Upgrading to macOS Catalina, 10.15.4, has been a nightmarish experience on my 2018 MacBook Pro.<\/p>\n
My wife\u2019s iMac upgraded without serious problems. Everything seems to be okay.<\/p>\n
We knew there were issues with 32-bit applications, kernel extensions, and other quirky situations. I delayed upgrading my MBP because I use some older applications and have been migrating from system to system since 2002. (Yes, I have files on the Mac even older than that, which I keep on moving from system to system.)<\/p>\n
It is 12:30 a.m. on Wednesday, and I began this adventure Saturday. I have had to reinstall the operating system. I had to manually remove and edit various files within the library folders. Updates to other applications \u2014 including Apple\u2019s Xcode \u2014 stalled out or ended up in a loop, downloading repeatedly and installing three or more times. The \u201cApple Menu\u201d still informs me there\u2019s a update available for something, but there isn\u2019t (the supposed fix is to delve into various plist files, and hope for the best).<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s a list of what went awry, in order of frustration:<\/p>\n
Multiple External Displays<\/strong><\/p>\n For the first time ever, the MBP cannot remember my screen arrangements. I have two external monitors, mounted on a side-by-side stand. These monitors worked well for the last two years. Now, sometimes they randomly swap \u201clocations\u201d and \u201corder\u201d after the system goes to sleep. The left monitor should be my primary screen, a beautiful LG 4K HDR display. Yet, it sometimes wakes slowly now and that makes the Asus 100% sRGB monitor primary. There\u2019s no easy fix, it seems. I get the screen back in order (left on left, right on right) and that lasts through one or two breaks away from the work area.<\/p>\n The LG is the best display I\u2019ve ever used. It was great. Now? It\u2019s horrible to look at. I would never, never want my user interface to default to HDR mode, with neon colors. I unchecked \u201cHDR\u201d in the System Preferences, checked it, unchecked it\u2026 strange things happen. The screen will go into a washed-out, dull, bluish appearance. Click again. Back to HDR, but in \u201cvibrant\u201d mode, not the default or cinema modes I might use for editing video or photos. Click. A quarter of the screen goes black. The resolution changes. The ratio changes.<\/p>\n I\u2019m not alone. See: \u201cBright HDR after Catalina 10.15.4<\/a>\u201d or \u201cCatalina\u2019s HDR Bug<\/a>\u201d for hundreds of complaints, most shared by owners of LG screens. The \u201csolution\u201d offered by others is to use HDMI instead of DisplayPort 1.4 connections. The result? Lower resolution and muddy colors. Come on, Apple. The screen looked great until this update, so it\u2019s clearly not a problem with the monitors.<\/p>\n And, now when my computer is asleep, the monitors both wake randomly (to blank screens) and then go back to sleep after a few minutes. Clearly, something from the MacBook Pro is saying \u201cWake up, screens!\u201d Yes, I could shut off the monitors every time I stop working for 10 minutes or more, but then they get all out of order and other setting change.<\/p>\n Time Machine Leftovers<\/strong><\/p>\n The local snapshots for Time Machine are supposed to be \u201chidden\u201d from users. You don\u2019t want to see these bundles. But, after my first upgrade attempt, there was a collection of com.apple.TimeMachine.localsnapshot folders. These directories are important (they are the 24-hour local snapshots for emergencies), but they should never be seen by users.<\/p>\n Time Machine no longer restores individual email messages. Nice work, Apple. That was a problem months ago and it\u2019s still a problem. Why would I need that? Because we have had flaky IMAP and POP servers that lost email, so Time Machine came to the rescue. Now? The only hope is to import messages for an archived mailbox. Not nearly as easy. I have no idea how an average user would manage to recover lost or deleted email.<\/p>\n Time Machine is slow. Painfully slow. It never felt like my system slowed down during backups, but it does now. Update Adobe or Microsoft suites and expect to be backing up 2GB or more to Time Machine. For 10 or 20 minutes, I feel like I\u2019m using a old, dying computer instead of a newish \u00a0MacBook Pro. I would rather trade a trickle-style backup for improved performance; do not prioritize the backup over my current work, please.<\/p>\n Apple Mail Needs Columns<\/strong><\/p>\n No, Mail is not better without its column view. I want the classic, multi-column view that allowed me to resize, sort, and reorder columns based on my needs and preferences. The \u201csort\u201d feature rests where column headings once existed. Who thought it was better to remove functionality from Mail? I have to read and sort through 100 to 500 emails daily. Yes, daily. I don\u2019t appreciate changing how I managed that overload of email.<\/p>\n I have email accounts for several universities. I have Gmail, Apple iCloud, MS Office, Yahoo, Spectrum, and our domain emails. I have aliases for blogging and other creative projects. I use rules and automation to sort the mail, but I also used the columns in Mail to quickly locate subjects, authors, and dates. Resizing columns helped a lot, especially with longer subject lines.<\/p>\n