Any Regrets for upgrading to El Capitan?

[Shirasaki]

10.11.2 was a dream for me comparing to 10.11.4 or even 10.11.5 beta.
30 days uninterrupted running. Too bad that I didn't have a screenshot for it. I even thought "oh, snow leopard era has returned, finally". And then?
Now, 10.11.4 randomly freeze. System either completely freeze ("second" in menubar does not change at all), or freeze and I cannot do anything. Activity monitor shows a graph full of green before I cannot open it again. Some random processes are just dragging CPU to death. Totally a nightmare.
Maybe, because of constant freezing/force restart, SSD just breaks itself? Otherwise everything should be fine.
I don't regret upgrading to El Capitan however, because Yosemite is even worse on my Mac.
I don't know when such freeze will be solved, but comparing iOS 9.3.1, OS X sucks.

 

[beebarb]

Well I guess there's another regret...
MIDI is just... WHAT at times.

I use a custom configuration to listen to MIDI files, because for some stupid reason modern media player support for MIDI is lacking, horribly.
Back in 10.4/10.5 I could use SoundFonts with QuickTime 7, and even then the stock Sound Bank was loud enough to hear, and fine for casual listening. The current one is just... pfffft...

Anyway, I've been using a software synth, along with DOSBox (the software synth is a part of the DOSBox build) and Windows 3.1 in order to play MIDI through OS X's default MIDI output.

The software synth is sensitive to MIDI errors.
Pretty early on in 10.11 it was all fine, no real objectionable issues, but since 10.11.3 and even into the latest beta, the error rate has seemingly been increasing.

The software synth still plays the MIDI, but these errors manifest as distortion, missing or wrong instruments, and other anomalies.

I dismissed minor issues as hiccups pertaining to my odd config, or maybe something was off about the SoundFont I selected to use with the synth, but now... I'm thinking it might be OS X.

I can't exactly trace the problem, but I certainly didn't have these MIDI errors before.

 

[rnbwd]

i totally agree that the OS should be on a two year release cycle, this **** is ridiculous. Saying el capitan is beta level software is pushing it. Instead of trying to 'depreciate yosemite' they should just make it solid - and the default OS - while having this be an optional beta until the next cycle.

Everyone seems to be effected differently too. 10.11.4 has been the most solid for me by far. What's also weird is that I felt like this happened every beta release too - any 4 betas prior to a release - 1-2 work great - 1 or 2 were ****, with a 50/50 chance the final release was good for your hardware or not. I assume it's complicated. I wouldn't want to be working on this OS at the moment.

 

[lexvo]

El Capitan is running OK for me, except for the App Store. It is slow, and many times I get a spinning wheel which spins forever. I need to remove some plist files, restart my iMac and do a NVRAM reset to get it working again. The next time App Store hangs again, sigh.... Very annoying when you want to install updates.

 

[RAMtheSSD]

Not that long ago, I would have rubbed the face of every windows user I could in the fact that I was using a "beta" version of OS X and my system was more stable than their supposedly stable release; that ended today. I have been most bothered by the absurd intransigence of Apple when it comes to HDMI audio. Until recently, that was a minor bother and it became something of a hobby to see if I could get the kext from 'round here to work. I missed XtraFinder but, again, a minor bother--until today. Maybe I missed it but California must have suddenly shifted pretty far north because Cupertino is now a suburb of Redmond!

Intermittent sound --no hardware problems both Kodi (stable and nightly) and Nice but not iTunes (naturally, everything is converted to Apple Loseless)
All Messages in Messages gone! --rebooted to install update today
Duplicated messages all over mail with rules applied seemingly at random -most of the time ok but failures occur often enough to be a bother.
Dock and menu bar disappearing at random.
Lag, Lag, LAG!!!
THREE RESTARTS IN ONE DAY!! (Ok, a Windows user might say "so what?" but still, totally uncharacteristic of OS X)

However, the most bothersome thing is the disappearing cursor when I use mission control and the weird way that one "hot corner" will seem to stop working for a while when using hot corners at time X. Then, at time Y, that corner will work and another corner will stop working!

Spotlight is the only bright light: until the last update the results were useless but --hopefully I am not jinxing it!-- things would seem to be back to normal though still not at the level of Snow Leopard which could search effectively WITHIN documents!

It is not like I have an anemic machine, 8 core cMP, PCI-E connected Sata III SSD dedicated to OS, 28 GB of RAM (soon to go up; switch to 16 Gb sticks and registered ram or stick with 8s?) and an R9-280 --more than enough?

Honestly, if I could keep messages and the security, I would go back to Snow Leopard so, NO, I would not do El Capitan if I didn't have to; I would have stuck with Mountain Lion! I am seriously giving some thought to using OpenBSD and running OS X on a virtual machine as needed.

PS: Just in case, checked for malware and clean but will check in target mode tonight.

 

[stylinexpat]

Not that long ago, I would have rubbed the face of every windows user I could in the fact that I was using a "beta" version of OS X and my system was more stable than their supposedly stable release; that ended today. I have been most bothered by the absurd intransigence of Apple when it comes to HDMI audio. Until recently, that was a minor bother and it became something of a hobby to see if I could get the kext from 'round here to work. I missed XtraFinder but, again, a minor bother--until today. Maybe I missed it but California must have suddenly shifted pretty far north because Cupertino is now a suburb of Redmond!

Intermittent sound --no hardware problems both Kodi (stable and nightly) and Nice but not iTunes (naturally, everything is converted to Apple Loseless)
All Messages in Messages gone! --rebooted to install update today
Duplicated messages all over mail with rules applied seemingly at random -most of the time ok but failures occur often enough to be a bother.
Dock and menu bar disappearing at random.
Lag, Lag, LAG!!!
THREE RESTARTS IN ONE DAY!! (Ok, a Windows user might say "so what?" but still, totally uncharacteristic of OS X)

However, the most bothersome thing is the disappearing cursor when I use mission control and the weird way that one "hot corner" will seem to stop working for a while when using hot corners at time X. Then, at time Y, that corner will work and another corner will stop working!

Spotlight is the only bright light: until the last update the results were useless but --hopefully I am not jinxing it!-- things would seem to be back to normal though still not at the level of Snow Leopard which could search effectively WITHIN documents!

It is not like I have an anemic machine, 8 core cMP, PCI-E connected Sata III SSD dedicated to OS, 28 GB of RAM (soon to go up; switch to 16 Gb sticks and registered ram or stick with 8s?) and an R9-280 --more than enough?

Honestly, if I could keep messages and the security, I would go back to Snow Leopard so, NO, I would not do El Capitan if I didn't have to; I would have stuck with Mountain Lion! I am seriously giving some thought to using OpenBSD and running OS X on a virtual machine as needed.

PS: Just in case, checked for malware and clean but will check in target mode tonight.

I wish I never hit that upgrade button

 

[howiest]

Making a pre-update clone is a mandatory procedure with El Cap.

Keeping a Mavericks or Yosemite clone is a good thing too.

 

[m4v3r1ck]

Keeping a Mavericks or Yosemite clone is a good thing too.

Good advice!

I have of both OSs a CCC clone hooked onto my Mac. Still waiting for .6 update for El Cap to check what issues/features like Disk Utility, Apple fixed.

I may even skip 10.11 and wait for 10.12!

Cheers

 

[navaira]

Mac. Still waiting for .6 update for El Cap to check what issues/features like Disk Utility, Apple fixed.

I don't think they're going to "fix" it, they seem perfectly happy with a crayon version.

 

[packeteer]

Work mbp is Yosemite, home machines are both El Cap with no issues

 

[lexvo]

Mail hung twice on my machine now, using all the CPU so that I cannot start any other app. Others have reported the same problem.

Maybe a smaller thing: playing music over bluetooth is supposed to support APTX. This only works very seldom for me.

 

[ardchoille50]

I upgraded to El Capitan on my Mac mini 6,1 (late 2012 base model) and I have only one regret. The Mavericks UI is beautiful but El Capitan has lost that beauty replacing it with a flat user interface. It's a minor annoyance that I'm sure I'll become accustomed to in time. El Capitan is running quite nicely on this machine and I'm happy with it.

 

[i1280]

I still have yet to upgrade my rMBP after hearing the disaster stories, even rcently, I still,hesitate to,do,so...

 

[simon lefisch]

It's funny how people say "I've heard horror stories about upgrading so I'm going to hold off", yet there are plenty of people that run El Cap just fine (I being one of them) but peeps don't listen to them.

For those that haven't upgraded or are hesitant because of the bad reviews, that's what cloned drives are for....to test whether the OS is ok for you. If there are probs, clone back to your original OS. It's that easy peeps.

 

[iubhounds]

It wasn't until this last update to 10.11.5 where I noticed my old (2010) iMac was slow in booting up or loading files. I've always done all the updates when they were released because I am always anxious to see the new updates. Running the same update on my 2015 MBA seems fast as ever. So maybe my iMac is old by most standards but it had never given me any issues.

I have never had virus protection. I run Bitdefender once per month and that has never found anything on my computer that shouldn't be there.

So basically ... I've updated my OS all the time as soon as a public release is made and have never had a bit of trouble.

 

[WizardHunt]

Well I am not sure it's safe for me at least to upgrade back to El Capitan. I did once and it gave me trouble and would not find my DVD player external blu Ray burner and I need that. So I think I will wait for macOS (10.12) the next operating system due out in Sept or Oct this year. I know they just updated but I am not sure it's worth the trouble to even try again. Apple really blew it with this operating system. I hope Apple will get back on the right path and do these operating systems so they work with having to wait for 3...4...5 updates before they are stable.
[doublepost=1464797840][/doublepost]

It wasn't until this last update to 10.11.5 where I noticed my old (2010) iMac was slow in booting up or loading files. I've always done all the updates when they were released because I am always anxious to see the new updates. Running the same update on my 2015 MBA seems fast as ever. So maybe my iMac is old by most standards but it had never given me any issues.

I have never had virus protection. I run Bitdefender once per month and that has never found anything on my computer that shouldn't be there.

So basically ... I've updated my OS all the time as soon as a public release is made and have never had a bit of trouble.

You are either lucky or you don't push your system to the max and may be why you don't experience any problems. If you are a casual user you may not use a lot of software that could be not compatible with El Capitan. Therefore you would not experience any problems.

 

[simon lefisch]

You are either lucky or you don't push your system to the max and may be why you don't experience any problems. If you are a casual user you may not use a lot of software that could be not compatible with El Capitan. Therefore you would not experience any problems.

I use mine for audio production and I don't have probs. Still using a Digi 002r which has been unsupported for a few years and no crashes, kernel panics, etc. All my devices are seen. This is on a late 2011 MBP btw.

 

[317342]

I've only noticed relatively minor glitches but overall it's been a solid upgrade from Yosemite for me.

 

[Traverse]

It's only certain scenarios that are impacted by El Capitan bugs and maybe certain hardware combinations, but I agree that Apple isn't fixing bugs like they should. Their 10.11.X releases don't seem to really do anything.

For me though, El Capitan has been like Snow Leopard. I have yet to encounter any major bug or system failure/freeze and overall system performance has definitely boosted. I'm not discounting the problems others have had, but sharing my own. The only real bug I've encountered was menubar freezings occasionally on 10.11.4, but it lasted only a few seconds and only happened 3 times.

I use my MacBook Pro in clamshell mode hooked up to two external monitors 90% of the time which OS X has historically has a real issue with. In Yosemite (some Mavericks) I had various bugs:

• Random laggy UI
• Freezing when swiping between full-screen apps
• "Restarting" my computer only to have it not turn back on.
• System freezes with a black screen when I would disconnect from clamshell mode.
• External monitor recognition issues.

El Capitan fixed all of those. I've yet to freeze when swiping between apps, I have never had that restart issue again, my system doesn't freeze when I disconnect from clamshell mode, etc. OS X can finally handle 3-4 monitors and transitions from clamshell to regular use with ease. I'm very happy with EC and will stay here for a while. If 10.12/macOS 12 doesn't offer anything exciting, I'll stay on EC for a few years and if WWDC does show me something, I'll wait until at least the .3 update before moving ahead.

*sigh* The #1 thing I want from a computer is reliability. THat's what I though Macs (Apple) were known for, but I feel like they've degraded as they've expanded since 2012.

 

[ghostwriter]

Sadly, after two decades of Apple loyalty, I find myself increasingly disenchanted with the Apple experience. OSX upgrades almost feel like forced obsolescence. Two year old maxed out iMac and 4 yr old maxed out MBP both preform like dogs, even after clean installs. Yet, new MB outperforms both of my maxed out machines. Doesn't make sense to me that a new, underpowered MacBook is outperforming my MBP and iMac, with identically configured software on all platforms.

 

[RobFog]

No regrets here.

I installed an SSD in my mid-2009 MacBook Pro and clean installed El Capitan having used Mavericks previously. Runs pretty smooth. RAM usage seems to have gone down in fact.

I'm optimistic I can get a couple more years out of this old computer.

 

[mildocjr]

The only regret I have is upgrading to Lion because I haven't had a great macOS since.

 

[fhall1]

No regrets here....but I waited to upgrade from Yosemite until 10.11.4 was out for a while. Starting with 10.4 to 10.5 I usually never upgrade before a .3 release and I always use the combo updater. My current 2012 Mac Mini running 10.11.5 probably has cruft in it from OS X 10.4 from my 2006 Mac Mini since I've always updated and never clean installed. I also used Time Machine to restore my 2006 MM setup to my 2009 iMac and then to my 2012 MM. Knock on wood everything is functioning fine and I have 321 apps in my Application folder.

 

[WizardHunt]

It's only certain scenarios that are impacted by El Capitan bugs and maybe certain hardware combinations, but I agree that Apple isn't fixing bugs like they should. Their 10.11.X releases don't seem to really do anything.

For me though, El Capitan has been like Snow Leopard. I have yet to encounter any major bug or system failure/freeze and overall system performance has definitely boosted. I'm not discounting the problems others have had, but sharing my own. The only real bug I've encountered was menubar freezings occasionally on 10.11.4, but it lasted only a few seconds and only happened 3 times.

I use my MacBook Pro in clamshell mode hooked up to two external monitors 90% of the time which OS X has historically has a real issue with. In Yosemite (some Mavericks) I had various bugs:

• Random laggy UI
• Freezing when swiping between full-screen apps
• "Restarting" my computer only to have it not turn back on.
• System freezes with a black screen when I would disconnect from clamshell mode.
• External monitor recognition issues.

El Capitan fixed all of those. I've yet to freeze when swiping between apps, I have never had that restart issue again, my system doesn't freeze when I disconnect from clamshell mode, etc. OS X can finally handle 3-4 monitors and transitions from clamshell to regular use with ease. I'm very happy with EC and will stay here for a while. If 10.12/macOS 12 doesn't offer anything exciting, I'll stay on EC for a few years and if WWDC does show me something, I'll wait until at least the .3 update before moving ahead.

*sigh* The #1 thing I want from a computer is reliability. THat's what I though Macs (Apple) were known for, but I feel like they've degraded as they've expanded since 2012.

Well I had it installed once and it gave me problems however that being said, they did do one or two updates since i have last tried. I may try a 1 TB SSD external dock that is Thunderbolt also so I can test it without disturbing my Yosemite system. If it goes well then i may finally upgrade again.