Resolved: Where to find a Yosemite installer? Not too late!

[mhschmieder]

I am finally ready to upgrade to Yosemite, having finished final details of an almost year-long album project. I downloaded the Combo Updater for 10.10.5 but forgot that -- even though these are safer than incremental updaters -- they depend on having run an initial stock installer for the OS level.

I have looked at all sorts of sites, and all have pulled Yosemite. Even the back doors that I thought I could depend on.

Does anyone know of a cached location that is available for Yosemite installer app pulls?

I really don't want to have to wait weeks or months for El Capitan to become safe and usable, as I have persistent issues for six months now that I am fairly certain are fixed in Yosemite.

[mikehalloran]

If you ever downloaded Yosemite, it's available under Purchases in the App Store. Once installed ever, you can download only -- it will be saved in the Applications folder as Install OS X. Do a Get Info to make certain it's OS 10.10.

You can do this from any Mac that has had Yosemite installed. So if you have access to one, ask to Sneakernet. You need a USB with 5.63G free space or something similar. No need to format as a boot drive. Just copy to your desk top, run from there. After you reboot, you will verify the install with the App Store and it will always be available to you.

If you have an ftp site or enough room in a DropBox account, send me the link and I can upload a copy to you. I haven't deleted it from my USB drive.

[mhschmieder]

Mike, thanks -- I think that's how I did my Yosemite upgrade at work last year, in order to not involve our IT department, who don't understand the needs of software engineers as they primarily service people who are intimidated by computers.

I was hoping I could do this tonight, but my Screen Sharing stopped working not too long ago, and I probably wouldn't be able to grab it that way anyway. Looks like I need to bring my thumb drive to work tomorrow and see if I find the original installer -- yet it's strange that it wouldn't show up at home as Apple forces me to have a combined account (GRRRRRR!!!!).

So, maybe it's hidden in there and I'll find it under App Store Purchases.

[mhschmieder]

Hah; whadayaknow: there it is! Due to how App Store is so ad-based and defaults to marketing-based views, it had been awhile since I had noticed there were actually some useful views available in that app.

Interestingly, Mavericks shows up under "Purchased" as well. I can't remember what version of OS X was current when I bought my MacPro. I guess I probably skipped a version or two when I went to Mavericks though. It was actually my first-ever App Store purchase, as I still try to avoid the App Store if at all possible. I really hate the business model of that app and that it is now the ONLY way to get access to things.

[mikehalloran]

After you download and run the 10.10.5 installer, register the OS with the App Store and run Repair Permissions, run the 10.10.5 Combo Updater. It clears up a couple of minor weirdnesses. Repair Permissions again and you're good to go unless you boot from an SSD.

If you boot from an SSD, run sudo trimforce enable in Terminal. This will cause a reboot again. Now you're all set.

[mhschmieder]

Cool; thanks. I'm having a very unproductive evening as it's hard to start something useful at this point, and I keep getting incorrect and erratic estimates on the remaining download time, giving me a false sense of security that it's almost done. This may have to wait until tomorrow.

[Prime Mover]

Any advice from someone who's never purchased Yosemite before, and doesn't have access to a computer with one?

[mikehalloran]

Any advice from someone who's never purchased Yosemite before, and doesn't have access to a computer with one?

The same as I gave in my first reply. If you have a DropBox account or an FTP server that can handle the file size, I can get it to you.

Unfortunately, 5.63G is too big for many email servers or I could send it to you that way.

Once you install, it requires you to register with Apple and, when done, it will always be available in Purchases.

Being free, Apple doesn't care how you acquired it. In fact, if installing it on many computers, they recommend downloading it only once like I do.

[mhschmieder]

Surprisingly, this was my most problem-free OS X upgrade ever.

I did have to do a few updates -- especially for my RME Fireface UFX -- though that may have been unrelated as it was released the same day and so probably the background software "locked me out" of audio until doing the driver update and related software installs.

I have a bootable El Capitan drive ready to go for once it becomes safe to use.

Last night I ran through all of my regular apps. A few HAD to be updated; a few others benefitted from doing so, and these were fine as-is -- including DP 9.

Shockingly, iZotope RX4 Advanced continued to degrade every time I use it, even after uninstall/reinstall and clearing preference files. I was hoping it would benefit from the Yosemite upgrade. I just bought the RX5 bundle tonight (pre-order), so am hoping I won't regret it.

The deal-sealer was the free sound effects library (pro-level), for which I'll choose hard-to-come-by animal sounds (most are human foley effects or synth-programmed faux animals).

Of my DAW's and two-channel mastering apps, Apple Logic Pro has the most problems with plug-ins, so I'm wondering if any of the El Capitan issues are carryovers from Yosemite that never got fixed. For instance, NI FM8 suddenly stopped validating. Weird.