Migration to Mac Studio M2 Ultra

[Chris T]

Hi all

I've just turned on my new Mac Studio M2 Ultra and finally got my Apollo to work with it. Now it's installation time!...

I have a million plugins and VI's, I store most of my VI libraries on Separate outboard SSD drives (in an OWC Thunderbay), and Intend to keep them there at least for the time being. Most of NI Komplete and other (more synth) vI's are on my Mac HD.

From past experience I'm not doing the Mac "Migration Assistant" due to too many errors in the past. However I wanted to speed up my installation process (otherwise this could take days!).

Does anyone know, if I simply copy over the entire contents of my Mac HD/Library/Audio/Plugins/Components folder from my old Trashcan to my new Mac Studio (same location) will all plugins at least be recognized by DP and work as intended? I'm mostly updated but obviously will update any that need to.

I'm guessing that VIs are a different animal? If I simply copy over the VI component, will that work? I know I'll have to re-authorize each one, but could locating all the respective VI sound libraries get too cumbersome/tricky, even though they'd be in the exact same relative location?

I guess my question is, could it be quicker doing the above, or just I just re-download/re-install all my Plugins/VIs afresh in order to have foolproof installs?...

Thanks,
CT

[bayswater]

I done this a few time, and I’m sure many here have done the same. My experience is that it will take a long time whatever you do. Most of that will involve all the inane authorization schemes you have to remember for plugins, and all the support tickets you’ll have to do when some of them don’t work as advertised, schemes that have changed, etc.

I found that using migration assistant, despite a few glitches, is faster than doing a few re-install for everything, You can always do a new install for the few things that don’t work. But once you add on the plugin work, it doesn’t make a lot of difference.

Here’s what does help: Make a list of all your plugins. For any you have to look up to remind yourself what they do, or any you haven’t used for a long time, don‘t install them on the new setup. Run for a while, and then go back and delete. Last hardware update I went from nearly 1,000 to a little over 200 plugins and never missed anything.

[mikehalloran]

There's no problem migrating your System and Network settings using Migration Assistant and it's faster than setting up from scratch. Don't worry, you'll still have a lot of work to do getting your online accounts straight afterward as you have to re-log into them, add and delete etc.

With Documents such as files etc., Migration Assistant grants your new machine the permissions that you had on the old machine. DP projects and Microsoft files are among the many where this is an issue. If you copy and drag over, make sure that you Zip them on the old Mac first and unZip them on the new. Again, MA is a time saver.

What you call "errors" are, in fact, old junk, now incompatible with the new machine and MacOS. This is why many of us recommend clean installs of the Applications. MA pulls old Library files that can go back to the dawn of time and you don't want that.

Apple can make mistakes, of course. I've been on the phone nearly every day for this and that, mainly because of mistakes in Support docs (uh..., I can't "check the box" because it doesn't exist) for Bluetooth settings and other things. Right now, I'm on the phone with Apple because I keep getting email messages telling me how many days I have left to purchase AppleCare+ ... except that I did... It didn't "automatically register with my hardware" — oops!

The VIs you have on your externals aren't going anywhere. You can take your time reinstalling onto your System drive — or leave them alone. Users/Shared is Apple's default location. In the case of NI, you can copy them over, then point Native Access to the new location (don't forget to downgrade Kontakt to 7.6 per the other thread).
https://www.motunation.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=73556
With those VIs that have installers, this will be easy, if time consuming. IKM is not behaving and I am in the trenches with them having paid for an upgrade about 6 weeks ago—I know what the issue is but they're not believing me and may have to reverse a $200 charge on my AMEX to get the attention someone senior enough to resolve it — the installer didn't work properly on my iMac Pro, either. They keep sending me screen shots of how things looked over El Cap—sheesh!

This is a good time to clean out the old junk such as 32 bit files and other incompatible stuff. I still had Ozone 2 on mine that survived three rounds of MA — yikes! I've not run into permission issues on VIs because I failed to Zip/unZip.

If you haven't done this yet on the old Mac, do so before running MA or do it on the new Mac: Open the following folder /Users/(account name)/Library/Preferences/com.motu.MotuAudioSystem / Delete these files: Audio Unit Info Cache 64-bit , VST3 Info Cache v2 and VST Info Cache 64-bit . Remove the 32 bit versions also. Reboot, relaunch and DP will rebuild those cache files. I found AudioDesk caches going back to the 1990s when I ran that. DP 11 stopped crashing on launch except right after updating a number of plug-ins.

https://www.motunation.com/forum/viewto ... he#p605755

Anyway, it looks like I'm about a week to 10 days ahead of you on this journey. I'll post more as I know more.

[HCMarkus]

It only took me two days to get my new M1 Mac Studio up and running.

Clean Install OS

Migration Assistant for Network Settings

Fresh Install All Drivers, Applications and Plugins. (As Mike notes, don't forget to downgrade Kontakt to 7.6) https://www.motunation.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=73556

Copied VI Sample Libraries via sneaker net (hard drive copy, transferred manually)

[mikehalloran]

…
Clean Install OS

Migration Assistant for Network Settings

Fresh Install All Drivers, Applications and Plugins. (As Mike notes, don't forget to downgrade Kontakt to 7.6) https://www.motunation.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=73556

Copied VI Sample Libraries via sneaker net (hard drive copy, transferred manually)

Forgot about that. As I was staying on Ventura, I updated from 13.5.2 to 13.6

Yes, those on my iMac Pro's internal drive were moved via sneakernet. I'm using the same external SSDs for now so those are just being copied over.

I'm still on the same Apple Support call from two hours ago trying to straighten out AppleCare and Invoices. I ordered online using my Apple card. Grrrrr...