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Publishers of audio products (soft synths, DAWs), games, and a fair number of domain-specific products have told their customers not to upgrade yet. Here's a r

Publishers of audio products (soft synths, DAWs), games, and a fair number of domain-specific products have told their customers not to upgrade yet. Here's a rundown of products that depend on 32-bit support or that haven't been tested in 64-bit on Catalina yet: Audio products: https://www.sweetwater.com/sweetcare/articles/macos-10-15-catalina-compatibility-list/ https://www.sweetwater.com/sweetcare/articles/macos-10-15-ca... Games: https://www.macgamerhq.com/opinion/32-bit-mac-games/ https://www.macgamerhq.com/opinion/32-bit-mac-games/

eq_sd_ 7y ago
Same for Unity
anonova 7y ago
Yep, Native Instruments (on that list) sent out an explicit email saying not to update: https://support.native-instruments.com/hc/en-us/articles/360001890378-macOS-10-15-Catalina-Compatibility-with-Native-Instruments-Products https://support.native-instruments.com/hc/en-us/articles/360...
- holy_city 7y ago
  Waves sent one out last month as well. Par for the course really. Audio pros are some of the most distrustful users w.r.t updates because they've been burned so many times.
  - Eric_WVGG 7y ago
    Another way of looking at that might be, developer of pro audio apps are notoriously bad at preparing their apps for new OS releases.
    - holy_city 7y ago
      That's fair. Pro Tools crashing during a session has been a meme for awhile, despite it being pretty stable for the last 5-ish years. But keep in mind these companies are usually pretty small, a lot of sole-proprietors out there, and their revenue comes from new products/sales not maintaining projects. So there's logistical and incentive problems in deploying fixes quickly.
    - tonyjstark 7y ago
      As a former developer of pro audio apps at Native Instruments, sometimes it's just that the first version of macOS updates has bugs that suddenly causes crashes in your lower level OS calls or unexplained latency. If something like this happens, users mostly blame the audio devs and not Apple. So, if you don't want to ruin your reputation, you better warn, test, wait, hope and fix (maybe not in that order).
    - pfranz 7y ago
      I think that's unfair to audio developers. You're asking for a real-time scenario from an obvious not real-time OS. Dropping audio is a lot more obvious than dropping video frames. Audio also deals with /a lot/ of plugins both hardware and software--many paid (years ago and now abandoned). Most people I know with an audio setup are very sensitive to physical changes due to subtle problems. I also think it's unrealistic for large applications to be 100% ready on day one. It's not like Apple has a GM ready weeks ago. Betas are known to change and nobody really knew when Catalina would ship (many people are surprised they're shipping what they have).
      - cageface 7y ago
        Audio software is very hard to get right and it's a relatively low margin business. Asking them to track new OS releases on day one is just not realistic, especially when Apple has a pretty bad track record on stability and maturity of x.0 releases of macOS.
    - ljm 7y ago
      Could be, but when the new OS updates every 12 months they can either dedicate a whole chunk of their time updating to the new version, or make it work good on a version that's still going to be supported for 3 or 4 years so they can focus on bug fixes and updates. Just because Apple can bump out a new OS version once a year doesn't mind these app developers have the same bandwidth to keep up the chase. They have plenty of other priorities.
    - renaudg 7y ago
      And why would they care to improve when they know their user base will let them get away with it and even side with them against Apple ? Reposting a comment I left elsewhere in the thread : For the most part, it's not a technical issue at all but a cultural one : pro audio users are notoriously, almost pathologically conservative when it comes to software upgrades. You'll find plenty of threads on forums like Gearslutz, asking for tips on how to downgrade brand new Macs to an older version of macOS that doesn't even support their hardware. Or 2019 threads asking if it's now safe to upgrade to High Sierra. They're typically 2-3 versions behind. Why ? Older is just safer, better in their worldview. In that context, audio developers know they have customers on their side against "evil Apple that's always breaking everything for no benefit", and they get away with emails that read like Apple just unexpectedly dropped a bomb on them without notice, and it'll take them 6-12 months to get ready, like WWDC and 3-4 months of developer betas never happened.
      - arvinsim 7y ago
        It's amusing to read your post because Apple seem to be touted as the OS for audio people. I wonder what MacOS has that Windows doesn't(which is a lot more backward compatible) that makes audio people stick with them.
        bikeshed 7y ago
        Audio people have been moving away from Apple over the past few years specifically because of show-stopping bugs introduced by new versions of the OS. This really never happens in Windows now and it's become more and more appealing to switch.
        blub 7y ago
        Maybe on Windows 7, because Windows 10 does whatever it wants if connected to the internet. All mainstream OSes are moving to an unsustainable release cycle.
        deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
    - diffeomorphism 7y ago
      Or you could see it as your OS breaking lots of software you depend on and then telling you tough luck. As a user I only see "OS upgraded -> stuff broken". I'll blame the OS for that. All finger pointing and shoulda/coulda/woulda is not magically going to unbreak things,rolling back the upgrade will.
- michaelrmmiller 7y ago
  With good reason, too. A good portion of the Native Instrument software packages won't install because the installers themselves rely on 32-bit helpers. A savvy technical user can work around it by unpacking and excising the problematic portions from the installer scripts. On the plus side, I've been running Kontakt 5 along with lots of other audio software since 10.15 beta 3 every day and most everything is working alright. Some other observations: • Pro Tools' QuickTime video plug-in prevents it from launching because it's a 32-bit only subprocess meant to interact with the now-defunct QuickTime framework. You can delete the plug-in from the application bundle and it will proceed and seems to be working normally. • EastWest has a nasty crash in PLAY 6 that can be worked around temporarily by removing their internal word builder plug-in. • Pretty much every iZotope plug-in as of September had a 32-bit non-pkg installer. The software works fine if you copy all the relevant parts from an install on another computer. • MOTU hardware drivers for anything but the latest Pro Audio line won't work as the drivers are 32-bit at the moment (MIDI interfaces, CueMix-based audio interfaces).
chrisseaton 7y ago
Haven't those developers had access to the beta for months? What's the point in the beta if people aren't getting ready before the release?
- ganoushoreilly 7y ago
  With audio hardware it’s looking like substantial rewrites to core code because of underlying is changes. I think it’s just a lot of work on a short timeline for small development shops.
  - jen729w 7y ago
    “Short timeline” assumes you didn’t see 64-bit coming a couple of years ago. Not saying it isn’t work, just that “I didn’t see it coming” isn’t much of an excuse.
    - holy_city 7y ago
      I mean most software that's currently maintained has been 64-bit ready for a decade. The issue is that there's a lot of 3rd party ghostware that isn't, and 32 bit bridging to support that code has been popular for awhile. That software is a lot like vintage gear, there may be alternatives but they aren't the same, and that's the problem.
      - sneakernets 7y ago
        This is the same boat I'm in. Some of these programs were created only by one person, who can be impossible to track down and get a timely response.
        chrisseaton 7y ago
        Sounds like the software was effectively already dead and it was best to move off it as soon as it became clear there was only one developer and they were hard to get hold of. The problem isn't with macOS.
shantly 7y ago
Judging from all the "this will stop working soon" pop-ups I've seen, I'm pretty sure most of my Mac-capable Steam games will stop working if I upgrade.
vonseel 7y ago
I don’t think I’ll upgrade my audio Macs for a very long time past 10.14. The fact is that after many years of recording and mixing music on computers I’ve got several older plugins that are simply not maintained anymore by the developers and moving to Catalina will certainly break any projects using them. Sucks that with DAWs unless you run a completely stock DAW without third-party plugins you eventually run the risk of things going out of date / support..
- ptah 7y ago
  same here, i learnt the hard way when after upgrading and trying to use reason 7 again after a few months at which point i couldn't downgrade the OS at all. i essentially lost the ability to use reason at all without an expensive upgrade
  - vonseel 7y ago
    I’m surprised a bunch of developers don’t worry bout breaking their development systems as well. I guess docker and such has taken a lot of the pain over how things used to be. Both my audio macs are on Mojave now. I don’t think I’ll have any good reason to go to Catalina soon. I’d like to try it since it’s new but... too much could go wrong and it takes too long to restore backups to be worth my while.
chrischen 7y ago
There's wide reports of Ableton Live 9 not working in Catalina, including from Ableton itself... but I just updated to Catalina and it launches and works... so either I'm doing something wrong or they're trying to get people to pay for an upgrade?

eq_sd_ 7y ago

Same for Unity

anonova 7y ago

Yep, Native Instruments (on that list) sent out an explicit email saying not to update: https://support.native-instruments.com/hc/en-us/articles/360001890378-macOS-10-15-Catalina-Compatibility-with-Native-Instruments-Products https://support.native-instruments.com/hc/en-us/articles/360...

holy_city 7y ago
Waves sent one out last month as well. Par for the course really. Audio pros are some of the most distrustful users w.r.t updates because they've been burned so many times.
- Eric_WVGG 7y ago
  Another way of looking at that might be, developer of pro audio apps are notoriously bad at preparing their apps for new OS releases.
  - holy_city 7y ago
    That's fair. Pro Tools crashing during a session has been a meme for awhile, despite it being pretty stable for the last 5-ish years. But keep in mind these companies are usually pretty small, a lot of sole-proprietors out there, and their revenue comes from new products/sales not maintaining projects. So there's logistical and incentive problems in deploying fixes quickly.
  - tonyjstark 7y ago
    As a former developer of pro audio apps at Native Instruments, sometimes it's just that the first version of macOS updates has bugs that suddenly causes crashes in your lower level OS calls or unexplained latency. If something like this happens, users mostly blame the audio devs and not Apple. So, if you don't want to ruin your reputation, you better warn, test, wait, hope and fix (maybe not in that order).
  - pfranz 7y ago
    I think that's unfair to audio developers. You're asking for a real-time scenario from an obvious not real-time OS. Dropping audio is a lot more obvious than dropping video frames. Audio also deals with /a lot/ of plugins both hardware and software--many paid (years ago and now abandoned). Most people I know with an audio setup are very sensitive to physical changes due to subtle problems. I also think it's unrealistic for large applications to be 100% ready on day one. It's not like Apple has a GM ready weeks ago. Betas are known to change and nobody really knew when Catalina would ship (many people are surprised they're shipping what they have).
    - cageface 7y ago
      Audio software is very hard to get right and it's a relatively low margin business. Asking them to track new OS releases on day one is just not realistic, especially when Apple has a pretty bad track record on stability and maturity of x.0 releases of macOS.
  - ljm 7y ago
    Could be, but when the new OS updates every 12 months they can either dedicate a whole chunk of their time updating to the new version, or make it work good on a version that's still going to be supported for 3 or 4 years so they can focus on bug fixes and updates. Just because Apple can bump out a new OS version once a year doesn't mind these app developers have the same bandwidth to keep up the chase. They have plenty of other priorities.
  - renaudg 7y ago
    And why would they care to improve when they know their user base will let them get away with it and even side with them against Apple ? Reposting a comment I left elsewhere in the thread : For the most part, it's not a technical issue at all but a cultural one : pro audio users are notoriously, almost pathologically conservative when it comes to software upgrades. You'll find plenty of threads on forums like Gearslutz, asking for tips on how to downgrade brand new Macs to an older version of macOS that doesn't even support their hardware. Or 2019 threads asking if it's now safe to upgrade to High Sierra. They're typically 2-3 versions behind. Why ? Older is just safer, better in their worldview. In that context, audio developers know they have customers on their side against "evil Apple that's always breaking everything for no benefit", and they get away with emails that read like Apple just unexpectedly dropped a bomb on them without notice, and it'll take them 6-12 months to get ready, like WWDC and 3-4 months of developer betas never happened.
    - arvinsim 7y ago
      It's amusing to read your post because Apple seem to be touted as the OS for audio people. I wonder what MacOS has that Windows doesn't(which is a lot more backward compatible) that makes audio people stick with them.
      - bikeshed 7y ago
        Audio people have been moving away from Apple over the past few years specifically because of show-stopping bugs introduced by new versions of the OS. This really never happens in Windows now and it's become more and more appealing to switch.
        blub 7y ago
        Maybe on Windows 7, because Windows 10 does whatever it wants if connected to the internet. All mainstream OSes are moving to an unsustainable release cycle.
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
  - diffeomorphism 7y ago
    Or you could see it as your OS breaking lots of software you depend on and then telling you tough luck. As a user I only see "OS upgraded -> stuff broken". I'll blame the OS for that. All finger pointing and shoulda/coulda/woulda is not magically going to unbreak things,rolling back the upgrade will.
michaelrmmiller 7y ago
With good reason, too. A good portion of the Native Instrument software packages won't install because the installers themselves rely on 32-bit helpers. A savvy technical user can work around it by unpacking and excising the problematic portions from the installer scripts. On the plus side, I've been running Kontakt 5 along with lots of other audio software since 10.15 beta 3 every day and most everything is working alright. Some other observations: • Pro Tools' QuickTime video plug-in prevents it from launching because it's a 32-bit only subprocess meant to interact with the now-defunct QuickTime framework. You can delete the plug-in from the application bundle and it will proceed and seems to be working normally. • EastWest has a nasty crash in PLAY 6 that can be worked around temporarily by removing their internal word builder plug-in. • Pretty much every iZotope plug-in as of September had a 32-bit non-pkg installer. The software works fine if you copy all the relevant parts from an install on another computer. • MOTU hardware drivers for anything but the latest Pro Audio line won't work as the drivers are 32-bit at the moment (MIDI interfaces, CueMix-based audio interfaces).

chrisseaton 7y ago

Haven't those developers had access to the beta for months? What's the point in the beta if people aren't getting ready before the release?

ganoushoreilly 7y ago
With audio hardware it’s looking like substantial rewrites to core code because of underlying is changes. I think it’s just a lot of work on a short timeline for small development shops.
- jen729w 7y ago
  “Short timeline” assumes you didn’t see 64-bit coming a couple of years ago. Not saying it isn’t work, just that “I didn’t see it coming” isn’t much of an excuse.
  - holy_city 7y ago
    I mean most software that's currently maintained has been 64-bit ready for a decade. The issue is that there's a lot of 3rd party ghostware that isn't, and 32 bit bridging to support that code has been popular for awhile. That software is a lot like vintage gear, there may be alternatives but they aren't the same, and that's the problem.
    - sneakernets 7y ago
      This is the same boat I'm in. Some of these programs were created only by one person, who can be impossible to track down and get a timely response.
      - chrisseaton 7y ago
        Sounds like the software was effectively already dead and it was best to move off it as soon as it became clear there was only one developer and they were hard to get hold of. The problem isn't with macOS.

shantly 7y ago

Judging from all the "this will stop working soon" pop-ups I've seen, I'm pretty sure most of my Mac-capable Steam games will stop working if I upgrade.

vonseel 7y ago

I don’t think I’ll upgrade my audio Macs for a very long time past 10.14. The fact is that after many years of recording and mixing music on computers I’ve got several older plugins that are simply not maintained anymore by the developers and moving to Catalina will certainly break any projects using them. Sucks that with DAWs unless you run a completely stock DAW without third-party plugins you eventually run the risk of things going out of date / support..

ptah 7y ago
same here, i learnt the hard way when after upgrading and trying to use reason 7 again after a few months at which point i couldn't downgrade the OS at all. i essentially lost the ability to use reason at all without an expensive upgrade
- vonseel 7y ago
  I’m surprised a bunch of developers don’t worry bout breaking their development systems as well. I guess docker and such has taken a lot of the pain over how things used to be. Both my audio macs are on Mojave now. I don’t think I’ll have any good reason to go to Catalina soon. I’d like to try it since it’s new but... too much could go wrong and it takes too long to restore backups to be worth my while.

chrischen 7y ago

There's wide reports of Ableton Live 9 not working in Catalina, including from Ableton itself... but I just updated to Catalina and it launches and works... so either I'm doing something wrong or they're trying to get people to pay for an upgrade?