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MacOS Catalina

Tony L said:
I guess they are only interested in selling streaming now, they don’t give a crap about folk with local libraries who wouldn’t touch compressed AAC or whatever with a bargepole.
Highly annoying.
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Because we're probably only 0.1% of their market.

I only use iTunes to get tunes in the car from the phone and as back up to the CDs as I've ripped them in AIFF.

Forgot to say that iTunes messed up my artwork a few OS gens ago too (iTunes installed on a 2010 Mac mini running Yosemite) and seems to struggle with auto artwork even on well popular stuff. I knew a long while ago that Apple had stopped interest in anything other than streaming.
 
Tony L said:
After leaving it overnight it looks like Catalina has screwed up the music library artwork. It has retained the stuff I physically embedded but lost substantial amounts that was downloaded by iTunes itself. Hugely bloody annoying as it will likely take me 10-15 hours or more work to fix given the size of the library and how OCD I am. I’ll give it another 20 hours or so, but I’m not holding out much hope as my collection is pretty leftfield/obscure and my suspicion is a lot if it just isn’t on Apple music anymore (it can only download art for stuff that is available). Highly annoying. Apple really has jumped the shark with Tim Cook IMO. Just not the same company. It is clear they didn’t think this one through, plan how to migrate the local artwork database. I guess they are only interested in selling streaming now, they don’t give a crap about folk with local libraries who wouldn’t touch compressed AAC or whatever with a bargepole.

PS Seyles, it refused to sync when I docked the iPhone insisting I upgrade the software, and the only update available was Catalina (everything else was bang up to date). Highly annoying.
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I'm sticking with Mojave for as long as I can as I like my MacBook Pro Retina 13" early 2015 model just as it is now, it has 2 USBs, a card slot, HDMI and 2 Thunder ports I've never used. I know where everything is and what it looks like and that suits my needs. It works fine and never gives off any nasty surprises and that's all I want from my laptop.
I don't like the direction Apple is moving in with regard to their laptops, mine is thin and light enough thank you, it doesn't need to be any lighter or streamlined. When this Mac is obsolete I will look at other ways to be 'connected' maybe an iPad but with a physical keypad.
 
I’ve just swapped my SSDs back over. The mess Catalina made of my music library artwork was just way too triggering, I just haven’t got the time to fix thousands of album images and it being wrong would just drive me nuts. Even trying to fix it manually album by album it couldn’t find images for really mainstream stuff (e.g. some Bowie albums, Beatles Abbey Rd etc), so Tim Cook can sod off. He doesn’t get to waste hours/days of my time. The machine is now back exactly where it was before starting as I have two 1TB SSDs. I just now need to flatten the Caralina one which is now in the USB caddy and use that drive for a new backup. I also obviously need to research what was mentioned upthread about getting iOS 13.3 to sync with Mohave....

Conclusion: Apple have jumped the shark.
 
No problem with artwork here which seems odd -- all MOFI and DCC artwork remain. It is however the worst OS I've installed on Mac in maybe ten years. External thunderbolt HDDs no longer sleep in tandem with my Mac, endless reboots required for no apparent reason. I see there's another update. Wish I stuck with Mojave which was absolutely fine. Utter rubbish. CCC also not what it used to be despite keeping it up to date.

Stay away IMO!
 
CCC appears to have performed flawlessly here, I look to be back exactly where I was yesterday prior to going to Catalina. That is simply by swapping the CCC external backup SSD with the one in the machine. I’m running a full backup of that drive now onto the now re-formated Catalina drive which is now in the USB caddy so I’ll be fully backed-up again. This flexibility being a key reason I’m no fan of the current MBP range with their soldered-in SSDs etc. It just doesn’t suit the way I want to work and I will not ever be buying one.

PS I suspect this is my cue to exit Apple as a main computer platform. Time to plan a gentle migration strategy... I still want to own an iPad and will be buying one of the next-gen Pros next year, but I have a feeling I’ll be migrating to either W10 or Linux for everything else. Probably W10. One thing the little Raspberry Pi 4 has taught me is I’m happy doing the ‘non iPad’ stuff through my 50” Sony HD TV, so a powerful single-board computer is likely all I’ll need when my MBP gives out. I’d be tempted to buy a high-end Toughbook or Lenovo laptop, but to be honest I don’t think I actually need one. I can do 90% of stuff I need to do on the iPad, the rest would be fine via the TV as a monitor, or even headless from the iPad via VNC, MS Remote Desktop or whatever. I need to start a ‘tiny desktop Windows PCs’ thread at some point as I’m curious about things like the LattePanda Alpha, the really titchy Lenovos etc.
 
Full backup now done so I’m exactly back where I was.

I’ve got to the bottom of the iTunes sync thing too. When I initially docked it and tried to sync a dialogue appeared and said it needed an update to continue, but gave me no indication what that update was and no method to find out. As such I declined and went to System Prefs/Software Update, and the only update available there was Catalina, hence my conclusion. This time, now I’ve rolled right back and have a full backup again, I decided to just let it do its thing thinking if it started to download Catalina again I’d just back-out. It has actually installed something fairly small and sync seems to be working again, so an excellent result. My problem is I’m an old-school IT guy at heart and I tend not to trust things that want to be installed unless I know exactly what they are, e.g. I have automatic updates turned off and always follow the ‘about...’ dialogue in Software Update and maybe google about a bit before agreeing to the update. This time I was denied the ability to do that, which led to an incorrect conclusion. My iPhone has some new jazz on it, all art work is perfect, so all is right with the world!
 
Tony L said:
Full backup now done so I’m exactly back where I was.

I’ve got to the bottom of the iTunes sync thing too. When I initially docked it and tried to sync a dialogue appeared and said it needed an update to continue, but gave me no indication what that update was and no method to find out. As such I declined and went to System Prefs/Software Update, and the only update available there was Catalina, hence my conclusion. This time, now I’ve rolled right back and have a full backup again, I decided to just let it do its thing thinking if it started to download Catalina again I’d just back-out. It has actually installed something fairly small and sync seems to be working again, so an excellent result. My problem is I’m an old-school IT guy at heart and I tend not to trust things that want to be installed unless I know exactly what they are, e.g. I have automatic updates turned off and always follow the ‘about...’ dialogue in Software Update and maybe google about a bit before agreeing to the update. This time I was denied the ability to do that, which led to an incorrect conclusion. My iPhone has some new jazz on it, all art work is perfect, so all is right with the world!
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Does this mean you'll be staying with Apple and OS X?
 
Rack Kit said:
Does this mean you'll be staying with Apple and OS X?
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My plan at this point is to widen my scope a bit. I will certainly be staying with an iPad and plan to by a iPad Pro when the new model comes out early next year. I’m done with Macbooks though, I hate the way the current range are assembled from a hardware perspective, so I’ll just be staying with OS X as long as my mid-2012 is still working perfectly, but I want to have an alternate active as whilst it is in near mint condition (I use it hooked to my Model M, so the keyboard doesn’t get much use at all) and working perfectly it is pretty old now and I need to make contingency plans. I started a thread on tiny desktop PCs yesterday as I plan to buy a little W10 machine just to see how I get in with it. I have a Pi4 which has proven to me I’m happy using my TV as a monitor, its a 50”, but far enough away from me to be perfectly legible in standard HD mode. As such I’m looking at a Udoo Bolt, Intel NUC or whatever. Something tiny and powerful that I can use along with my Macbook to give some degree of redundancy, let me explore the alternatives (W10, Linux) at my pace rather than having to do it after a catastrophic failure. As a business owner I have good backups, but at this point inadequate redundancy.
 
Just been able to rescue a CF memory card. Disk utility was finally able to initialise the card and reformat it in FAT 32. I copied a jpeg to it from the computer which worked fine, then I was able to format in camera. So least I get one card back in use again. Just a shame that Catalina has caused me top lose 2 of the 4 original. I since replaced them But could've done without the hassles.

I think for me anyway, Catalina is now close to being as stable as Mohave was. I'm not seeing what the benefit is going to 64bit TBH but all my apps were 64bit anyway but I hear that Catalina make more use of the computer power and the 64bit apps. I'm no computer expert so maybe someone else can explain what the advantages are as I can tell any difference so far.

I'm just glad I can get on with shooting and editing pictures without fear of losing a days work again.
 
15.10.3 has been out since late January - my late 2011 iMac (which upgraded to Catalina .1 & .2 OK is not recognizing there is a .3 available via software update. Any ideas why? Maybe they’ve dropped support for older models, but I can find no confirmation of same... wanted to install Swift Playgrounds for my daughters.

Thanks, Richard
 
Hi Richard,

According to Apple's hardware compatibility list for Catalina, iMac only goes back to the late 2012 models.
  • iMac (27-inch, Late 2012)
  • iMac (21.5-inch, Late 2012)
I was just looking at this the other week, as my GF's iMac is a late 2012.

Perhaps the boffins have been trimming the compatibility list as 'sniffing' customer error reporting logs reveals trouble spots?
 
I have an inherited mid 2012 Mac Book Pro that I re-initialized and have been using for the last 3 years. I hardly use the thing other than for applications that don’t work on my iPad as well as to store photos. I’ve recently went through and cleaned up the photo library and decided to install Catalina and then do a backup. I didn’t come to appreciate this machine until reading this thread. I really have no desire to “upgrade” machines as I hardly use a laptop. I now understand I can upgrade memory, SSD and even install a new battery. The machine also has an optical drive and all the ports I would need to hook it up to a TV to view vacation photos.

I’m a bit confused by Tony’s post regarding Catalina, was there an additional software update you should have installed that would have made Catalina work with your music library?
 
Craig B said:
Hi Richard,

According to Apple's hardware compatibility list for Catalina, iMac only goes back to the late 2012 models.
  • iMac (27-inch, Late 2012)
  • iMac (21.5-inch, Late 2012)
I was just looking at this the other week, as my GF's iMac is a late 2012.

Perhaps the boffins have been trimming the compatibility list as 'sniffing' customer error reporting logs reveals trouble spots?
Click to expand...

That’s exactly what I was wondering, but can find no evidence online and would expect other reports of issues if the supported .2 for late 2011 iMacs . Bugger :)
 
Try running this command from a terminal, then rebooting:
Code: 
softwareupdate -ia
 
You could download the full install (8.16GB) of Catalina 10.15.3 from the app store.

Then after backing up see if it will install.

Cheers,

DV
 
John said:
I’m a bit confused by Tony’s post regarding Catalina, was there an additional software update you should have installed that would have made Catalina work with your music library?
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The update I refer to was to get Mojave/iTunes to work with the current version of iOS. It works fine. I still haven’t migrated to Catalina as, last time I looked, it was still losing iTunes artwork and my collection is so obsessively curated I’m just not prepared to deal with that. Catalina doesn’t offer anything I actually need so I’ll stay put for a while yet.
 
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