OSX 10.11 - upgrading?

[Twangothan]

Apparently there's another OSX upgrade on the way....I wish they'd leave it alone....any thoughts? I tent to take the view of if it ain't broke don't fix it, but everything pushes you to do it.

This blogger says no...

http://www.resoundsound.com/el-capit...You+Upgrade%3F

[bendermasteringstudio]

I've been testing it and I can honestly say it is one of the best OSX updates I remember. Performance improvements are really noticeable. And that's what matters to me.

So far it has been stable, a few more weeks like this and I'll upgrade my main partition with 10.11.

PS: You obviously should test any upgrade but it's hard for me to trust a blog that recommends Clean My Mac.

[goldec]

As I have warned in previous threads – Reaper 5 doesn't work with OSX 10.11. There are some graphical issues concerning UI draw rate during playback / record.

[serstickman]

Experience has taught me to wait till at least the .3 release of any new OSX flavor before upgrading. Plugins get updated & other rough edges are usually smoothed by then. YMMV

[Twangothan]

Originally Posted by bendermasteringstudio

I've been testing it and I can honestly say it is one of the best OSX updates I remember. Performance improvements are really noticeable. And that's what matters to me.

So far it has been stable, a few more weeks like this and I'll upgrade my main partition with 10.11.

PS: You obviously should test any upgrade but it's hard for me to trust a blog that recommends Clean My Mac.

I'm not a power user at all, especially on Macs which I find really hard to understand. My main music machine is a Mac Mini though. Please keep us up to date on your conclusions!

[cyrano]

Originally Posted by bendermasteringstudio

PS: You obviously should test any upgrade but it's hard for me to trust a blog that recommends Clean My Mac.

I haven't looked at that blog, but I think you're blaming the wrong guy. They have no control on what kind of ads are shown to their visitors. On the contrary, it's you who "controls" what ads are shown. Not that you can change anything at will, but it's your profile with Google and others that controls what's shown. If you go an a hunt for new socks, you will be shown sock ads.

But I do agree that "Mac cleaner" is crapware. It's changed names already a couple of times.

Run an adblocker in your browsers and Mac Keeper, Mac cleaner and al that crapware vanishes even on sites you allow to show ads. The makers of those have decided a long time ago that people who run adblockers are not their target demographic anyway.

Your browser might just show some sites faster too.

[bendermasteringstudio]

Originally Posted by cyrano

I haven't looked at that blog, but I think you're blaming the wrong guy. They have no control on what kind of ads are shown to their visitors. On the contrary, it's you who "controls" what ads are shown. Not that you can change anything at will, but it's your profile with Google and others that controls what's shown. If you go an a hunt for new socks, you will be shown sock ads.

But I do agree that "Mac cleaner" is crapware. It's changed names already a couple of times.

Run an adblocker in your browsers and Mac Keeper, Mac cleaner and al that crapware vanishes even on sites you allow to show ads. The makers of those have decided a long time ago that people who run adblockers are not their target demographic anyway.

Your browser might just show some sites faster too.

It's not an ad.

[Twangothan]

Honestly I don't care about Mac Cleaner, in fact I didn't even notice it. What about the upgrade? :-)

[Justin]

I just installed 10.11 GM on a 2012 Retina MBP, and it seems to be working pretty well!

goldec -- can you describe in more detail the issues you've seen, and what hardware you are using? Thanks!

Edit: I was able to duplicate while dragging the mouse around on a fader/arrange/etc, but only when actively doing something (not just moving the mouse). Looking into a fix!

[esosotericmetal]

I'm looking forward to upgrading if the performance improvement are indeed as noticeable as I've heard many say. As soon as all the plugins I use are updated of course. Hopefully that will be sooner than later.

[cyrano]

Originally Posted by bendermasteringstudio

It's not an ad.

Yep. You're right, it's a slightly disguised link to MacPaw. Should have looked. He is actively recommending it. Sorry!

[Twangothan]

Message from Arturia today....

-------------------------------------------------------

Apple is about to release a new version of its operating system, Mac OS X 10.11, El Capitan.

Our testing team is still working on the qualification of the Arturia software instruments with the new Mac OS X 10.11, El Capitan . At that point, from what we see, this update may affect operations of these instruments when in Audio Unit or standalone mode.

We are working with Apple to solve some issues. Indeed some of them could need a release either from Arturia or Apple.

For this reason, if you want to make sure your Arturia software keeps working properly, we recommend that you postpone the update of Mac OS to "El Capitan" until Apple resolves these compatibility issues .

We will keep you informed about the evolution of this situation.

[Aymara]

Originally Posted by Twangothan

Message from Arturia today....

I received a similar warning from Native Instruments today and found rumours, that 10.11.1 Beta has already been released. So it seems to be wise to wait.

[Twangothan]

Yep, updates now disabled on mine. Apple's inability to do testing is very tedious.

[Aymara]

Originally Posted by Twangothan

Apple's inability to do testing is very tedious.

That's not only an Apple phenomenon, but with the whole software industry nowadays.

My old rule is: Never install a zero version and always wait at least for the first update.

[cereboso]

I don't use a Mac, but I did see these compatibility notices:
Slate: https://slatedigital.zendesk.com/hc/...-Compatibility
Native Instruments: http://www.native-instruments.com/en...tibility-news/

[vanhaze]

Would like to see a performance comparity chart regarding performance in Reaper between 10.10 and 10.11 (in the future).

[serstickman]

I usually wait till each new flavor of OSX hits the .3 release before I upgrade.

[Aymara]

Originally Posted by vanhaze

Would like to see a performance comparity chart regarding performance in Reaper between 10.10 and 10.11 (in the future).

I don't expect any difference here, because Apple claims, that apps start faster and the keyword seems to be start and not run. Other than that there are performance increases for games to be expected, because of the new Metal engine.

So I would only expect Reaper to start a bit faster, but not to show a performance increase in audio procession, but maybe in video processing. Time will tell.

[sonnie]

Originally Posted by goldec

As I have warned in previous threads – Reaper 5 doesn't work with OSX 10.11. There are some graphical issues concerning UI draw rate during playback / record.

Wrong. I just tested it - no issues at all. Just one minor issue with grayed routing matrix. After close and reopen the matrix - gone.
But yeah, the devs don't want us to switch ... yet.

BTW: Not a single program is starting faster than with 10.10...

[G-Sun]

Warning from Presonus as well:
http://support.presonus.com/entries/...cdcfe6f573af5f

[cyrano]

Originally Posted by Aymara

I don't expect any difference here, because Apple claims, that apps start faster and the keyword seems to be start and not run. Other than that there are performance increases for games to be expected, because of the new Metal engine.

So I would only expect Reaper to start a bit faster, but not to show a performance increase in audio procession, but maybe in video processing. Time will tell.

It feels faster, even on a Mac that doesn't has the Metal preferred GPU. The reason is that Apple left out some animations. One example is live desktop pictures. That's always on in Yosemite, but default off in EC. The user can enable it, but it's something few people use.

Of course, this doesn't make 3rd party software run faster!

And on a Mac from 2012 on, Metal will accelerate some graphics stuff a lot. But you'll need an update to the application. Photoshop seems ready. In the DAW world, I don't think Metal will immediately provide any speed gain. Once the devs have caught up, it will provide speed gain for things like showing wav forms, spectral data...

And of course, games will benefit a lot. So will 3D rendering and even video, cause Metal will also allow to offload some processing to the GPU. I really have no idea how much this could benefit audio.

I consider Yosemite as the beta and El Capital as the final version. There are hardly any new user features in EC and a lot of irritating behaviour is gone. Even the GUI is identical.

My view is a bit skewed. When I look at Apple's "new features" list, I don't use any of these programs. No Mail, no Notes, no nothing. The few Apple programs that I still use (iMovie, iPhoto, iTunes...) seem to get dumbed down and more irritating with every release. But hey, that's just me :-)

[Aymara]

Originally Posted by cyrano

But hey, that's just me :-)

No, you're not alone. I myself for example hate this Photos app. Who needs this crap, when I have preview and slideshow features in Finder and can avoid building a huge DB for this app. Besides that I love Affinity Photo, which has become my personal Photoshop killer

But all that is a different story.

[goldec]

Originally Posted by sonnie

Wrong. I just tested it - no issues at all.

Try moving some faders while playing a session.

[sonnie]

Originally Posted by goldec

Try moving some faders while playing a session.

Works. Why?

[goldec]

Originally Posted by sonnie

Works. Why?

The UI refresh rate doesn't drop to 1fps for you when doing that?
Then it is related to hardware aswell. interesting!
I get a noticable slowdown when even just moving the mouse while a session is playing.

What mac are you using?

I'm running a mid 2015 macbook pro for reference.

[Twangothan]

Originally Posted by Aymara

No, you're not alone. I myself for example hate this Photos app. Who needs this crap, when I have preview and slideshow features in Finder and can avoid building a huge DB for this app. Besides that I love Affinity Photo, which has become my personal Photoshop killer

But all that is a different story.

Me too. I have a Mac Mini which I use for Reaper and Wavelab but use none of their software which I just can't understand. I tried to use iMovie but found it completely unintuitive, even compared to MS Moviemaker and the forums are full of people saying it has got progressively worse. So I use none of the software on it, though I can't complain about the box itself for Reaper, it has been fine.

[Aymara]

Originally Posted by Twangothan

I tried to use iMovie but found it completely unintuitive, ...

Compared to Photos I find iMovie quite useable ... not a gem in video processing, but for the average user making a holiday video for example, it's quite ok.

A matter of taste though.

Photos on the other hand is just embarrassing.

[cyrano]

Originally Posted by goldec

I'm running a mid 2015 macbook pro for reference.

That's Retina for you!

Because of older hardware I have to take care of, I'm stuck on a Core 2 Duo. The next gen processors just don't work reliably with a CNC cutter I use. It's not mine and it's old, but it's the only one that I have access to. And it cuts up to 10 cm steel. :-)

I've been able to drop 10.6.8 now because my old audio hardware started working again with Mavericks. That was dead too, under Lion and ML. Still works under El Capital.

Now I need to look for a post-Haswell, pre-Retina Mac, if that even exists. :-(

But I'm piling up C2D Macbooks to be safe for a couple of years.

[goldec]

Originally Posted by cyrano

That's Retina for you!

Hasn't been an issue previously and hopefully will get fixed soon

[sonnie]

Originally Posted by goldec

What mac are you using?

I'm running a mid 2015 macbook pro for reference.

Interesting. Somtimes I can reproduce it, but seldom. Its a slow MBA 13" (2013/2014 I guess)

[cyrano]

Originally Posted by goldec

Hasn't been an issue previously and hopefully will get fixed soon

I just went through a fix list for El Capital. I't 25 KB text and those are only the security fixes.

EC is available in the Appstore, BTW.

I only hope most of the fixes will be backported to previous versions...

[robindean]

Big problems here. I happily/blindly updated and now after 10 seconds of playback, my computer force restarts itself. Oops.

[Ciapasty]

I'm having the same issue. After a couple seconds of playback system crashes and forces restart.

[cyrano]

Try disabling everything Cloud related if you can. Preferably, before updating, of course.

Again, different setups for online stuff are biting Apple in the...

If you install a bare copy without being logged in into any cloud related services [except the appstore, of course], there's no problem. If you were logged into some, the problem surfaces for some users.

We're trying to work out which services produce the problem as we're not able yet to reproduce it. But the above tip seems to work at least for one user.

Doing simply a clean install and then moving your config with Apple's Migration assistant doesn't always avoid the problem. That used to be a fairly good way to prevent problems, but alas...

We're hoping now that the appstore itself isn't part of the problem.

The core of the problem resides around ipV6 to ipV4 bridging, some routers and some DNS servers. It might be wise to switch your router to Google's DNS servers (8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4).

There's a very old bug in Linux on these routers that provokes wrong DNS lookups in rare cases. Apple's own routers don't have this bug, as they aren't Linux based. And Apple doesn't have an army of 3rd party routers to test with, of course.

The bug itself got fixed in Linux years ago, but the manufacturers are using a very old embedded Linux release. Of course, these are the same ones that don't follow GPL rules.

[kingskot]

Originally Posted by robindean

Big problems here. I happily/blindly updated and now after 10 seconds of playback, my computer force restarts itself. Oops.

Same here. Knew I should have waited, dammit...any recommendations from anybody?

[serr]

Originally Posted by kingskot

Same here. Knew I should have waited, dammit...any recommendations from anybody?

Just roll back to 10.10 (or whatever you were running). Then wait for the 3rd party stuff to catch up.

If you actually didn't keep a backup of your system volume, I'm afraid you are just going to have to rebuild your 10.10 system manually.

FYI about Apple:
They get severe amnesia about any and all older products and software. Today, they will have zero recollection that they ever made an OS called 10.10. It's silly weird...

You really have to keep OS installers on hand yourself. And you need to keep a backup clone of your system volume so you have a magic restore button.

You'll be able to download the 10.10 installer somewhere if you didn't save it. It's still recent, so lots of somewheres.

Note: Do a clean install and then manually copy your data back. Do NOT use migration assistant! Again, with the amnesia for older products thing, migration assistant will crash if you try to 'migrate' to an older OS. They don't test for this as they have no recollection of ever writing the older version anymore at this point in time.

Moving forward:
I recommend Carbon Copy Cloner for a backup cloning app.
The clone of your system drive will be exactly the same and bootable.
Time Machine only backs up data and you would need to reinstall OSX manually.

[Aymara]

Originally Posted by serr

Do NOT use migration assistant! Again, with the amnesia for older products thing, migration assistant will crash if you try to 'migrate' to an older OS.

I created a Yosemite installer USB stick and have a Yosemite Time Machine backup. This combination should allow me to setup an OSX clean install and then use the migration assistant to get back all my data and apps, shouldn't it?

[serr]

Originally Posted by Aymara

I created a Yosemite installer USB stick and have a Yosemite Time Machine backup. This combination should allow me to setup an OSX clean install and then use the migration assistant to get back all my data and apps, shouldn't it?

You mean, for example, if you have a 10.10.0 installer and then you try to migrate from a 10.10.4 system. (Not a newer version but still a newer revision.)

Hmmm... Can't remember if I've tried that.
Sorry, not sure!

I'd avoid all that and just get Carbon Copy Cloner.
It will save you hours/days of lost time and work.

[Aymara]

Originally Posted by serr

You mean, for example, ...

No, when reverting back to Yosemite, I would use the latest 10.10.5 ... the fixed security holes alone are worth it!

But it is recommendable to use the same installer version, that the last Time Machine backup has. The question is, if it is available

That's why I update my Time Machine backup and USB installer after every sub release.

Currently that is 10.10.5 ... and I will stay with that at least until the end of the year, because El Cap is a pure disaster, which causes tons of incompatibilities, be it audio or gaming or whatever. But with Yosemite it seems to have been similar until 10.10.3 was released.

I'd avoid all that and just get Carbon Copy Cloner.
It will save you hours/days of lost time and work.

Sure, but that is a strategy for the future, that doesn't help with the described problem above, where a clone backup is missing.