Upgrading to Catalina

Before I upgraded my app to Catalina, I created a partition on my Mac laptop running Mojave and installed Catalina on it. I gave it the minimum amount of memory since I didn’t have a whole lot to give to it. I did NOT want to just switch over to Catalina since there are a lot of 32 bit apps I use on a daily basis like QuickTime 7 Pro, which I still find invaluable and haven’t seen a suitable replacement for. You would just need to select that partition as the startup drive and possibly share files between the 2 partitions.

Upgrading my app was not easy because it was video intensive and I needed to find new ways to do what used to be done natively in the RealStudio 2012 r1. I still use that for the Windows version as it’s still reliant on QuickTime.

Anyway, since then I got a new laptop that’s running Catalina and kept a 2013 laptop that I run Mojave and all my old 32 bit apps on. It’s a pain to have 2 laptops, but I didn’t have much choice. I frankly use my old laptop more than the new one.

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I reluctantly upgraded to Catalina this week to be able to use Xcode 11

Probably the WORST experience of my professional life.
So far:
This has caused me to lose the ability to compile iOS apps in Xojo without buying all Xojo iOS over again.
Caused (?) some video issues that are currently giving me a heart attack (screen goes all line-y and then black)
Lost me some very useful apps - presumably 32bit
Deleted (for no apparent reason) all the VMs I use in VMWare Fusion

And increased the size of the used space such that Time machine can’t fit it on my normal backup drive, (although it did manage to delete my existing backup in the attempt)

Apple - can you leave NOTHING alone?

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That sounds better than my experience with BS. Beta 4 bricked my MacBook Air. I spent 2 days trying to reinstall any type of macOS. Sensible error messages seem to be too complicated. “Couldn’t be installed.” or “There was an error when installing.”. Not even starting from an external hard disk worked. Air needs to go to the doctor next week. The Acronis backup isn’t accessible.

Catalina - in spite of the millions of alerts - looks so much saner than BS.

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Did you read what Apple does with the latest iMacs (2020) ?

Apparently, if your MLB crashes, you no more will be able to access to your hard disk data (SSD).
:frowning:

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MY experience with Catalina has caused me to start selling my stock in Apple. Not that it will matter to the general populace, at least not for some time, but I need to lock in some of that profit since I started buying it in the 90’s… While it has a long way to go before it’s more aggravating than any other choice out there I simply have no confidence in their “vision” about things anymore. It used to be that they would tell you to do things their way, and if you gave in and did it then you learned to understand why they said that. There was a plan even if you didn’t agree or didn’t want to change. There is no plan anymore. I might have mentioned in other threads that for some of the projects I work on I am working to provide a Raspberry Pi version of the various servers and such so that a Mac in the closet is no longer necessary. It’s a HUGE job to abstract away from AppleScript to Python and Javascript and Lua, but it’s going to ultimately be worth it when Apple falls to the same level as everyone else and I can then sell an “appliance” as opposed to software that breaks with every freaking software update. And also don’t even get me started with what they have done to apple script. They obviously have no idea how it works anymore. Sigh… SORRY! just frustrated on a daily basis by this sort of thing and have been pushed past the limit. If someone can explain the “plan” that I mentioned above and it isn’t just about making you suffer the pain before they release their own chips so you don’t think their new chips are broken then I’ll be thrilled to hear it. Until then I’ll keep being cynical and unhappy about all the work I’m currently doing to run as fast as I can to stay in the same place.

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Hey James,

As someone who also bought Apple stock in the 90s, I’m not quite ready to sell it yet! Been quite a ride hasn’t it! And I thought I was the only one that still held my $1200 investment since 1996. It’s just a tiny bit bigger! :wink:

Anyhow you make good points about Apple. I’m actually seeing Microsoft as the company that is now making some pretty kick ■■■■ software products. Never thought I’d say that…

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So all, I’ve created a Catalina VM in Parallels. It had no trouble installing and so far seems to work fairly well. I as able to get Xcode 11 installed and finally build my iOS app (but now it won’t install on my iPad but that’s another thread).

I have not yet seen any crazy problems. Maybe that’s due to the clean install. And I was surprised that my desktop app that I sell seemed to work just fine. I thought there was a “phone home” that was necessary in Catalina if the app wasn’t signed (which it is not).

Catalina has been and continues to be a nightmare after upgrading from Mojave.
Daily crashes, slower and just not a good experience. If I could easily go back to Mojave then I would but due to some iOS13 requirements I was forced to upgrade. Don’t even think about upgrading to BS. Apple breaks more things each MacOS and each new MacOS has bigger system requirements or will run slower.

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If it is of interest, or if it helps anyone - I found out why my backup system ‘blew up’, and what happened to my virtual machines.

Catalina decided that my existing VMs were in an ‘insecure’ place and moved them to Relocated Items/Security
By the time I found them, I had already panicked and restored copies to the original locations from external drives, almost filling my Macbook.
(as a side note, having deleted the moved ones, my drive still says ‘full’ when I use Get Info, of which hundreds of gigs are shown as ‘purgeable’ even though there is no ‘purge’ button)

as it is with all macs with T2 chip inside (so every mac except the 21" imac)
you must boot from the recovery disk and allow to boot from an external device as soon as you get the mac. or if it becomes bricked for some reason you won’t be able to boot from an external drive without changing the main board !!! (and it will be surely a paid exchange…)

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Thank you Jean-Yves for the explanation.

So, a 128GB SSD (built-in) for boot is largely enough if we store data in an external SSD (1TB or more…).

But this is really strange. What next move will they do in the future (“for our security”) ?

– Nouveauté Apple 2030:
“Un garde de sécurité qui surveille le Macintosh jour et nuit !” :wink:

the next move is all devices ( mac and ios) only available for rent…

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When that happens, I’m out.

it could also be : you can only save to icloud (for the safety of your datas…)
and of course you pay every month for the space you need there…

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well that being said, I’m more and more considering moving to linux for my next computer !

I doubt that will happen because there are all sorts of instances when you need to store data locally such as when not connected to the internet. Plus there’s all sorts of things like video files which are not realistic to synchronize.

If iCloud wants to basically become a complete backup for my entire drive, then great. But to expect my computer to be a thin client for iCloud - no thanks. I’m out.

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That may rectify itself as snapshots age-out, but you can also delete snapshots from the command line.

Just be patient. In 2030, by the last estimate I read, Copland will ship. :slight_smile:

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In theory macOS auto handles “purgeable” space for you so you can consider it available. But when I’m feeling pedantic and want to see the space just empty, my usual recourse is to use a program called Daisy Disk which is a great way to visually see what it consuming space. Plus it lets you do things like purge this space, or local time machine snapshots etc. I originally got a copy as part of some bundle of apps, but it is available in the MAS too here.

There’s many many many threads on Reddit where the OS is NOT auto handling this and won’t let the user install new apps or download new files, because it claims theres not enough space on the drive, while About this Mac shows it as purgeable. IMHO, there’s some fundamental issues with how it handles this space.

Lots of possible solutions, some work for some people and others… well others are left with GBs of their drive that they can’t free up. Bit of a ■■■■ show if you ask me, and I can’t help but wonder if it’s left broken, to try to get more people to use iCloud (after-all by default iCloud now uploads your files and photos, and disabling it, deletes them from your drive).