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Mac OS Catalina: more trouble than it’s worth (Part 2)

morrick.me

61–70 of 248 posts

Re: Mac OS Catalina: more trouble than it’s worth (Part 2)

#61
post #11

Am I the only person that doesn't have any significant issues with Catalina? I'll admit, some of the permissions-related pop-ups are a bit annoying, but overall it's been a rather stable macOS version for me (developer, working mostly in Xcode and JetBrains IDEs).

I have intermittent, but frequent issues with external displays not coming up when plugged in, or display output (HDMI only) being corrupt (I have to reboot to fix corruption). Brand new 16" MacBook Pro nearly maxed out. I suspect the issues are with the AMD display drivers.

Re: Mac OS Catalina: more trouble than it’s worth (Part 2)

#62
post #59
post #11

Am I the only person that doesn't have any significant issues with Catalina? I'll admit, some of the permissions-related pop-ups are a bit annoying, but overall it's been a rather stable macOS version for me (developer, working mostly in Xcode and JetBrains IDEs).

Nope. Catalina from the first release on 4 macs, all work fine. Also at work, hundreds of upgrades went through with no problems. Apple and any hint of problems seem to be clickbait fodder these days. Almost seems like a coordinated pr effort.

Absolutely not “coordinated pr effort.” Safari stops rendering entirely on iOS every now and then, seems like a pretty major bug no? Not fixed for like five releases. AirPlay 2 is an absolute joke, stops playing after five minutes on the dot in some situations. Again, no fix in like a solid year.

Good for you that you don’t have any problems, others do. Regression type problems.

Re: Mac OS Catalina: more trouble than it’s worth (Part 2)

#63
post #11

Am I the only person that doesn't have any significant issues with Catalina? I'll admit, some of the permissions-related pop-ups are a bit annoying, but overall it's been a rather stable macOS version for me (developer, working mostly in Xcode and JetBrains IDEs).

Both Catalina and Mojave were the smoothest MacOS upgrades I've had for a very long time.

The only issue I have with Catalina is that I can't figure out how to disable password auth for sshd since the config is basically read only now. Ended up using Wireguard and disabling external SSH access.

Re: Mac OS Catalina: more trouble than it’s worth (Part 2)

#64
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure what the issue is either, once you add the necessary permissions for your apps, it doesn't ask again. Only complaint is Apple seem to ignore long-standing bugs that have been there for years, like monitors switching around every time you dock your MacBook. They should make a Snow Leopard-like release and clean out their bug tracker.

This isn’t something I’ve encountered and I dock to three different desk setups most days. It’s typically good enough that it remembers the correct layout for multiple of the same type of monitor once configured. Is your monitor sending the serial number correctly?

This just started happening to me on Mojave, after I messed around with installing some third party USB managers to try to get my new keyboard and mouse to behave. Deleted the managers and returned the hardware, but some lingering issue crippled my multi-monitor setup. It’s particularly bad because I use one horizontal one vertical.

Re: Mac OS Catalina: more trouble than it’s worth (Part 2)

#65
post #11

Am I the only person that doesn't have any significant issues with Catalina? I'll admit, some of the permissions-related pop-ups are a bit annoying, but overall it's been a rather stable macOS version for me (developer, working mostly in Xcode and JetBrains IDEs).

Most of my problems seem to revolve around using an eGPU with the laptop shut. I'll randomly get intermittent freezes where the display stops updating and user input stops being accepted. When I look at the logs, AMDRadeonAccelerator is going nuts.

The AirPlay icon in the menu bar also flashes between Sidecar, Airplay, and nothing at all. I had to remove it for my sanity. Speaking of Sidecar... performance is abysmal. Not on Sidecar itself, which is actually really snappy, but it brings everything else to its knees. Probably because windowserver goes nuts with CPU usage...

My monitor isn't correctly detected when using an eGPU, but it works fine with Thunderbolt. I had to create a custom EDID with known good values for it to work properly. Luckily this was something I could fix on my own.

Oh, and every few weeks Finder will just give up and die, which has the interesting effect of preventing the Feedback application from gathering logs. Nothing will compel it to come back to life and rebooting just sits there. The only way out is to hold down the power button. This one might be SMB related, as I have a lot of shares going on and Finder might not like something that is happening with them at any given time. I've never quite isolated what's going on.

I also get T2 crashes every few weeks. They must be making progress, though, because it seems like every update the crashes get further and further apart.

Other than that... it's the same old macOS as before for me.

Re: Mac OS Catalina: more trouble than it’s worth (Part 2)

#66
post #11

Am I the only person that doesn't have any significant issues with Catalina? I'll admit, some of the permissions-related pop-ups are a bit annoying, but overall it's been a rather stable macOS version for me (developer, working mostly in Xcode and JetBrains IDEs).

Nothing here. It’s been as easy an upgrade as I can remember. My company’s IT team kept sending emails not to upgrade but I haven’t had an issue. I think they mostly were tired of dealing with early release headaches from Chrome not asking for permission to control the whole screen for sharing. Google Meet worked just fine with Safari so I never noticed that problem. I do however dislike Music. I added iTunes back wi…

If you don’t rely on Apple Music theres Swinsian which pretty much covers all the good parts of legacy iTunes for me. I switched to it, imported my iTunes library and I couldn’t be happier. Really responsive developer too.

I still use Music.app for my Apple Music streaming though.

Re: Mac OS Catalina: more trouble than it’s worth (Part 2)

#67
post #42
post #11

Am I the only person that doesn't have any significant issues with Catalina? I'll admit, some of the permissions-related pop-ups are a bit annoying, but overall it's been a rather stable macOS version for me (developer, working mostly in Xcode and JetBrains IDEs).

Mostly OK, but I'm caught pretty badly with the 16" automatic graphics switching bug - whenever I try scrolling on browsers it tries to engage the discrete GPU, which freezes the screen for a few seconds. Had to disable auto switching, and it hasn't been fixed in the latest update. I expect this will be fixed on the next Intel driver update. Other than that, things are fine. Not annoyed by the security, and Apple is…

On my 16” I disabled “use hardware acceleration when available” in Chrome’s advanced settings. Chrome stops using the GPU altogether. I did not run into any performance issues, but getting less heat and longer battery life when using chrome.

Re: Mac OS Catalina: more trouble than it’s worth (Part 2)

#68
Even if I wanted to upgrade my old Mini (by having a new OS on an external HD), Mojave and Catalina won't let me because required APFS support for EFI comes only as part of the 6GB Mojave (or Catalina) download/install, rather than as separately downloadable BIOS upgrade. Even bought a flash drive and ordered to have Mojave installer copied to it at an Apple retailer only to find out that it doesn't work like that anymore. After many years of good use in the 2010s, for me the Mac has lost it's practical side where you could use disk target mode, boot from external HD, etc.

Edit: 2000s not 2010s

Re: Mac OS Catalina: more trouble than it’s worth (Part 2)

#69
post #11

Am I the only person that doesn't have any significant issues with Catalina? I'll admit, some of the permissions-related pop-ups are a bit annoying, but overall it's been a rather stable macOS version for me (developer, working mostly in Xcode and JetBrains IDEs).

The quality was terrible at the initial release, but the issues I experienced then seem to have been resolved now.

It should not have been released in the state it was in at the time.

Re: Mac OS Catalina: more trouble than it’s worth (Part 2)

#70

I used to be a huge fan of Dashboard. Why they had to remove it is beyond me.

It was theoretically replaced by notification center widgets, but in reality it was replaced by smartphones. All the little apps I used to have on dashboard, like the weather, are now things I check on my phone.
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