Is Catalina as bad as it looks on this board?

[SeeGeeAitch]

I must be one of the lucky ones too.
No issues at all. Upgraded (not clean install) last night (Australia) on 2019 13" MBP.
Was quick, easy, no cloud issues, all working perfectly.
I made backups and everything beforehand just in case but so glad all went well and I didn't need to fiddle about with anything.
The replacements for iTunes will take some getting used to. Feels strange using Finder to sync to iOS devices.
My main gripe is no column browser for songs in the music app!!!! That has REALLY gotten to me!

 

[mkelly]

Its more laggy.

That should clear up in a couple days. The OS is likely re-indexing a ton of information - especially if you use Photos.

 

[Ethosik]

I keep getting kernel panics!

 

[ztw2002]

I connected Mac Mini to LG TV via HDMi to HDMI and it's not working after the update.

 

[mnsportsgeek]

Yes, it's unstable. If I could do it again, I'd wait till at least 10.15.1 and probably 10.15.2

 

[Ethosik]

How can I get Mojave again?

 

[milleron]

My mom always said MacOS was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get.
That said, for every disatisfied (l)user going on a rant, there are thousands who are just fine and don't have the need to tell the world about it.

We all know that folks with problems are much more likely to post that are folks with no problems. However,
I've never, ever seen this volume or variety of problems after any macOS update over the last five years. We were warned by many that 10.15 was not going to be ready for prime time, and I now believe it. I'll probably wait to upgrade until 10.15.2 at the earliest.

 

[JCon63]

Installed on 2018 MacBook Pro, 6 core, Sidecar works perfectly to the 12.9" IPP second generation. Had absolutely no issues............

 

[darthaddie]

Clean install and lost all my purchases from App Store. So yes, pretty bad!

same here. Lost all purchases. After 6 agents and 90 mins on chat the “senior” agent suggested that all Mac apps must now be downloaded via the new iTunes now. She told me told download fcpx through the new music app. That’s when I disconnected and pretty much gave up.

 

[SoYoung]

Its always like this every year. I think its normal a bunch of people have problems when a major new OS launch and its normal that you'll see them more than others because people who don't have any issues usually don't post anything.

Personally I had a great experience so far. It takes longer than Mojave to install, and I lost a good 30GB after the update but overall everything seems to work great. It seems the system use a little more ram however.

 

[BeatCrazy]

Once you get past the installation (and the iCloud sign in problem), it should be pretty smooth. Unless you are a power user and/or have many 32-bit apps.

After using it for a day, I can't say I notice a tremendous differences vs. Mojave. Which is a good thing.

 

[SoYoung]

After using it for a day, I can't say I notice a tremendous differences vs. Mojave. Which is a good thing.

True. overall this update look a lot like Mojave. I mostly update because of very useful new accessibility features so my only advice is to update if you realy need to, and don't/wait if you still have and use 32 bits apps a lot, you'll not have much new things in Catalina, plus, one of the good update comes to Safari, and you can install it on Mojave.

 

[dan9700]

Terrible my clean install has had massive problems can’t sign in to iMessage keeps saying error can’t sign in and iCloud is all messed up, major issues doing clean install it was working better when I updated from Mojave but I wanted it clean thinking it would do better the t2 chip messed up a lot

 

[MacNut]

Yes, it's unstable. If I could do it again, I'd wait till at least 10.15.1 and probably 10.15.2

This seems to be the best advice, just wait until the second update works the bugs out. I am in no hurry to upgrade.

 

[Infernos]

I've had very good luck with updates since the beginning. Even most beta updates went off without a problem. This one - not so much. It started with iCloud. I signed out, then I could not sign back in. It appears that signing out whacked something and it was preventing the sign in. I had wanted to do a clean install as I had a bunch of legacy stuff hanging out and it was time for a good cleaning. That turned out to be a nightmare. Somehow with a clean install, I ended up with a phantom volume. This prevented me from disabling SIP and caused a ton of issues with rebooting. Once I got rid of that, it cleared up a lot of things. Music and TV are a nightmare. I've got an extensive library of songs, TV shows, and movies. It's been split across 3 volumes for years and has always worked well. Between the two applications, the whole collection has become a jumbled mess. I really miss the column view from iTunes and my collections of Doug's AppleScripts. It's been a day and I'm slowing beating things into submission. At least I've been able to get rid of a ton of apps that I never used.

 

[Grimper]

There is just a page of people posting issues with new replies every few minutes. Is catalina as bad as it looks form this forum?

I was going to install it but now i am not so sure at all.

Thanks!

From my experience with it today (and I've been running Macs way before OS X came out), I'd stay away. App Store issues, iCloud issues, weird prompts for validation, and many lower-level drivers (such as NAS utilities) not working.

I'd give it a few weeks...

 

[Richard8655]

It wouldn't open my photos library kept on my hard drive instead iCloud that worked fine through Mojave. Also, older versions of MS Office apps (Word and Excel in particular) no longer work.

 

[TheSkywalker77]

While it certainly is buggy, and people have definitely been sure to voice their opinions on it, it isn't that bad of a release. I've been running it on my daily driver since beta 1 and have seen it improve a ton. But then again, I'm used to beta software and bugs don't particularly bother me. So to each their own, I guess.

 

[Sedulous]

I am mostly happy with Catalina (macOS 10.15) but the fractured 'iTunes" system of "TV", "Music", and "Podcasts" seems half-baked. Even basic things like indicators for watched/unwatched are missing. There are dozens of minor annoyances like changing the default album art size, inability to hide iTunes Store media, etc. So much missing that I have decided to revert to Mojave on media server. Seems like Apple was more concerned with pushing their services than anything else.

 

[Apple Mac Daz]

wanna do a clean install isn’t there anything I need to do with my iTunes folder to back it up. can I just drag folder on to a USB device and restore will the new apps automatically sort it out

 

[AustinIllini]

No issues for my wife and I. That being said, I'm not recommending Catalina to my family members just yet.

 

[throAU]

There is just a page of people posting issues with new replies every few minutes. Is catalina as bad as it looks form this forum?

I was going to install it but now i am not so sure at all.

Thanks!

The only issue i have had so far was during install i had to hard power off my macbook to get past the setting up screen.

Other than that i'm pretty happy with it so far.

Just make sure you have a full backup and go nuts.

 

[0837990]

I upgraded last night from Mojave 10.14.6 on a 2019 MBP 13 inch, and have had zero problems with Catalina so far. A couple of prompts about app notifications, and a warning about one 32-bit app not working, and that's all.

 

[CC88]

I have done a clean install of Catalina on my previous Apple SSD disk. After installing I loaded all my application like Adobe suite, FCPX and VmWare.

No problem at all, it's really fast and stable after working with in the new 10.4.7 fpcx and LR. I don't use too much app on my machine.

The only issue I got is about wrong permission on Download folder after two or three hours of use... Don't know why but I was not able to write to it anymore.

 

[LeeW]

App purchases are now back in the store, the HDMI to USB-C cables I use for the display don't work. Have a couple of Apps don't work but I am going to assume they are 32-bit which I am not fussed about.

Another couple of minor gripes but other than that ok and no performance issues.