Is Catalina an OS horror show for anyone else?

[David Roth weiss]

I’ve been running Catalina seamlessly on a new MacBook Pro for about six months. I’d suspect Windows and/or Bootcamp are your issues.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist & Workflow Consultant
David Weiss Productions
Los Angeles

David is a Creative COW contributing editor and a forum host of the Apple Final Cut Pro Legacy forum.

[Oliver Peters]

Why are you running Boot Camp/Windows 10? Seems like that’s just begging for trouble. Especially considering that would be a combination that hasn’t been in the wild very long and probably has never thoroughly been tested by Apple.

– Oliver

Oliver Peters – oliverpeters.com

[Bryan Roberts]

That’s what was free to download from MS. If there’s a disk partition just for boot camp and windows 10, it shouldn’t make any difference to iOS what os I run, should it? I could understand if windows 10 had issues itself but it’s been bulletproof with perfect support for my wireless keyboard, Bluetooth, wifi, all ports work perfect… and I can’t stand windows. To be honest, it’s only to run steam games for the kids via steam link to our living room TV, as steam on Mac is a nightmare.

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[Oliver Peters]

You are running Boot Camp on a VERY expensive new Mac Pro just to run Steam games! Yikes.

My point is that Catalina is a very different OS with plenty of changes, including how the hard drives are controlled. Plus the nMP is very different than any other Mac. This is a new combination that Apple has probably tested under very limited, known and blessed configurations. I just think that’s the root of your problem.

As far as the games, why don’t you simply set up the old 2009 Mac Pro with Boot Camp/Win 10 only for use as a gaming machine? That would have been safer. At least then you would have an idea how the nMP performs under “normal” conditions.

But let’s assume that isn’t the issue. How does the machine boot when you remove the 3rd party PCI cards? Do you have a mix of Apple and 3rd party RAM? If so, yank out one brand and then the other to see how it behaves when RAM isn’t mixed. I’ve heard of issues when Apple RAM was combined with other RAM on these machines.

– Oliver

Oliver Peters – oliverpeters.com

[Todd Perchert]

I would suspect something to do with the security they’ve added to Catalina in how drives are controlled. If you have a drive partitioned with something other than Apple Format, I think that could easily cause issues. I couldn’t work on any Adobe files off an external shared storage without corrupting the files until we got some new software installed for the shared storage – files just wouldn’t save and the programs would lock up. This on an old trash can with Catalina. After taking care of that issue, it’s been great! Except I haven’t been on it in about 3 months now….

[Bryan Roberts]

In my mind, because it’s sooo expensive, it should be bullet proof for doing basic things that have been established for a decade or so like Boot camp. Steam isn’t a particularly taxing program, it shouldn’t be stressing anything excessively and shouldn’t be putting my main os at any risk since it has its own partition and isn’t being used for internet browsing or email, literally just steam. I put my 2009 through the ringer, flew all over the world with it for projects, powered it with generators and other weird power supplies when in tough situations and I only had two USB 2 ports go bad over the 10 year span it was in existence and those went bad in the first 5 years without any hard travel, just sitting in cold edit bays. I baby my machines otherwise in terms of plenty of breathability and dustings, no bumps or jolts, so I expect a computer costing $10k to be able to handle heavy stress loads like a true enterprise computer with the maximum durability of components should, right?

The only weird adapter I realized I am using is 2 amazon thunderbolt to HDMI adapter I ordered to make my Dell monitors work properly with the w5700x and I have my 50inch plasma plugged into the existing HDMI port. That’s my first thing I’ll try to remove.

Yes, I did mix apple memory and the Amazon 120gb. I’ll try removing the apple memory as well.

Thanks for the suggestions!

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[Bryan Roberts]

Maybe, although it’s Apples own boot camp who setup the partition on their own t2 chip ssd so… one would hope Apple would have a bit more experience making this work properly since the t2 chip isn’t brand new.

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[Oliver Peters]

[Bryan Roberts] “In my mind, because it’s sooo expensive, it should be bullet proof”

LOL. Tell that to the people who had laptop keyboard issues ☺

But in any case, go through the “process of elimination” troubleshooting steps and see if any of it helps. Good luck.

– Oliver

Oliver Peters – oliverpeters.com

[David Roth weiss]

I agree with Oliver.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist & Workflow Consultant
David Weiss Productions
Los Angeles

David is a Creative COW contributing editor and a forum host of the Apple Final Cut Pro Legacy forum.

[Robert Withers]

What’s an nMP ?
R

Robert Withers

Independent/personal/avant-garde cinema, New York City