SOLVED Catalina Upgrade

[EdSinger]

Can anyone recommend a tutorial on how to prepare for Catalina? This upgrade is a bit like the Millenium bug, with disaster threatening the unwary. I have lost one invaluable software tool because the developer refuses to upgrade, and advises me to switch to Windows!!!

I have been looking through the Apps on my Mac Pro, using ‘Apps’ on the System Report offered by ‘About this Mac’. Useful, but worrying. e.g. There are 27 occurrences of something named ‘ADManager’ none of them 64 bit. Versions range from 2.0.2 thru 4.0.0. Latest date is in 2015, earliest date in 2013. Out of the 27, there are 11 cases of ‘Identified Developer’ — the rest are ‘Unknown’. Can I delete such as these? If so, How? They are not in my own Apps folder.

There are many other anomalous items that are non-64 — as far as I can tell most are related to old software licences that are no longer supported. I have apps that claim to clear out unwanted items, but none of them deal with any of these problems.

On re-booting I also get cautions that this or that software element will not run on Catalina, but I have no idea what they are or where they live on my Mac.

 

[Cory Cooper]

Hello,

-Which model Mac?
-Which version of macOS currently?
-Is there a particular reason you are wanting to upgrade at this time?
-Try downloading and running Go64 - it will give you a nice report of what won't be compatible with Catalina.
-Which software tool does the developer refuse to update? Maybe there is another application that is similar.
-ADManager - What does the System Report state in the Obtained from: field?

I don't recommend deleting anything listed if it is not in the Applications folder. Deleting some items could render your Mac unusable.

Feel free to list any that you have questions about, or what the cautions are you get about things that won't run on Catalina. We'd be happy to review.

C

 

[EdSinger]

Hi Cory

(1) Mac Pro running 10.14.6
(2) The reason for upgrading is precautionary, since Apple make it difficult to upgrade to anything other than the latest OS.
(3) Shall do
(4) The developer is Cross Country Software - the product is Online Bible. I have been using it since long before OSX. OLB was Mac only, at first but it is a really great piece of software so there was a demand from Windows users. Some years ago the Windows version appeared and obviously out-stripped the demand for the Mac version.
With High Sierra there were some issues and with Mojave frequent crashes. Reporting these problems leads to the news that the product will no longer be supported. With the current Mojave (14.6) the product is virtually unusable.

Have Apple offered developers any help - e.g. with pre-processors for source code highlighting where changes are needed?

(5) AD Manager - For 11 of the 27 examples 'Identified Developer'. 16 'Unknown'.

Thanks for your help - I shall go see what Go64 tells me .

 

[Cory Cooper]

Hello,

Understood about the upgrade. You could always download the Catalina installer, but not install it. That way you would have it for the future.

I am not familiar with that developer, but I visited the website. It looks like they are relatively slow to update their products, so it may be a lost cause if they stated they won't update it.

Apple gives developers the tools to develop apps for macOS and iOS, but they don't work closely with them to review their code and make suggestions. It's all on the developers.

Still not sure what ADManager is...perhaps a screenshot or two of what you are seeing, or give is the path that the software is installed in?

Let us know what you find with Go64.

C

 

[EdSinger]

Hello once more
What a great little utility (Go64)!!
From the attached you will see that 'Identified developer' = wondershare = iskysoft = wujy??. I have two or three products of theirs - now mostly superseded - because - e.g the Utube downloader suddenly stopped including a soundtrack, so products are not always reliable. I see (thanks to Go64) that ADManager is a resource used by more than one product, so I see, vaguely, what has happened and I guess that they actually use multiple versions of the same utility - or something like that. I think Go64 will help me sort out the other issues without screaming for help. Thanks a lot

EdSinger

 

[Martin Brown]

I am not much help, as I know very little. But I think ADManager is an app more suited to iPhones and iPads? Not sure how that helps you, but its what I found out after a quick search around. Do you have either iPads or iPhones?

 

[EdSinger]

That would be a naming coincidence I think. In this case it is a resource, used by multiple MAC apps (by iSkysoft). That is revealed by Go64 - worth investigating; (thanks again Corey). It gives valuable detail that the Mac System Report omits. Now I know what it is I shall ignore it, and I have closed the problem as 'solved'. iSkysoft goes by a few different names, and is a Chinese outfit. I have a trio of lifetime licences which should all fail with Catalina, which they seemingly intend to exploit by selling 64 bit updates. My reaction to this is to keep an eye open for other products that do the same thing - e.g you-tube downloader, pdf editor etc. since Apple's policy here provides opportunity for putting users over a barrel. Only my opinion of course.
EdSinger

 

[chrispl0]

Catalina = Vista Don't install it, it doesn't work. It destroyed my 4TB Time Machine back up, so I couldn't use it to reinstall Mojave. It also destroyed my other 4TB external drive used for iTunes. Complete mess. 3 days later managed to get Mojave on again and slowly trying to put stuff back on. Luckily I upped my iCloud account to 2TB and have tons of stuff there, now it's all trying to download. Catalina = Vista

 

[Martin Brown]

Catalina = Vista Don't install it, it doesn't work. It destroyed my 4TB Time Machine back up, so I couldn't use it to reinstall Mojave. It also destroyed my other 4TB external drive used for iTunes. Complete mess. 3 days later managed to get Mojave on again and slowly trying to put stuff back on. Luckily I upped my iCloud account to 2TB and have tons of stuff there, now it's all trying to download. Catalina = Vista

Sorry to hear of your issues. I have had no such misfortune, thankfully. Catalina upgrade was simple, swift and problem free. But I must admit, I do not understand this Time Machine app at all. I used just to drag and drop copy across from one HD to another for Back-ups. That way I got a mirror image of the main HD, file for file. I have no clue what all the endless Time Machine folders are all about, so cannot even assess their viability! So I'm drag-drop copying my files to another drive as well.

 

[mccoytest]

I only wanted to mention, EdSinger, that in Mojave you can also use activity monitor to report all the 32 bit apps that are on your Mac and will fail in Catalina. Just click on Applications, wait a few minutes to let it populate, ( you can adjust window size with the pull down to show many more of the apps) then scroll to the far right and select ( if memory works ) the "32/64 bit" column and click on the header of the column to sort. All will be reported as 32 or 64 bits - so you can decide on apps you need or want or don't. Oh, this column goes away in Catalina. (P.S. I was part of the public beta which was frought with problems through development. 10.15.1 is pretty solid)

As for the Bible, I highly recommend Olive Tree apps - they are excellent on my iMac and my iOS devices. You may want to purchase your favorite version (mine=NASB) - but there are several free versions and dozens of reference materials.

 

[Peter Aretin]

Can anyone recommend a tutorial on how to prepare for Catalina? This upgrade is a bit like the Millenium bug, with disaster threatening the unwary. I have lost one invaluable software tool because the developer refuses to upgrade, and advises me to switch to Windows!!!

I have been looking through the Apps on my Mac Pro, using ‘Apps’ on the System Report offered by ‘About this Mac’. Useful, but worrying. e.g. There are 27 occurrences of something named ‘ADManager’ none of them 64 bit. Versions range from 2.0.2 thru 4.0.0. Latest date is in 2015, earliest date in 2013. Out of the 27, there are 11 cases of ‘Identified Developer’ — the rest are ‘Unknown’. Can I delete such as these? If so, How? They are not in my own Apps folder.

There are many other anomalous items that are non-64 — as far as I can tell most are related to old software licences that are no longer supported. I have apps that claim to clear out unwanted items, but none of them deal with any of these problems.

On re-booting I also get cautions that this or that software element will not run on Catalina, but I have no idea what they are or where they live on my Mac.

You don't actually have to update the OS just because Apple comes up with a new one. I have at least one indispensable 32-bit app that is more important than the benefits of OSs after High Sierra, even if my computer were late enough to run them. You should balance the relative conveniences here. If you want to preserve the functionality of apps you use relatively infrequently, you can create a bootable partition of your old boot volume on a external partition, and boot into that when necessary. But it's important to look before leaping. I always upgraded the OS on a bootable clone before upgrading the OS on my internal drive, just to see what will happen. That makes it easy to revert if you don't like the new OS. Once you update your internal drive, reverting is a real hassle.

BTW. Storage is cheap. You can maintain as many bootable clones of previous OSs on external partitions as you want, until you are sure you no longer need them. Because of a quirk of iTunes and one of my monitors, I still have a SnowLeopard clone.

 

[Em-Ess]

I only wanted to mention, EdSinger, that in Mojave you can also use activity monitor to report all the 32 bit apps that are on your Mac and will fail in Catalina. Just click on Applications, wait a few minutes to let it populate, ( you can adjust window size with the pull down to show many more of the apps) then scroll to the far right and select ( if memory works ) the "32/64 bit" column and click on the header of the column to sort. All will be reported as 32 or 64 bits - so you can decide on apps you need or want or don't. Oh, this column goes away in Catalina. (P.S. I was part of the public beta which was frought with problems through development. 10.15.1 is pretty solid)

As for the Bible, I highly recommend Olive Tree apps - they are excellent on my iMac and my iOS devices. You may want to purchase your favorite version (mine=NASB) - but there are several free versions and dozens of reference materials.

How come you're a "new member" since you joined nine years ago?

 

[EdSinger]

How come you're a "new member" since you joined nine years ago?

Reply to mccoytest: All of us never stop being 'new members' apparently! Thanks for the tip about Olive Tree apps BTW.

Reply to Martin Brown : Time Machine is very complex, and a mixed blessing, try using e.g. Super Duper to back up your T M back-up. Come back next year. However it allows you to look at any file, email post etc., at any time in you Time Machine history. It has saved my life quite a few times. You see that something is not right, so you go back and find the last time all was hunky dory. You restore it, either directly or by using the historic (restored) file to patch up the current one. It does use a lot of resource however - if you intend to start using it I would recommend at least a 1TB volume. When it fills up it starts overwriting the oldest data.

Reply to Peter Aretin : I went from Mavericks one at a time, all the way to Mojave. I only wish I had kept the installers so that I could go back to High Sierra. I have too much invested in 32 bit apps to want to know about Catalina. For some users Catalina is a giant step, and as I said before, Apple might have done themselves, as well as others, a big favour by providing a pre-processor that modifies a source code file to do the hard work of conversion. Twice they provided emulators to bridge such "giant steps" - once for change from Motorola to the IBM chipset, and again when they went to Intel. That was truly a boon, but for this 64/32 problem they have done nothing except give developers a hard time.

I use a Brother printer btw, and cannot discover how to get 64 bit versions of their ESSENTIAL support utilities - scanner, maintenance routines etc. If anyone knows, please inform! Also, how to obtain a High Sierra installer!

 

[apple chat]

If malware destroys data then catalina is malware.
we have lost thousands of emails' content and attachments, backups on catalina installed machines and are experiencing myriad other problems.