How is macOS Catalina 10.15.7 Working for You?

[Geoff Grace]

Now that Big Sur has been out for awhile, and we presumably have a final version of Catalina (10.15.7), have you migrated past Mojave? If so, are you finding Catalina 10.15.7 to be a stable platform for your music apps and plugins?

 

If it mostly works well for you but not entirely, then what are the problem areas?

 

Best,

 

Geoff

[dongna]

I upgraded to Catalina several months ago, no problems whatsoever. Running Logic, Mainstage, Pianoteq, MuseScore, and a few others.

[StevieDeepD]

I run it on a MBP late 2013. It runs everything (Logic Pro X, MainStage, Kontakt, etc.) just fine, no issues.

[analogika]

Finally upgraded to Catalina five weeks ago. All has been well.

 

Only difficulty I had was that Mail.app wouldn't launch, but I moved a couple of files from the user library, and it worked after that (though it had moved some emails to a "Recovered Emails" folder).

 

Music-wise â worked down my personal Numbers table of software vendors to check for compatibility (I add two new columns to the table for every major system upgrade: one with support page links and one with checkboxes for "compatible"), made sure they were all explicitly certified or updated to the latest versions as needed, and all has been well.

[Marzzz]

Works fine on my late 2016 MBP 15"

[Tusker]

I use a I9 MBPro with Catalina 10.15.7 for music apps (Logic/Mainstage, Kontakt/Reaktor, Spitfire, Izotope, U-He, GForce). No problems to report.

[EscapeRocks]

I will concur with the others above: No issues at all on my 2018 Mac Mini.

 

It has been rock solid on stage running Mainstage or Gig Performer, and the usual Kontakt, PianoTeq, Aturia, etc software:

[Stokely]

I'll find out when my big project is over, I'll upgrade then. I'm still on Sierra. I upgrade when I'm absolutely forced to and not before.

[EscapeRocks]

I'll find out when my big project is over, I'll upgrade then. I'm still on Sierra. I upgrade when I'm absolutely forced to and not before.

 

We know

 

Just messin' with ya...no harm intended

[Docbop]

Catalina no issues and waiting for Big Sur to settle in before I update. Then I will probably freeze my Mac at Big Sur.

[Bobadohshe]

I upgraded from Mojave to Catalina last week. It's working better than Mojave actually. My UAD interface was causing obnoxious little error messages at shut down and startup. Now it's smooth again.

 

Apple sure doesn't make it super easy to find an older OS to install do they?

[Steve Nathan]

Initially I had lots of DP crashing with Catalina on my 16"MBP. It's a lot better, but I still get occasional "Quit Unexpectedly" messages. Most everything works well. I am disappointed in Sonovox, who make a couple of quirky synths and a harmonica and one other thing I used occasionally. They have not done the work to make their stuff work with Catalina and don't seem to give a sh*t.

[Reezekeys]

Apple sure doesn't make it super easy to find an older OS to install do they?

 

Maybe Apple doesn't but "dosdude" does: http://dosdude1.com/software.html

 

As I understand it, his "patchers" are small apps for installing a MacOS on macs that would normally not allow it (I guess that would be all Hackintoshes). They include extra features to patch the installers to do that, but they're certainly useful to regular Mac folk needing to quickly & easily make a bootable USB stick or partition on a drive. I used them when I replaced the internal blade drives on my MacBook Pro and my daughter's Mac Air.

 

To your point â his patchers include direct links to Apple's servers to download installers for the OSes shown on that page.

 

[UnderGroundGr]

No problems!

[KuruPrionz]

I switched at the end of March this year - 2014 MB pro running High Sierra. I didn't like Mojave and went back to High Sierra.

Then I found a Sweetwater page on how to best set up Catalina for recording and since Catalina was well along by then I updated. I NEVER update to the "X.0" version of anything, gotta be at least "X.2" or I'll wait.

 

Now I'm using the latest and I've shut off all the automatic widgets and goodies and it runs great. Not sure if I'll go to Big Sur or not, will be a while in any case.

 

I'm pondering getting a cheap Billy G box for internet and other mundane tasks and just dedicating the MB pro to recording.

 

On the other hand, I recently made a boot drive out of a 2 tb HDD with Thunderbolt 2 and installed ONLY recording related software so I can plug that in anytime and record. Since I use cable internet access, it's easy to disconnect it when I'm recording and there will be no "magic updates" of any kind. I'll see how far I get with that first.

[Mighty Motif Max]

It still has odd behaviors with disconnecting external drives and sometimes it won"t let me eject drives because it claims they are in use. I think it"s the Quick Look function that runs in the background all the time.

 

No issues otherwise (2019 i9 MBP 32GB ram 8GBVram). It is better than the earlier Catalina versions. It doesn"t like a lot of third-party plugins that haven"t gotten the fancy Apple security certification unfortunately.

 

Make sure you don"t have any remaining 32-bit programs or plugins as nothing will work.

[Stokely]

I'll find out when my big project is over, I'll upgrade then. I'm still on Sierra. I upgrade when I'm absolutely forced to and not before.

 

We know

 

Just messin' with ya...no harm intended

 

Hah, compared to my bud who I'm working on a project with, I'm a man of the far future. He has some really old version of pro tools on his really old laptop...might be Snow leopard OS.

 

I am certainly due for an upgrade, right now I can't get Logic past 10.4 I don't think.

[KuruPrionz]

It still has odd behaviors with disconnecting external drives and sometimes it won"t let me eject drives because it claims they are in use. I think it"s the Quick Look function that runs in the background all the time.

 

No issues otherwise (2019 i9 MBP 32GB ram 8GBVram). It is better than the earlier Catalina versions. It doesn"t like a lot of third-party plugins that haven"t gotten the fancy Apple security certification unfortunately.

 

Make sure you don"t have any remaining 32-bit programs or plugins as nothing will work.

 

Command-Option-Escape is your friend when something seems "stuck". I've quit my DAW (or thought I did!) and it clings to the hard drive it was saving to, a nice Force Quit ends that quickly.

[EscapeRocks]

It still has odd behaviors with disconnecting external drives and sometimes it won"t let me eject drives because it claims they are in use. I think it"s the Quick Look function that runs in the background all the time.

 

 

disable it. In terminal. You may have to temp disable SIP to do this, then you'll use a few 'qlmanage' command and a sudo command. I don't have them in front of me to share..... I did this on my music machine Mac, and haven't had the issue and I use external drives.