New Thread: Are we ready for El Capitan?

[Shooshie]

I haven't done it yet, but I get the banner every day saying "Upgrade to El Capitan." Do we have the drivers? I use legacy PCI-464 audio interfaces and a USB MTV-AV. Does El Cap kill any of those? I also have a relatively current Firewire 896mk3. Any problems there?

Waves, Audio Ease, Slate, various other things. Are most developers now El-Cap-Ready?
Synthogy Ivory Stand alone and plugin?
Garritan Aria Player?
Kontakt?
Vienna Advanced interface?
Etc.?

What about Photoshop and Illustrator CS6?

The real question: how many of your apps, drivers, etc., did you actually have to update before they would work in El Capitan? Judging from the initial reactions, it appeared that nothing worked. Then there were those who said "don't worry. Things are working."

So... Which is it? I really need some input, because I can't afford to go down for a week. I'll take a day if necessary, but not a week.

Shooshie

[Shooshie]

To clarify what I'm asking, I'm aware that most companies have put out drivers for El Capitan, including MOTU's beta driver for legacy devices. I've downloaded those. (but not installed) The question I'm really asking is if they are ready for work. I don't expect anyone to do my research, but merely to tell us if you've had problems with them, or if they are working smoothly.

The other threads may contain the answers, but they also contain a lot of the initial confusion. I'm just trying to find out, at this date. November 4, how things are coming along, and if we can finally step in without anticipating a mess.

Thanks,

Shoosh

[MIDI Life Crisis]

Finale: no

[Phil O]

I've installed 10.11.1 on my test partition and it's not giving me any trouble except for Finale (as MLC notes). Make Music still requires Java for Finale to run, so I think they're a little behind the rest of the world.

Other than that, I've been booting from my El Capitan partition on a regular basis lately and only go back to Yosemite when using Finale. I think as soon as Make Music gets their poop in a group I'll be installing EC on my SSD and using it as my regular boot drive.

I've heard about Microsoft Office product problems, but I don't use any of their stuff any more so I can't comment.

Phil

[mikehalloran]

Finale: no

Correct.

Logic Pro X does not load many of my 3rd party plugs without workarounds. ex: Ozone 5, RX 4 - no. Ozone 6 and RX 5 - yes. I don't really use Logic so I have not tried the workarounds but others report that they work. Interestingly, they loaded fine in OS 10.11 but not after I updated to 10.11.1.

Toast 12 had issues. 14.1 is great.

Filemaker Pro 11 is old but still fine (I'll upgrade when it isn't).

Make Music still requires Java for Finale to run, so I think they're a little behind the rest of the world.

A lot of apps require Java Runtime Environment 8 to run including Safari and Firefox. You need to download the latest JRE 6 from Apple to run any 32bit app requiring Java – same as Mavericks and Yosemite. On my machine, this means all Adobe apps, Chrome, Finale, Encore and MasterWriter 2. Once you download and install it for one, the others won't ask. CS 6 also requires JRE 6.

My Adobe products work great. Although I have CS 5.1, I use Elements 6 and Acrobat Pro X daily.

Some are having issues with the latest MOTU audio and MIDI drivers but they work for me.

DP 7.24, 8.07, 9.01 – no El Capitán issues for me. All plugs load correctly.

USB monitors using DisplayLink 2.4 drivers: Chrome browser stopped working correctly 17 days ago. Google fixed that this morning and Chrome runs much, much better all around (it updates automatically when you quit and restart). I had considered going back to Yosemite over that issue. Good now.

Although Safari and Firefox displayed correctly on my USB monitor, they have other issues that make them unacceptable these days – not sure if it's the latest versions, 10.11 or both. There are a few web sites that require one or the other such as printing labels from PayPal – that still works in FF, the only supported browser for that use.

There are other apps reported to have issues with USB monitors – some 10.11 only; others not.

Encore 5.0.7 works as well as it ever has.

Scanning was problematic in 10.11; fixed in 10.11.1. No printing issues.

[mikehalloran]

I've heard about Microsoft Office product problems, but I don't use any of their stuff any more so I can't comment.

Office 2008 is slow to load for me – still faster than in OS 10.8. I would like to have the Mavericks/Yosemite speed back but it's a minor issue. It's not slow enough for me to reinstall 2011 or upgrade to 2016.

OS 10.11.1 was supposed to fix some Office 2016 issues.

[Phil O]

You need to download the latest JRE 6 from Apple to run any 32bit app requiring Java

I love Apple's wording on their download page:

"This package is exclusively intended for support of legacy software and installs the same deprecated version of Java 6 included in the 2014-001 and 2013-005 releases."

BTW, I should have said, "Make Music still requires Java 6 for Finale to run." Sorry about that.

[cuttime]

Not a finale or Outlook user, but all is well with 10.11.1. Audio Unit verification seems fixed for everything, including NI Kontakt and Reaktor. Really, I can't tell much difference between ElCap and Yosemite. The biggest changes seem to be to Mail. And, the spinning beachball is now a lovely set of shades of pastels.

[Gravity Jim]

Everything I use is running fine, including MOTU Audio and MIDI drivers (new versions out this morning, BTW), and all the plugs listed in my sig. You can really feel the performance enhancement in El Cap. The only MS software I use is Word 2016, and it's better than ever under 10.11.1.

I did a real sessions this morning, using NI and Slate plugs, and everything ran great... and, I'm not ashamed to say, snappier. (No kidding, stuff opens up twice as fast in El Cap.)

The only problem I'm seeing is with StroboSoft, although the new driver from MOTU may fix it... opening StroboSoft seems to kill the connection to the interface, requiring a restart.

[Shooshie]

Thanks, everyone. This is great info, and I'm sure I'm not the only one who has been wanting to know.

Make Music still requires Java for Finale to run, so I think they're a little behind the rest of the world.

A lot of apps require Java Runtime Environment 8 to run including Safari and Firefox. You need to download the latest JRE 6 from Apple to run any 32bit app requiring Java – same as Mavericks and Yosemite. On my machine, this means all Adobe apps, Chrome, Finale, Encore and MasterWriter 2. Once you download and install it for one, the others won't ask. CS 6 also requires JRE 6.

Could you clarify one thing: do we install Java 6, 8, or 6 AND 8? (Is it even possible to install 2 versions?)

Shooshie

[Shooshie]

Great info. I've downloaded Java Runtime Env. 6. A few checks at other software sites, and I think I'll be ready to install El Capitan.

If it fixes Mail, I've got to have it. Mail has been almost useless for me ever since Yosemite. Plus, I'm getting a lot of random Finder crashes, system freezes, and such. Permissions fixes don't help, and my drives all report being OK (and probably are; they aren't very old), so I think the answer is probably an upgrade at this point.

Shooshie

[mikehalloran]

Could you clarify one thing: do we install Java 6, 8, or 6 AND 8?

Yes, 6 and 8.

JRE 8 is 64bit only. If you downloaded JRE 8 in Yosemite and are updating the OS, that's still good. Otherwise, you download that from Oracle – Safari will prod you for the latest approved build, currently jre-8u65-macosx-x64. There is a later one on the web site but 65 is the current approved version.

http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/ ... 33155.html

JRE 6 is 32/64bit. You get the current JRE 6 from Apple
https://support.apple.com/kb/DL1572?locale=en_US

[Shooshie]

Thanks, Mike. Man, I hope you know how great it is to have you around here. And all of you for the things each of you know. But Mike knows DP and OS X both! (and a million other things) In my experience, he's rarely wrong. [Ok, ok... he's NEVER wrong. ]

Shoosh

[mikehalloran]

Sometimes wrong. Rarely caught!

[monkey man]

+1 to that.

I sincerely hope you realise how appreciated you and your knowledge are in UnicornLand, Mike.