MacOS Sonoma

[Fishbone]

Originally Posted by smurfyou

I find the best path is to just wait until the ".3" or so version to update. Or rather just not update at all until you have a solid reason to.

In fact, with the 3 last major MacOS updates I've only jumped the ship one year later, when the next release was around the corner and the OS was already fully mature, in it's last dot releases.

That doesn't stop me from install the newest OS in a separate partition to play with the new features and see if the upgrade is worthy, though

[Fishbone]

Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm

So is spotlight fully disabled? It's an "optional" optimization that many people don't do or are not aware of. Just curious if people having problems are doing that. It's got potential to cause some disruption including as it reindexes the drives just after an upgrade or install.

Yep, fully disabled using Terminal command. It's one of the first troubleshoot procedures I take when things go wrong with a OS update, to exclude any havoc from mds process in the background.

By the way, it's probably some kind of lack of graphic optimization with the Apple Silicon version of PT which is affecting the first generation M1s, since posts from people that didn't have the sluggishness were all from those running intel processors or a newer Apple silicon, with plenty of GPU power in their SOCs

[Darryl Ramm]

Originally Posted by Fishbone

By the way, it's probably some kind of lack of graphic optimization with the Apple Silicon version of PT which is affecting the first generation M1s, since posts from people that didn't have the sluggishness were all from those running intel processors or a newer Apple silicon, with plenty of GPU power in their SOCs

Thank you, Yes I suspect you might be correct. My curiosity was raised by a really bad experience I had going to Monterey. I had some graphics and performance glitches similar to what folks are describing on my Intel MBP of which some was due to spotlight/mds spinning like crazy and some due to some network issues but I never really tracked it all down. Disabling indexing, removing extra networks, multiple macOS reinstall and removing some hardware eventually got it perfectly stable.

[tope d]

Originally Posted by smurfyou

A complete wipe and fresh install for an OS update is not practical. And really ridiculous.

I find the best path is to just wait until the ".3" or so version to update. Or rather just not update at all until you have a solid reason to.

Would be best to do a dual boot system with one partition running Ventura or earlier Os versions and the other running partition Sonoma if you plan to test the waters.

-Tope

[Darryl Ramm]

Originally Posted by smurfyou

A complete wipe and fresh install for an OS update is not practical. And really ridiculous.

And yet works great for many folks. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

And to be clear that is for a major OS upgrades. Minor upgrades I'd never expect to do that. But for me for a major upgrade it's a separate container, clean macOS install, minimal other stuff added, run and test things as time allows, then add other stuff (by the time you go through checking if all plugins are up to date it might not take much longer to just spin up the installers). Leave it in a dual-boot config for typically weeks until I feel comfortable and then only remove the old volume if I need the space (or what I'll often do is delete unneeded stuff taking space on them and purge that space).

I think the most important part here is not to think of this of as a hard transition/cut over. There should be a migration/test/fall back plan. Wether users do in-situ major upgrades or full macOS installs.

(and not saying this applies to you smurfyou). So many people just run the in-situ update for a major release without thinking about it, without checking compatibility, or without having recent usable backups etc. If folks want to do in-situ upgrades then at least get that other stuff sorted out. And cloning the boot volume and then in-sity updating that is a neat idea... but still have separate backups.

---

And for amusement: Just helped a relative with upgrades and backups with a recent MacBook Pro that has hardware problems and needs to visit the Apple hopital. After giving them a hard time for improper backups they admitted they did have an old offsite backup. Hallelujah a start... turns out it's one portable hard drive kept in their offsite refrigerated wine locker. We went Amazon shopping for two external SSDs and two external HDD.

[9DM Beats]

Signed up just to say Thanks to everyone for sharing!

Shout out to Da Fingaz of HRDRV for reminding us all on our music Zoom call NOT to update to Sonoma just yet. I had just mentioned how it was dropping the next day and I was excited (we had just updated our iPhones and wife's watch, which went smoothly).

Time makes it easy to forget there are ALWAYS issues with OS upgrades, DAW upgrades, etc.

With this being my first year doing music full time, I can now see how important it is to be cautious with big OS changes.

I've seen a lot of new information about backing up systems, partitioning, dual booting, disabling settings, etc.

Looks like I've found another rabbit hole...

[tomaspal]

Narrowed down a lot of my GUI lag to Eucon on my test build (M1 Max MBP). Turning off Eucon seemed to get rid of the lag. Running the EuCon 2023.6 Temp Fix did the trick as well. Things are running smoothly over here now other than Dolby Audio Bridge not wanting to run in Aux IO like it was in Ventura.

[mattrixx]

Originally Posted by tomaspal

Narrowed down a lot of my GUI lag to Eucon on my test build (M1 Max MBP). Turning off Eucon seemed to get rid of the lag. Running the EuCon 2023.6 Temp Fix did the trick as well. Things are running smoothly over here now other than Dolby Audio Bridge not wanting to run in Aux IO like it was in Ventura.

That's interesting re the DAB. It is working better than it ever has in my experience.

[tomaspal]

DAB seems to be working properly now and my system is stable and snappy on Sonoma. Not sure if the DAB issue I was experiencing was directly Sonoma related, but if it helps anyone else reading, here's what I experienced.

After updating to 2023.9 and Sonoma simultaneously, running DAB as an Aux IO with my Carbon as the main Playback Engine would result in errors within 1-2 seconds of playback even in an empty session with a single audio track outputting to a DAB output. I tried using Pro Tools Audio Bridge as well and had the same issue. If I set the playback engine preferences to ignore errors during playback/record, PT seemed fine, but audio making it to Atmos renderer would stop and start in bursts-- usually about 1 second of audio to the renderer, and then 5-10 seconds of silence.

During this time, just using DAB as my playback engine worked without an issue.

Switching my playback engine to my MacBook Speakers still with DAB as an Aux IO output worked as well. As soon as I switched from this config back to Carbon, everything was happy.

My takeaway is that if you're having issues with Aux IO after a Sonoma update, switch your playback engine to your default computer output with the desired Aux IO enabled, and then switch back to your main interface. It's only been a couple hours, but has been solid for me since.

[smurfyou]

Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm

And yet works great for many folks. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

And to be clear that is for a major OS upgrades. Minor upgrades I'd never expect to do that. But for me for a major upgrade it's a separate container, clean macOS install, minimal other stuff added, run and test things as time allows, then add other stuff (by the time you go through checking if all plugins are up to date it might not take much longer to just spin up the installers). Leave it in a dual-boot config for typically weeks until I feel comfortable and then only remove the old volume if I need the space (or what I'll often do is delete unneeded stuff taking space on them and purge that space).

Yeah I'm not arguing against the logic just the practicality. With production systems that are in use all day every day, especially multiple installs doing a full wipe is a time suck.

Just dawned on me that my main system is still on Catalina for this very reason.

Awaiting a new M2 Studio and I'm not sure if it will have Ventura or Sonoma. I think I ordered it the day before release... So what is the deal with Spotlight? Used to be forbidden, then required, now it's back on the black list? I thought Workspace used it to index. The MDS processes have long been unstable but I need Workspace and FRW to work.