Apple - Catalina compatibility

[Dave2002]

The bliss of only owning a geriatric 2009 iMac is that all these OS X issues pass me by

What do you use it for?

I have some - perhaps not quite as old - but shall we say vintage. New ones are much better, I think - significantly faster - though it depends what you want them for. If it's only word processing and email, then older ones are good enough, and perhaps also good enough for basic audio work. Photo and video programs work much better on newer kit.

[Anastasius]

So actually I fiddled with the Gear Section of the OS for the ATV, and did not see a way to block an update from automatically happening. I am at work today but off tomorrow so I will call Apple on my day off tomorrow to deal with Tech Support. Perhaps you have a different version of ATV than I have? It's so annoying that the Internet Radio stops after 5 minutes. I tried loading a different Radio App to the ATV and it does the same thing.

Ah ..that sounds like the ultimate Catch-22. In order to be able to disable automatic updates, you have to opt for the update that doesn't allow you to opt out of updates !

I'm actually getting to the point in my life where I know that I haven't got that many years left..and you know what? I'm bloody relieved.

[Anastasius]

What do you use it for?

I have some - perhaps not quite as old - but shall we say vintage. New ones are much better, I think - significantly faster - though it depends what you want them for. If it's only word processing and email, then older ones are good enough, and perhaps also good enough for basic audio work. Photo and video programs work much better on newer kit.

Spot on. Email. Browsing. That's it. Safari's getting cranky, though.

[Dave2002]

Spot on. Email. Browsing. That's it. Safari's getting cranky, though.

Which version of OS X are you currently on? A couple of years ago I and others successfully brought an older machine up a few OS X levels. We thought about leaving things alone, but some of the software (e.g. Safari) was getting very dodgy. Getting it up several steps removed or reduced most of the issues, though now that machine has been replaced by a much newer one on the grounds that the cost of the employee’s time lost because of working with crumbling kit and software was more than the cost of the new machine.

[MrGongGong]

One solution to older versions of the OS (my main machine is on Yosemite and I have no plans to upgrade) is to simply use multiple browsers
Safari is getting a bit flaky and doesn't work with some things so I have Opera & Firefox which usually work

[Anastasius]

Which version of OS X are you currently on? A couple of years ago I and others successfully brought an older machine up a few OS X levels. We thought about leaving things alone, but some of the software (e.g. Safari) was getting very dodgy. Getting it up several steps removed or reduced most of the issues, though now that machine has been replaced by a much newer one on the grounds that the cost of the employee’s time lost because of working with crumbling kit and software was more than the cost of the new machine.

My wife's is on Mavericks and mine is on El Capitan.

Safari is getting creaky as both you and Mr GG have discovered. So I also use Firefox as an alternative. The advantage of Safari is that login details are automatically picked up from Keychain. I know that FF can save these but it's just something else to do. Bit like websites annoyingly and constantly asking if I'm happy for them to store cookies. If they are going to store cookies then why can't they store one that saves my reply ?

[Dave2002]

My wife's is on Mavericks and mine is on El Capitan.

Safari is getting creaky as both you and Mr GG have discovered.

Is it (Safari) creaky on both machines? The machine I referred to earlier wasn't mine. It belonged to a small organisation I was involved with. It also was doing crazy things with the fans and the temperature control was erratic. It improved considerably when we nudged it up a few versions, and the browsers started to work better. The user was spending too much time trying to keep things running, and being part time, meant he didn't get as much real work - which he was paid for - done. As I mentioned, eventually the machine was phased out, though I assume that there were some "costs" (time, effort) in migrating data and installing new/replacement software.

Before things got really bad we scanned for malware, and did various tweaks, but in the end the only way forward before the machine was discarded was to install a later OS version. It perhaps managed another year, after that, until the budget permitted the purchase of a new machine.

You may have to take similar action, in due course, though I stlll have one machine running Snow Leopard, and it was still working a month or so back - but I treat it gently.

[Dave2002]

One solution to older versions of the OS (my main machine is on Yosemite and I have no plans to upgrade) is to simply use multiple browsers
Safari is getting a bit flaky and doesn't work with some things so I have Opera & Firefox which usually work

One curious feature of (I think) the latest Firefox versions is a warning which may appear on some websites. Basically it warns that some websites were the subject of known data hacks over the years. I can't repeat the exact procedure right now, but from that page it was possible to put in email ids which may belong to oneself or family members, and then discover associations to sites which had stored those email ids, and been compromised. Details were given, including the dates of data attacks.

Some problems might go away if passwords are changed, depending on the nature of any malware attack. This is a bit speculative, though.

[Anastasius]

Is it (Safari) creaky on both machines? The machine I referred to earlier wasn't mine. It belonged to a small organisation I was involved with. It also was doing crazy things with the fans and the temperature control was erratic. It improved considerably when we nudged it up a few versions, and the browsers started to work better. The user was spending too much time trying to keep things running, and being part time, meant he didn't get as much real work - which he was paid for - done. As I mentioned, eventually the machine was phased out, though I assume that there were some "costs" (time, effort) in migrating data and installing new/replacement software.

Before things got really bad we scanned for malware, and did various tweaks, but in the end the only way forward before the machine was discarded was to install a later OS version. It perhaps managed another year, after that, until the budget permitted the purchase of a new machine.

You may have to take similar action, in due course, though I stlll have one machine running Snow Leopard, and it was still working a month or so back - but I treat it gently.

Yes, it is creaky on both machines. But my wife does little with her iMac ...just emails, the odd letter and browsing/streaming Radio 4. She tends to use Chrome.

[Dave2002]

Yes, it is creaky on both machines. But my wife does little with her iMac ...just emails, the odd letter and browsing/streaming Radio 4. She tends to use Chrome.

You may get a little more mileage if you nudge both machines up to a higher level OS, but that's not guaranteed. Do all the obvioius things - check for malware etc., general tidy up, and hope.

If that doesn't fix Safari then as has been mentioned there are other browsers which might still work well enough to keep things going for another year or two. If that fails, and you don't want to give the machines up, then bail out and install a Linux distro, such as Mint, which will probably be fine, and do just about everything you want/need. One of the Linux mags has a Mint distro this month.

I'm suspicious of Chrome, though I use it occasionally. Turn on DuckDuckGo for search - may minimise some potential problems.

Good luck.

[richardfinegold]

Called Apple Support on my day off, they had me reinstall the Internet Radio app. It worked great for an hour and I left the house for a few hours , disappointed to find that the app had stopped. Now it’s back to where it was previously

[Anastasius]

You may get a little more mileage if you nudge both machines up to a higher level OS, but that's not guaranteed. Do all the obvioius things - check for malware etc., general tidy up, and hope.

If that doesn't fix Safari then as has been mentioned there are other browsers which might still work well enough to keep things going for another year or two. If that fails, and you don't want to give the machines up, then bail out and install a Linux distro, such as Mint, which will probably be fine, and do just about everything you want/need. One of the Linux mags has a Mint distro this month.

I'm suspicious of Chrome, though I use it occasionally. Turn on DuckDuckGo for search - may minimise some potential problems.

Good luck.

They are both OS'd as far as they can be.

[Dave2002]

They are both OS'd as far as they can be.

Now clutching at straws. Do they have enough memory? Thinking back to the problem machine mentioned earlier, I did ask for more memory to be put in and indeed installed more. It may have helped, but it didn't clear all problems. Not really worth it unless there's a significant chance of success. I have a recollection that we suspected that some data/software had been corrupted. Ad-blockers might help with browsers.

Maybe do a complete wipe (all the data and private stuff removed) and reinstall from scratch, if you can.

Otherwise the Linux Plan B might be the best option if the problems are on-going.

[Anastasius]

Apologies as I'd thought I'd replied. We max'd out the memory a long time ago !

Linux is not an option ...LOL

[Dave2002]

Sounds as though these machines are nearing the end, then. I doubt that Windows would be any better, so you’ll either have to live with the problem, or buy new machines in the hope that things will work better, and problems won’t arise for at least 5 or 6 years.

I sympathise. Tonight I was faced with a problem which might have me going back to Snow Leopard to solve. Sometimes newer stuff really is worse than that which preceded it.