of system software.
I’m not a Jobs-worshipping fanboy. Macs are too expensive, come with cultish overtones and the latest ones are nigh-on unrepairable at home on the hardware front.
I have three windows PCs and can’t remember any of them ever freezing. My Mac often needs a Force Quit as it insists Mail is open (when it isn’t) and refuses to switch off.
Not entirely free of minor glitches on Windows machines but no freezes or BSODs since before Windows XP here.
Not counting hard drive failures, which will happen on any OS.
No virus infections ever on a Windows machine, having learnt sensible behaviour/precautions when I had an Amiga previously.
I know nothing of Apple hardware or their OSs, so won’t knock them except on their pricing and their forced obsolescence policy.
In summary the tin is fine, the software, hmmm.
My desktop documents folder, containing 3 years of uni notes etc. just disappeared. Fortunately all still on iCloud. Not a good feeling though…
Always best never to actually keep anything of importance on the desktop. Keep it in your Documents, and make sure you have backups.
After a hard drive failure many years ago took one file that taken a week to do which was on the desktop – then part of the system – I made sure i never repeated the mistake. My desktops have the hard drive, plus a few aliases to folders and that’s it.
Well, as the old joke has it, I ken noo.
Hmm, a bunch of random documents got moved to the Trash a while back on my Mac. I wonder if it was at the last major update?
Don’t get me started on how the last windows 10 updates (two of them) deleted all the music and photos on the pc, despite them being in the right place, ect, ect. Fortunately, backups.
Well, alright, do get me started.
No.
When a new version/upgrade of OS X is installed, the install process may trash files that it can’t simply overwrite. If it finds files that have been installed that won’t work anymore, it should prompt you and then move them to a folder called ‘obsolete software’ or similar. Recent OS X installs have changed a lot of settings in things like Safari back to the default, which is irritating.
One of the great things about installing OS X off a disk was that you could control exactly what installed from the options menu.
I’ve been looking at exactly what ‘benefits’ OS X Catalina offers, and the only thing I can see that I thought looked nice was the ability to use an iPad as a second monitor – I often use a cheap tablet alongside to put photos on that I’m referring to.
I just want a rock-solid operating system for my software to work on. That was achieved – in my book – with 10.6.8 Snow Leopard.