Getting beachballs all over the place

[pshufd]

Accidental upgrade yesterday.

The problems with pauses opening programs and moving from program to program or window to window is similar to what I saw when I tried Big Sur on a Virtual Machine. I got beachballs trying to turn on BlueTooth and even trying to open Preview and I had to power-slam the machine. This is on a 2014 MacBook Pro 15. I am going to backup the system to an external Time Machine SSD and then restore from a Time Machine HDD (I maintain three HDD Time Machine backups as I'm paranoid about data loss).

My daughter runs Big Sur on a MBA/M1 and she says that it's fine. So maybe it works well with newer systems. I'm sticking to Mojave until I upgrade to M1 systems. I have been thinking of buying an iMac Intel but wonder if it has the same issues as Big Sur isn't optional there.

 

[fisherking]

Accidental upgrade yesterday.

The problems with pauses opening programs and moving from program to program or window to window is similar to what I saw when I tried Big Sur on a Virtual Machine. I got beachballs trying to turn on BlueTooth and even trying to open Preview and I had to power-slam the machine. This is on a 2014 MacBook Pro 15. I am going to backup the system to an external Time Machine SSD and then restore from a Time Machine HDD (I maintain three HDD Time Machine backups as I'm paranoid about data loss).

My daughter runs Big Sur on a MBA/M1 and she says that it's fine. So maybe it works well with newer systems. I'm sticking to Mojave until I upgrade to M1 systems. I have been thinking of buying an iMac Intel but wonder if it has the same issues as Big Sur isn't optional there.

or... you could look into what the problem is. there lots of people running big sur on older macs without issue.

try resetting nvram, for example. or post with more detail, see if the community here can help.

THREE TM backups? & what happens if the drives were stolen? consider, at least, along with (at least) 1 TM backup, an online backup service (idrive for example).

anyway, hope you sort it out.

 

[pshufd]

or... you could look into what the problem is. there lots of people running big sur on older macs without issue.

try resetting nvram, for example. or post with more detail, see if the community here can help.

THREE TM backups? & what happens if the drives were stolen? consider, at least, along with (at least) 1 TM backup, an online backup service (idrive for example).

anyway, hope you sort it out.

I tried Big Sur out on a virtual machine for a week and the pauses (a different problem) were really annoying. I was running it on a fast machine but I thought that it might just be the virtual machine so I decided to stay on Mojave. Even if the current issues were fixed, it looks like the pauses on transitions are something that you have to deal with. At least that's in my use case of trying to different systems.

I do not feel like spending a lot of time debugging the issue when it takes an hour to restore Mojave from backup.

Stolen? You can leave your doors unlocked in my neighborhood. The bigger problem would be damage. I used to have one of these disks in the office so I had multiple locations but that doesn't work anymore. I may start leaving one at my mother's place as I have to deliver groceries to her every week.

The headache with cloud backup is bandwidth and data caps.

The problem may well be with work security software. The software can't be removed outside of reformatting and reinstalling. I am hoping to migrate everything over to an M1X laptop when they come out and then I can reformat the old laptop and sell it.

 

[fisherking]

I tried Big Sur out on a virtual machine for a week and the pauses (a different problem) were really annoying. I was running it on a fast machine but I thought that it might just be the virtual machine so I decided to stay on Mojave. Even if the current issues were fixed, it looks like the pauses on transitions are something that you have to deal with. At least that's in my use case of trying to different systems.

I do not feel like spending a lot of time debugging the issue when it takes an hour to restore Mojave from backup.

Stolen? You can leave your doors unlocked in my neighborhood. The bigger problem would be damage. I used to have one of these disks in the office so I had multiple locations but that doesn't work anymore. I may start leaving one at my mother's place as I have to deliver groceries to her every week.

The headache with cloud backup is bandwidth and data caps.

The problem may well be with work security software. The software can't be removed outside of reformatting and reinstalling. I am hoping to migrate everything over to an M1X laptop when they come out and then I can reformat the old laptop and sell it.

i hear you, on everything. but the pauses you mention are not global issues, so... something specific to your setup. anyway, do you works best for you, so you can return to using your mac, instead of troubleshooting it. 👍

 

[pshufd]

i hear you, on everything. but the pauses you mention are not global issues, so... something specific to your setup. anyway, do you works best for you, so you can return to using your mac, instead of troubleshooting it. 👍

It could be but two out of two systems is not a good track record. I can see the CPU usage go way up when opening up a new program or switching Windows. It may be that newer CPUs handle that a lot better. At any rate, I'll wait until M1X to upgrade and replace my old systems. Restore has another 50 minutes to go. I'm always impressed with Time Machine as it has always worked for me when I've needed it.

 

[fisherking]

It could be but two out of two systems is not a good track record. I can see the CPU usage go way up when opening up a new program or switching Windows. It may be that newer CPUs handle that a lot better. At any rate, I'll wait until M1X to upgrade and replace my old systems. Restore has another 50 minutes to go. I'm always impressed with Time Machine as it has always worked for me when I've needed it.

then possibly something consistent in what you're doing on both systems... since this is, again, not a universal issue.

 

[pshufd]

then possibly something consistent in what you're doing on both systems... since this is, again, not a universal issue.

That's possible but it's not worth my time to debug it.

I just want something that works.

I usually wait at least a year before upgrading to a new operating system. Unfortunately most operating systems are pretty pushy about getting you to upgrade.

The restore booted into Big Sur so it appears that it was queued up to install on update. I'm restoring to an older backup. If that doesn't work, then I'll reformat and reinstall.

 

[fisherking]

That's possible but it's not worth my time to debug it.

I just want something that works.

I usually wait at least a year before upgrading to a new operating system. Unfortunately most operating systems are pretty pushy about getting you to upgrade.

The restore booted into Big Sur so it appears that it was queued up to install on update. I'm restoring to an older backup. If that doesn't work, then I'll reformat and reinstall.

might be useful info, at the end, to weigh the time you spend restoring to the time you might have spent troubleshooting. but whatever works.

meanwhile, despite apple's annoying update reminders, you're in control; that hasn't changed. so, change your software update settings! no one should ever have an 'accidental update'...

 

[pshufd]

might be useful info, at the end, to weigh the time you spend restoring to the time you might have spent troubleshooting. but whatever works.

meanwhile, despite apple's annoying update reminders, you're in control; that hasn't changed. so, change your software update settings! no one should ever have an 'accidental update'...

The time in restoring is minimal. I start up the restore and wait for it to finish. I'm currently using my cluster of a 2008 Dell XPS Studio 435mt, Late 2009 iMac 27 and 2015 MacBook Pro for computing. The 2014 is running the restore. It would cost me far more time to debug the problem. And I've already worked on it for an hour when I set it up on my virtual machine. The actual time doing the restore in terms of me doing something is minimal.

 

[hrMACnstuff]

its due to the constant updates and lack of quality control.

 

[fisherking]

its due to the constant updates and lack of quality control.

would you prefer apple leaves the bugs & issues alone for a longer time between updates? and what's due to 'constant update and lack of quality control'? comments like this, without context, say nothing at all...

 

[pshufd]

would you prefer apple leaves the bugs & issues alone for a longer time between updates? and what's due to 'constant update and lack of quality control'? comments like this, without context, say nothing at all...

I'd prefer fewer feature updates and more bugfixes. This isn't how the software industry gets rewarded though.

As my son says, customers are QC.

 

[hrMACnstuff]

bugs and issues. you just proved my point.

 

[fisherking]

bugs and issues. you just proved my point.

which is? that there are bugs & issues?

it's the nature of software; no developer gets everything right all the time, for everyone. so, personally, i'd rather see issues dealt with regularly; i also appreciate apple moving things forward.

 

[pshufd]

which is? that there are bugs & issues?

it's the nature of software; no developer gets everything right all the time, for everyone. so, personally, i'd rather see issues dealt with regularly; i also appreciate apple moving things forward.

Software development is a sophisticated process. The results you get are the inputs to the process. In many cases, it's the reward system in the process.

 

[fisherking]

Software development is a sophisticated process. The results you get are the inputs to the process. In many cases, it's the reward system in the process.

can you clarify your comment? am not sure i get it (or maybe someone else can explain it). am geniunely interested in what you mean...

 

[pshufd]

can you clarify your comment? am not sure i get it (or maybe someone else can explain it). am geniunely interested in what you mean...

Software engineering rewards features.

You get your product requirements from Product Management or you generate them internally, develop functional specs, get signoff from all the groups, write the design, detail design and test specs and then implement and then test.

And you have bugs assigned to you along with nightly test failures. You get rewarded on the features you develop. Bugs, test regressions, queries from product management or customers? You don't get rewarded for those. QC people get paid a lot less than developers so the incentive is to become a developer, not go into testing.

And then there's agile.

And feature creep.

You get what you reward. If you want a quality product, you reward work on quality.

Unfortunately, it seems like most of the software world would rather have it out fast and functional and not quality. iOS has had a number of years now with serious quality issues. Yes, they fixed a lot of them after a few months or after a year. But customers had to debug, document and complain about those bugs.

Costs go up exponentially from the functional spec as far as errors go.

 

[fisherking]

Software engineering rewards features.

You get your product requirements from Product Management or you generate them internally, develop functional specs, get signoff from all the groups, write the design, detail design and test specs and then implement and then test.

And you have bugs assigned to you along with nightly test failures. You get rewarded on the features you develop. Bugs, test regressions, queries from product management or customers? You don't get rewarded for those. QC people get paid a lot less than developers so the incentive is to become a developer, not go into testing.

And then there's agile.

And feature creep.

You get what you reward. If you want a quality product, you reward work on quality.

Unfortunately, it seems like most of the software world would rather have it out fast and functional and not quality. iOS has had a number of years now with serious quality issues. Yes, they fixed a lot of them after a few months or after a year. But customers had to debug, document and complain about those bugs.

Costs go up exponentially from the functional spec as far as errors go.

am more confused than ever, and will let it go.