Is Big Sur Stable enough for a work critical computer yet?

[whitedragon101]

I usually wait a while before installing the latest OS on my work Mac to wait for patches and stability fixes.

I have a 2018 6 core i7 Mac mini running Catalina.

Is big Sur nice and stable now or better to keep holding off for now?


Thanks


(I use Pinegrow, FileZilla, Xcode, Affinity software, atom, textmate, numbers/pages, every web browser there is)

 

[grahamwright1]

I use a lot of the same software and have found Big Sur to be very stable. Why not make a backup, upgrade to Big Sur and check it out for yourself? If you have problems, revert to your backup...

 

[theapplehead]

I usually wait a while before installing the latest OS on my work Mac to wait for patches and stability fixes.

I have a 2018 6 core i7 Mac mini running Catalina.

Is big Sur nice and stable now or better to keep holding off for now?


Thanks


(I use Pinegrow, FileZilla, Xcode, Affinity software, atom, textmate, numbers/pages, every web browser there is)

I would hold off for now. The forum is still littered with hundreds of folks stating issues with many different aspects of the OS. Will it work okay for you? Probably. But there’s still a number of kinks that need to be worked out in future updates.

 

[LeonPro]

That would really depend on your software which I would recommend checking out those specific forums to see if it's stable for that work environment.

I don't know what "major bugs" people speak of that warrant not upgrading but I've been using Big Sur in a professional environment in Adobe CC apps with no major issues or crashes.

 

[MBAir2010]

My horse uses big sur, so yes, it is very stable!

 

[Apple_Robert]

It has been very stable for me.

 

[||\||]

If there isn’t a specific reason why you would need to update, don’t.

 

[flowrider]

My horse uses big sur, so yes, it is very stable!

Horses live in stables

I use Big Sur on my work machine - stable, except still restarting when on the net and doing scrolling.

Lou

 

[fisherking]

stable on both my macs, and doing all my pro work without issue (logic, final cut, affinity photo, etc). there's no one moment where everything works perfectly for everyone; this has been true thru every version of the OS. so, backup, and update if you want to. and if you do, think of it as a challenge, not a risk.

 

[TheGeneralist]

i was getting the 'your computer shut down because of a problem' message when i rebooted (without issue), but only on my macbook (the imac, same 11.2 did not do this).(...)

stable on both my macs, and doing all my pro work without issue (logic, final cut, affinity photo, etc). (...)

Hey @fisherking, just to put things in context and understand what you mean - I took the first quote from another thread in this forum ("Strange Behaviour Since 11.2 Update") where you were indicating yesterday that your MacBook throws error messages after restart in macOS 11.2.
Today you state that both your Macs are "stable" and doing your work "without issues".

Well...this is a quite harsh contradiction, at least from my perspective. As far as I reckon, having the error message from the first posting without knowing why it happened is a clear indication that serious problems are not unlikely as the root cause. I would in such a case never ever come to the assumption that such a system could be regarded as "stable". Of course you're absolutely 100% right about stating that no OS was ever - or will ever be - something like "bug-free", but I just don't get why you ignore such clear warnings signs and recommend 11.2 as "stable" anyway.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not aiming at attacking you for your personal opinion or perspective. In many cases I like your solution-oriented approach and "not-whining" positive attitude. Just want to clarify why your interpretation on when an OS could be regarded as stable is obviously so different from what I perceive (...and maybe also some others).

 

[fisherking]

Hey @fisherking, just to put things in context and understand what you mean - I took the first quote from another thread in this forum ("Strange Behaviour Since 11.2 Update") where you were indicating yesterday that your MacBook throws error messages after restart in macOS 11.2.
Today you state that both your Macs are "stable" and doing your work "without issues".

Well...this is a quite harsh contradiction, at least from my perspective. As far as I reckon, having the error message from the first posting without knowing why it happened is a clear indication that serious problems are not unlikely as the root cause. I would in such a case never ever come to the assumption that such a system could be regarded as "stable". Of course you're absolutely 100% right about stating that no OS was ever - or will ever be - something like "bug-free", but I just don't get why you ignore such clear warnings signs and recommend 11.2 as "stable" anyway.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not aiming at attacking you for your personal opinion or perspective. In many cases I like your solution-oriented approach and "not-whining" positive attitude. Just want to clarify why your interpretation on when an OS could be regarded as stable is obviously so different from what I perceive (...and maybe also some others).

i don't reboot often, just occasionally. and my macbook would sometimes show the shutdown error on a normal reboot. this did not affect it's performance in any way; i reported it (in feedback assistant), and went back to work.

in the 11.3 beta, it has not happened again (i've rebooted twice). anyway, not a 'harsh contradiction', as, again, it did not affect the mac's functional abilities.

i stand by everything i wrote; my macs continue to work. i can use all my apps; i get my pro work done without crashes, delay, issue.

i may be an idiot sometimes, but i'm an honest idiot; sometimes wrong, but always honest.

 

[TheGeneralist]

@fisherking: Thank you for your answer.
Guess we are all wrong sometimes...let me give you an example: Last year I upgraded my iMac from macOS 10.14.6 to 10.15.5 last year (waited for the .5 to ensure stability and avoid trouble, as the general reception of Catalina was...well, not so good from what I read at that time). At first, it looked like most things were running decently, just noticed a few glitches and some delays in mail sorting in Apple Mail - didn't look like any serious trouble, so I told a friend that my upgrade went smoothly. Boy, was I wrong - some days later, it turned out that the "delays" in Apple Mail were in fact caused by a serious bug, which at that time had already obliterated hundreds of my well-sorted emails from my iCloud IMAP Folders. (This bug occurred rather seldom, but I was not alone - you find discussions about it / other affected users around the internet, i.e. at this source). This led to an odyssey on how to fix this problem and left Apple Support behind clue- and helpless. In the process I had to re-install macOS several times, severely hindered by additional Catalina bugs like Time Machine restore of datapoint failing / destroying my Fusion Drive, corruption of my complete Photos database and so on.
In the end I was surprisingly lucky - no further data loss and brought most of my mails back (making use of 3rd party email apps, which worked nicely and didn't have the same problems with iCloud as Apple Mail had). But at the expense of a several months long process with a huge time invest going into troubleshooting, setting up things and again troubleshooting, in the end having to sort >1000 recovered mails manually back into their IMAP Folders.

What I want to say by telling you that story: My advice would always be to take indicators for misbehaviour seriously, and - most importantly - if an unclear misbehaviour occurs and on the first glance everything looks as if no harm was caused, this definitely doesn't mean that in fact no harm was caused.

 

[fisherking]

@fisherking: Thank you for your answer.

What I want to say by telling you that story: My advice would always be to take indicators for misbehaviour seriously, and - most importantly - if an unclear misbehaviour occurs and on the first glance everything looks as if no harm was caused, this definitely doesn't mean that in fact no harm was caused.

on the flip side... there's always buggy behavior. things crash. something doesn't work until you reboot. that's life running any OS on any device. in my case, that warning seemed superfluous, as no related issues occured, and everything worked as expected.

if we took every glitch, random moment, or quirky behavior too seriously, we'd probably need to lock our macs in the closet, prop up a chair against the door, and pray we don't ever need to email anyone again

 

[cardfan]

Never update os unless you have to or like things not working.

 

[rehkram]

Big Sur 11.2 is stable on my mini 2018, including Office 365 apps, Sketchup and everything else I've wanted to use so far. Admittedly though it's situated in my shop and doesn't get a huge amount of use during these cold months here in upstate NY

So yes, what apps do you want to run? That would be the question.

 

[fisherking]

Never update os unless you have to or like things not working.

yes, never do anything challenging, exciting, new, or adventurous. really, if some of us want to run the betas, or dive into a new OS... that's fine, as long as we accept the consequences.

 

[nebojsak]

😂

Fisherking, half Paulo Coelho half Bear Grylls.

 

[fisherking]

😂

Fisherking, half Paulo Coelho half Bear Grylls.

ha you just made my day....

 

[TheGeneralist]

(...) if we took every glitch, random moment, or quirky behavior too seriously, we'd probably need to lock our macs in the closet, prop up a chair against the door, and pray we don't ever need to email anyone again

Well said🤔...well, in fact I like my new M1 MacBook a lot, although there are plenty of bugs and glitches left in 11.2 on Apple Silicon. But its advantages kind of compensate for that, to be honest although I was quite occupied thinking about leaving the Apple ecosystem last year, I would not really want to switch to a Linux or Windows machine instead.

What I definitely don't like is either data loss or need of significant time invest for troubleshooting due to long-persisting bugs.
In that regard, last macOS Version has been a clear fail for me, while Big Sur - and especially Apple Silicon - seem to look a lot brighter again. Despite some trouble still taking place...

 

[philosopherdog]

Don't update. Still way too many issues esp concerning are external display problems. Wait if you can. You can always create a super duper image and roll back if you run into trouble.

 

[macdos]

Would anyone run a nuclear power plant with Big Sur? Power a mission to Mars? Guide an airplane?

No. But for the average interweb browser, it might be reasonably stable. Apps may crash, and there might be a kernel panic every now and then, but you'll churn along.

 

[flowrider]

Don't update. Still way too many issues esp concerning are external display problems. Wait if you can. You can always create a super duper image and roll back if you run into trouble.

SD does NOT run in BS. CCC does, however.

Lou

 

[grahamwright1]

The SuperDuper web site has a nice workaround to getting a previous version working under Big Sur. You still can't create a bootable image, but you can backup content and restore onto a freshly formatted system.