Is macOS Catalina ready for production work?

[FocusAndEarnIt]

Hi all. I haven't kept on the forums, other than knowing that Catalina came with some issues. I depend on my Mac daily for research - I am usually emulating several environments via VMWare, running extensive workflows in Excel, Adobe suite, and upwards of 10 Word docs at a time. I use iCloud Drive for personal and OneDrive extensively for work. Mojave is rock solid, and I'm nervous to leave it. Thoughts?

 

[Ethosik]

Do you have a reason to upgrade? I wanted to get rid of iTunes so the new apps is what I wanted to upgrade for.

 

[revmacian]

There is a nice wiki thread here:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/catalina-apps-working-not-working.2183923/

 

[FocusAndEarnIt]

I'm more wondering about stability. I know the apps I need to run work. Technically, Mojave does everything I want. I'd like the new apps that replaced iTunes, but I can live without if it means a more stable system. I remember Mojave being rock solid for me out of the gates. This was largely other people's experience too, though. I don't have a good feel on how Catalina has been, hence me making the thread.

 

[posguy99]

Mojave is rock solid, and I'm nervous to leave it. Thoughts?

Then don't. Wow, that was hard.

 

[FocusAndEarnIt]

Then don't. Wow, that was hard.

Congratulations on being thoroughly unhelpful. Why even post?

 

[Heat_Fan89]

I remember Mojave being rock solid for me out of the gates.

For others they had issues with Mojave upon release but a few updates later it was stabilized. If you get a chance to view the Catalina bug and fixes thread many of the issues affecting users have been fixed in the 10.15.2 beta. Most here agree it’s better to hold off until either the .3 or .4 update. I plan on waiting until 10.15.4 because Mojave works for me.

 

[user_xyz]

I'm more wondering about stability. I know the apps I need to run work. Technically, Mojave does everything I want. I'd like the new apps that replaced iTunes, but I can live without if it means a more stable system. I remember Mojave being rock solid for me out of the gates. This was largely other people's experience too, though. I don't have a good feel on how Catalina has been, hence me making the thread.

You would be absolutely Insane to "Upgrade"!!

 

[macdos]

Catalina is as stable as Mojave. In general, .1+ releases are fairly stable.

Hi all. I haven't kept on the forums, other than knowing that Catalina came with some issues. I depend on my Mac daily for research - I am usually emulating several environments via VMWare, running extensive workflows in Excel, Adobe suite, and upwards of 10 Word docs at a time. I use iCloud Drive for personal and OneDrive extensively for work. Mojave is rock solid, and I'm nervous to leave it. Thoughts?

 

[posguy99]

Catalina is as stable as Mojave. In general, .1+ releases are fairly stable.

Since when? Allow me to introduce you to 10.13.x High Sierra, for example.

 

[Fishrrman]

"Mojave is rock solid, and I'm nervous to leave it. Thoughts?"

You answered your own question with the above comment.

 

[FocusAndEarnIt]

You, just like posguy99, miss the point of the thread and are also thoroughly unhelpful. See post #4 if you need it spelled out word for word. Thanks!

 

[ZMacintosh]

Your use case seems like you'd be fine, especially if the new media apps are of interest. I have not experienced really any issues from an upgrade of Mojave to Catalina (on my personal device, I have not upgraded on my production system [identical app use to personal]). I primarily run Adobe CS (PS, AI, ID, XD, AE) and Apple's pro suite without issue.

 

[bob_stan]

I think it is a difficult question to answer. It is perfectly stable for me, but I primarily do Windows programming through Parallels. Email and ftp. Whether or not it’s stable enough for you depends on exactly what you need to use.

 

[iMacDragon]

.0 and .1 were still pretty iffy, but other than some T2 related issues, .2 is starting to look better so far.

 

[SalisburySam]

I'm more wondering about stability. I know the apps I need to run work. Technically, Mojave does everything I want. I'd like the new apps that replaced iTunes, but I can live without if it means a more stable system. I remember Mojave being rock solid for me out of the gates. This was largely other people's experience too, though. I don't have a good feel on how Catalina has been, hence me making the thread.

You seem to be reluctant to accept the answers of others who've suggested you've adequately answered your own question. I am another who feels the same way. Catalina is still having issues if these threads are any indication. Apple clearly believes Catalina is ready for prime time, and a lot of users do not. So let me try one more time here:

You said: "Mojave does everything I want."
You said: "I am wondering about stability."
You said: "...Mojave being rock solid..."

So, couple that with the many threads detailing Catalina issues so far. I certainly would not jeopardize a working and necessary production environment, would you seriously do that? Hence several of us said that you answered your own question and were met by your derision as I'm expecting this post to be. I suppose I too missed the point of this thread and am thoroughly unhelpful...but the only way you're going to be certain is to get a 2nd Catalina-based test environment, load up your toolkit, and see how it works for YOU. Even if Catalina were getting rave reviews (haven't seen that though), would you fix that which isn't broken and you say in fact is working very well?

Sheesh.

 

[kemo]

I have been reading forums and reddit basically on a daily basis, there is alot of people having issues. But there is very likely even more without a one. My wifes Macbook Air came preinstalled with Catalina .1 and I gotta say that except login issue in Apple Music (solved via few terminal commands which deleted some plist files, caches and then did a restart). There is also occasional volume issue when connecting laptop to external display via usb-c. Other than that she had no issues. Battery life 10+ hours of light usage, internet, music, some word processing. OS seems smooth and performant from day one on her machine.


I have much more complex work flow than she has, and considering many things can break during upgrade or wont work after, just to be sure Ill rather wait at least for .2 to go live and see from there how it looks, but I will definitely make sure I have free week ahead and double backups in case something goes wrong or does not work.


In my opinion, if you do not miss anything important, give it another month or two, it wont (hopefully) be worse than it already is.

Tom

 

[jpn]

Hi all. I haven't kept on the forums, other than knowing that Catalina came with some issues. I depend on my Mac daily for research - I am usually emulating several environments via VMWare, running extensive workflows in Excel, Adobe suite, and upwards of 10 Word docs at a time. I use iCloud Drive for personal and OneDrive extensively for work. Mojave is rock solid, and I'm nervous to leave it. Thoughts?

not time to move from Mojave yet.
too many issues are being reported involving files not being accessible, etc.

 

[shafez]

Hi all. I haven't kept on the forums, other than knowing that Catalina came with some issues. I depend on my Mac daily for research - I am usually emulating several environments via VMWare, running extensive workflows in Excel, Adobe suite, and upwards of 10 Word docs at a time. I use iCloud Drive for personal and OneDrive extensively for work. Mojave is rock solid, and I'm nervous to leave it. Thoughts?

I Have been using Catalina for work over a month now with no issues whatsoever on my map 13" late 2013, I recommend clean install to avoid any conflict.

 

[Nermal]

I'd advise against it. The most obvious issue is that 32-bit apps won't run (and you may have a few "hidden" plugins etc. if you're using it for serious work), but it's also fairly buggy at this point in time. The most frustrating thing for me at present is that it often drops the (Thunderbolt) Ethernet connection for no obvious reason.

 

[Jack Neill]

In your use case, I would suggest waiting until the .6 release and then only in a separate container with extensive testing with limited or no networking over an extended period of time and then only after reviewing the data could you be able to answer the question if its indeed ready for a production environment.

 

[Jeff Flowerday]

I’m not getting any kernel panics but icloud files syncing is completely broken along with printing to my Samsung printers. I can live with both issues but wouldn’t recommend any one moving to Catalina.

 

[sugargliderdude]

i would wait until 10.15.2 and ask again then, should be out early January.

Myself, Catalina don't offer me anything, so waiting until 10.15.6.

10.15.1 release seemed to fix quite a lot of things, but Catalina is still buggy for lots of people.

 

[IowaLynn]

And according to MacRumirs news feed, Apple knows it was a bad rotten ? that feel from the tree. iOS and 10.15.

 

[Dave_O]

Hi all. I haven't kept on the forums, other than knowing that Catalina came with some issues. I depend on my Mac daily for research - I am usually emulating several environments via VMWare, running extensive workflows in Excel, Adobe suite, and upwards of 10 Word docs at a time. I use iCloud Drive for personal and OneDrive extensively for work. Mojave is rock solid, and I'm nervous to leave it. Thoughts?

It still feels a bit unfinished. I'd wait for 10.15.3