MOTU and macOS Catalina

[wvandyck]

The DP10 Welcome to Digital Performer window include a new entry, MOTU and macOS Catalina
Clicking on the link opens the MOTU news and feature article page, but information regarding Catalina is not yet posted there.

Other than increased security, there's little in this update that I find useful. Maybe more efficient performance?
https://www.apple.com/macos/catalina/

[dewdman42]

A lot of software makers have come out with announcements that their stuff is not ready for Catalina yet. Including NI and others. I'm surprised we haven't heard from MOTU, many of my MOTU drivers are not ready for Catalina because they are 32bit. Not sure about DP10, maybe it is, but anyway, you've been warned, I have received half a dozen emails from various software makers saying don't upgrade yet until they are ready.

[dix]

...I have received half a dozen emails from various software makers saying don't upgrade yet until they are ready.

A lot more than I ever recall getting for previous OSs. Am I right? Catalina must introduce a lot of changes that companies need to deal with.....not that I'll be able upgrade my cMP (easily).

[dewdman42]

There was one in the past that was like that too, I can't remember which one it was now..maybe Yosemite, but might have been older... I can't remember. Because of all the warnings like that i ended up skipping it entirely.

The biggest problem with Catalina is that it will no longer support 32 bit and there are actually quite a lot of things that are still 32bit. You can run this utility to find out everything that is suspect under Catalina:

https://www.stclairsoft.com/Go64/

From MOTU the following popped up for me as a problem:

• MOTU Audio Setup
• MOTU PCI Audio Setup
• MOTU SMPTE Setup
• MOTU PCI SPMTE Setup
• DP9 (app is 64bit except for SnowLeopard Movie exporter)
• CueMix FX
• Clockworks
• MOTUFireWireConsoleLauncher

I suspect my MOTU MidiTimepiece USB is going to have a problem too, but not sure if I have the drivers installed on this machine at the moment.

All that being said, my 5,1 has been officially deprecated from running Catalina anyway. its possible to run it with a hack around, but I am not touching Catalina unless/until everything I want to run passes the go64 test, which I think a lot of mainstream stuff will obviously get there, but I have a feeling older stuff from MOTU and others will not..which means this mac will run Mojave for a few more years until its over and done with for good.

There is nothing special about Catalina that I need. Apple has made it easy this time to skip it.

[Michael Canavan]

The only reason I can see to run Catalina as a musician is the iPad tethering.
It could be nice to have a plug in open on your iPad to use the touch screen like hardware etc. but it's not guaranteed that it works well, and uses more than OSX's native one finger touch. I already have that with the Slate Raven on a 27" screen, and it would be a hack to put Catelina on this Mac Pro anyway.

Catelina will exist on a future laptop here, I'm stopping updating this Mac Pro at Mojave, and maybe downgrading to High Sierra if it doesn't get a final fix for some weird mouse behavior I have with it.

[mikehalloran]

I don’t recall MOTU ever releasing drivers before Apple releases the OS. That they haven’t released any for Catalina should surprise no one.

Each OS release has had growing pains. Is this worse than Mavericks, El Cap or Lion? Yosemite had that USB issue that caught everyone by surprise. Snow Lion was a watershed release and broke more than anything else that I recall.

Yes, the end of 32 bit support will make a number of old favorite apps obsolete. So did OS X when Classic support ended as did 10.7 with the end of PPC support. How many of us remember System 7 and OS 8?

Unless you are buying new hardware, no one is holding a gun to your head to upgrade. I’ll wait awhile or upgrade my iMP only while leaving my MBP on Mojave.

For me, I have to make a decision to upgrade FileMaker and Acrobat Pro or go with less expensive alternatives. I can live without SmartScore X2 and Encore if I must—although 64 bit noises have been made in the past, there’s no visible movement from either company. I’ll live. Everything else that’s important to me is 64 bit already.

[dewdman42]

Catelina will exist on a future laptop here, I'm stopping updating this Mac Pro at Mojave, and maybe downgrading to High Sierra if it doesn't get a final fix for some weird mouse behavior I have with it.

what weird mouse behavior have you been getting? I started getting some weird mouse behavior a couple weeks ago for some odd reason. it thought maybe it was my old bluetooth mouse...but maybe this came with a mojave security update or something? In my case, sometimes clicks aren't registering...

[dewdman42]

I don’t recall MOTU ever releasing drivers before Apple releases the OS. That they haven’t released any for Catalina should surprise no one.

Each OS release has had growing pains. Is this worse than Mavericks, El Cap or Lion? Yosemite had that USB issue that caught everyone by surprise. Snow Lion was a watershed release and broke more than anything else that I recall.

Yes, the end of 32 bit support will make a number of old favorite apps obsolete. So did OS X when Classic support ended as did 10.7 with the end of PPC support. How many of us remember System 7 and OS 8?

Unless you are buying new hardware, no one is holding a gun to your head to upgrade. I’ll wait awhile or upgrade my iMP only while leaving my MBP on Mojave.

For me, I have to make a decision to upgrade FileMaker and Acrobat Pro or go with less expensive alternatives. I can live without SmartScore X2 and Encore if I must—although 64 bit noises have been made in the past, there’s no visible movement from either company. I’ll live. Everything else that’s important to me is 64 bit already.

Yes this will be more painful then many releases have been. Because they are dropping 32bit and many software titles will never become 64bit. its going to be a slow, painful and long drawn out switch, not unlike the day they removed rosetta once and for all. Maybe worse since most software makes did in fact move to Intel during the rosetta period...I think more so then many software makes have been just sitting on their 32bit code and not too worried about it. its not always that straightforward to move to 64bit.

Many of them will only port their newer stuff. So does that mean my MOTU Traveler and MTP will not work on Catalina? We shall see. I have some software titles form small companies that may take years if ever to get it to 64bit. So at some point I will have to abandon them if they don't. What I can say is that jumping to Catalina immediately is not a great idea unless you're ok with losing support for everything detected by that go64 app. Yes this will be a more painful OS update then most. Not the worst ever...but it will be much worse then has been for a while...

[Michael Canavan]

Catelina will exist on a future laptop here, I'm stopping updating this Mac Pro at Mojave, and maybe downgrading to High Sierra if it doesn't get a final fix for some weird mouse behavior I have with it.

what weird mouse behavior have you been getting? I started getting some weird mouse behavior a couple weeks ago for some odd reason. it thought maybe it was my old bluetooth mouse...but maybe this came with a mojave security update or something? In my case, sometimes clicks aren't registering...

Yeah that's the area for sure. Click dragging is spotty at best here. The other odd one is Safari constantly logs me out of sites, when I auto fill, it automatically loads the site, not giving me time to hit save log in etc.

[mikehalloran]

So does that mean my MOTU Traveler and MTP will not work on Catalina?

I see no reason why not if they work on Intel Macs now. They use the same drivers that some current MOTU audio and MIDI devices use. If the Traveller works through the FW–TB adapter, no reason why that should change.

[dewdman42]

they will not unless MOTU releases 64bit drivers for them.

[dewdman42]

Catelina will exist on a future laptop here, I'm stopping updating this Mac Pro at Mojave, and maybe downgrading to High Sierra if it doesn't get a final fix for some weird mouse behavior I have with it.

what weird mouse behavior have you been getting? I started getting some weird mouse behavior a couple weeks ago for some odd reason. it thought maybe it was my old bluetooth mouse...but maybe this came with a mojave security update or something? In my case, sometimes clicks aren't registering...

Yeah that's the area for sure. Click dragging is spotty at best here. The other odd one is Safari constantly logs me out of sites, when I auto fill, it automatically loads the site, not giving me time to hit save log in etc.

Interesting. That has made Mojave borderline unusable. I often have to hit the mouse button 3 or 4 times to get a response, but not always... If that's a bug in OSX, then Apple better fix it.... man...

[mikehalloran]

they will not unless MOTU releases 64bit drivers for them.

Neither will current MOTU devices that use the exact same drivers.

[dewdman42]

I hope you are right that old devices will continue to be supported in 64bit but until I see it, it's not.

[wvandyck]

Information on the the end of 32-bit app support
https://www.macrumors.com/guide/32-bit-mac-apps/