[Jim Curtis]

No comments, eh? It was the length, wasn’t it? Or, you all think I’m nuts, and this never happened?

Now that some time has passed, and I’ve had time to attempt to deduce what went wrong, I’m concluding that this catastrophe was a perfect storm of a shitty OS and some beta software.

This is based on the fact that right before I shut down, and started to run a job with ArGest Backup, the Estimate Size was displaying hundreds of file names (which is usual), but it went on for about five minutes, (which is UNusual – usually takes 30 seconds or less). It’s my theory that ArGest and Catalina were working in tandem to delete files willy nilly. I did a force quit, and shut down my computer (due to lightning and thunder nearby). It was after I booted in the morning that I noticed my issues. It’s usually the last thing you did that caused your problem.

===

I just reinstalled Catalina for about the seventh time, due to multiple Finder hangs over the weekend. I got the spinning ball for about a minute or two after doing something routine like clicking on a disk icon, or renaming a folder.

Over the weekend, I upgraded my old ATTO SAS Enhance RAID with eight 12 TB SATA drives. Now, I have two massive RAIDs, and I can keep one switched off when I’m not doing backups, which should protect it from any future similar catastrophes. BTW, this old RAID kicks ass on my QNAP NAS in terms of io – about 40% faster read and writes according to the BMD disk speed tester.

Jim Curtis
jamesphilipcurtis.com

MacPro7,1 24-core – 256 GB RAM – AMD Radeon Pro Vega II 32 GB – 10.15.4 (Warning: Don\’t do the Supplemental Update!)

[Jim Curtis]

I’ve been using ChronoSync for years for file copying. It has an option to do a Verify after copy that compares the copied file to the original. The other thing I like is that you can interrupt a copy process, and resume it later without having to start over again.

Jim Curtis
jamesphilipcurtis.com

MacPro7,1 24-core – 256 GB RAM – AMD Radeon Pro Vega II 32 GB – 10.15.4 (Warning: Don\’t do the Supplemental Update!)

[Jim Curtis]

[Craig Alan] “Does using Migration Assistant still keep the update clean?”

There are options in Migration Assistant. As long as you only choose User > Documents, and avoid everything else, your clean install will more or less stay that way.

That’s what I did with my new MacPro, and it worked out OK. I reported frequent reboots after I first got my new computer, but the frequency of them has reduced significantly. But, that was 10.15.2, and 10.15.4 is the current build.

If you migrate the entirety of the User folder, that will copy over a User Library, and that could contain remnants of your previous OS that you’d rather not bork your new installation.

BTW, last week I saw a “Supplemental” update was available to 10.15.4 that kept the version at 10.15.4. I cloned my drive with SuperDuper, then ran the update. Then, my Red Giant plug-ins became unlicensed, and the RG App Manager app would crash every time I tried to launch it – meaning, I could no longer use my licensed RG effects.

That was unacceptable, so I used my clone to revert back to the prior OS build, and I’m back in business. The potential problem users have now with upgrading is that they have no choice than to update to this “Supplemental” build. I don’t know if Red Giant has addressed this yet, or whether this issue is universal, but be forewarned.

Jim Curtis
jamesphilipcurtis.com

MacPro7,1 24-core – 256 GB RAM – AMD Radeon Pro Vega II 32 GB – 10.15.4 (Warning: Don\’t do the Supplemental Update!)

[Jim Curtis]

HighTail has a review function. Their 1 TB storage plan is reasonably priced, IMO. They have a 25GB per transfer limit, which is higher than all the file transfer services I looked at. That’s helped me work from home. I can send a link to shooters and producers, and it’s a simple drag and drop to the link from their end.

Jim Curtis
jamesphilipcurtis.com

MacPro7,1 24-core – 256 GB RAM – AMD Radeon Pro Vega II 32 GB – 10.15.3

[Jim Curtis]

[Tim Jones] “BTW – Jim, Marcos and Eric send a great big thanks for your feedback and Eric said to tell you they’ve found the errant entry that caused that odd restore issue.”

Tim, you are all welcome. I’m happy to help where and when I can.

I had to restore some media yesterday. I used the latest release. It went overboard restoring more files than I asked for, but since I can monitor the restore progress, I can abort it after the files I needed are written.

Jim Curtis
jamesphilipcurtis.com

MacPro7,1 24-core – 256 GB RAM – AMD Radeon Pro Vega II 32 GB – 10.15.3

[Jim Curtis]

Having used Macs since whatever OS the Mac Plus ran, I’ve learned not to trust any Mac OS that isn’t x.x.5 or better. However, and you probably know this, if you buy current Mac hardware, you have no choice but to use Catalina.

Apple will get it right eventually, which is a supposition based on past history. Catalina isn’t the unmitigated disaster that some people are claiming. It has bugs, but none that have been show-stoppers for me, and I work with it every day, all day long.

My biggest wish list item is for Adobe to get with the program and make their products (and our GPUs) work in Metal as well as they did / do (Windows) on CUDA. For Apple to work the kinks out of Catalina is further down the wish list. It’s “good enough” for me so far. YMMV

Jim Curtis
jamesphilipcurtis.com

MacPro7,1 24-core – 256 GB RAM – AMD Radeon Pro Vega II 32 GB – 10.15.3

[Jim Curtis]

[Oliver Peters] “You should look at Frame.io. It’s a much more professional approach.”

I agree. I researched them and Kollaborate and a few others. But, again, some choices are eliminated for me because of stringent corporate firewalls. Vimeo Pro is working fine so far.

Ironically, one of my clients, who is the biggest name in telecommunications on the planet (Is that enough of a hint?) doesn’t have gigabit internet internally at their corporate HQ. You can imagine that their IT department is gargantuan, and the dungeon-masters in IT say what goes in and out and what doesn’t.

Funny off-topic story. To me, anyway. I was grilled for over an hour by a security guy at this company about what I do to protect their IP. I had to keep telling him that I work only with marketing, and we WANT people to know what we’re doing. The more people that know, and the more they know the better.

Jim Curtis
jamesphilipcurtis.com

MacPro7,1 24-core – 256 GB RAM – AMD Radeon Pro Vega II 32 GB – 10.15.3

[Jim Curtis]

I haven’t looked at all your links, yet. I’ve been working from home for 25 years. I’ve been using email and Vimeo for client review. I have several clients in BIG companies whose firewalls won’t let them use Google Drive, Hightail, DropBox, etc., but Vimeo is OK. I even have to use Vimeo to deliver masters – not my choice, since the possibility they’ll download one of the lower res transcodes is a possibility.

That said, Vimeo’s customer service is lacking. I feel forced into using them, and felt forced into upgrading my tier of service because Notifications are unreliable in their Plus tier. But, I looked at some other review and delivery services, and Vimeo is very competitive, price and feature-wise. It allows you to embed your videos on your web site. That’s nice, too.

Jim Curtis
jamesphilipcurtis.com

MacPro7,1 24-core – 256 GB RAM – AMD Radeon Pro Vega II 32 GB – 10.15.3

[Jim Curtis]

Morten, you’re late with your good advice as far as I’m concerned. I received the new Mac in December and did a clean install of all my apps and plugs (and dealt with the security back and forth). I may have used Migration Assistant to copy my Documents, but I know not to use it to copy User settings because that brings over a bunch of useless and obsolete crap that’s been on my Macs for decades that resides in the Library folder. It took me a full day to do clean installs of all the apps and plug-ins I use. Since it was over the solstice holiday, I had time to kill. All third-party plugs work except for two that are 32-bit. Those need to be updated by the developers.

The only issues I’ve had since then I can attribute to the OS are: Finder disappearing, App Switcher GUI on wrong display, Mail messages show no content, Adobe apps not hiding or not coming to foreground. Once, my admin User settings vanished – the Mac reverted to what you see when you start up a new Mac. That was the worst, but since I’m experienced and keep clones, I was able to copy my User folder from the clone and get back in business.

Now, contrary to your advice, I’m recommending that people use the Apple Utility to reinstall Catalina when problems attributable to the OS persist. Since Drive Genius, Disk Warrior, and other OSX utilities aren’t yet available for Catalina, if Disk First Aid doesn’t fix it, a reinstall probably will. I have Gb internet, and a reinstall now takes about 20 minutes – not bad considering how long it used to take on prior builds and regular DSL internet.

I should point out that a reinstall of the OS does NOT wipe out User settings, documents, apps, or plug-ins. It just re-writes the OS. That’s void, obviously, if the user erases the disk before the reinstall.

I’ve been doing full time post production from a home office for 25 years (after 15 years of various production and post staff jobs). I’ve yet to miss a deadline or encounter any job-stopping computer or application issue. I can’t always take a full day off to do clean installs of everything. I have to get back in business long enough to meet deadlines.

While I always appreciate good advice, there is often more than one way to skin a cat.

Jim Curtis
jamesphilipcurtis.com

MacPro7,1 24-core – 256 GB RAM – AMD Radeon Pro Vega II 32 GB – 10.15.3

[Jim Curtis]

[Eric Santiago] “Hi Jim, the SuperDuper does a clean clone at all times? Do you overwrite the existing clone or go into iterations?”

Eric, full disclaimer: I know just enough of the technical side of computers to get my work done. I’m not a computer or IT expert, by any means. But, I’m a long-time Mac user.

Most of the time, I invoke the “Smart Update” in SuperDuper that only re-writes what hasn’t been changed since the last cloning. Every now and then, I will do an erase of the clone, and clone the entire boot disk. Why? Gambler’s Fallacy.

Should I have to do a complete restore of my internal drive contents, what I’d probably do is a clean install of OSX (It’s faster than it used to be under previous builds of OSX.), then migrate my apps and documents from the clone with Apple Migration Assistant.

However, in the past under prior OSX versions, I have wiped my internal boot disk and restored from SuperDuper, and the only issue was having to reauthorize some plug-ins. I always clone before doing an OS update.

Jim Curtis
jamesphilipcurtis.com

MacPro7,1 24-core – 256 GB RAM – AMD Radeon Pro Vega II 32 GB – 10.15.3