Mojave upgrade problem, and Photos problem

[bat911]

Hello,
Ist time posting I believe.
I have an iMac Retina 5K, late 2017. 3.5GHx Intel Core i5, 8Gb Ram.
I have just upgraded to Mojave from Yosemite. All went well. Except a few times afterwards I have gone back to the monitor and the desktop image has gone purple, with what looks like an x-ray type image. Pressing Enter reverts it back to correct resolution. Is this normal?
Also, I have just completed moving all my photos to the Photos app. I have found it to "hang" extremely often when I have tried to look at photos. I have had to force quit it each time in order to be able to to get back in. Any ideas?
many thanks,
Bat911

 

[honestone]

A couple of questions:

1. Did you just upgrade "in place" from Yosemite to Mojave? If you did, that was/is rather risky and (potentially) problematic, as you skipped 3 versions of the Mac OS. That's quite a lot.

2. Have you ever done any disk cleanup/maintenance/repairs? You can actually do a lot of disk cleanup on your own, and there is some excellent software available (both free and commercial) to help with those tasks.

3. This is critical: are you making backups to an external device? If (hopefully) you are, what software are you using for that?

4. Prior to upgrading, did you insure that any third party (ie, non-Apple) software you use is compatible with Mojave? This link can help with that:

https://roaringapps.com/apps

5. Do you have any third-party utilities like MacKeeper or antivirus installed?

As for specific reasons why you are having issues, for the "x-ray"one, maybe there is some kind of adware/malware on your system. To help with that, download and run the following 2 programs, in the order listed (make sure you have a backup first):

1. Malwarebytes: https://www.malwarebytes.com/mac/

2. CalmXAV: https://www.clamxav.com/

For your other issue, could be due to lack of disk cleanup/maintenance. But not sure about that. Maybe someone else could "chime" in.

 

[bat911]

Thankyou honestone for your reply.

Obviously I'm pretty new to this (and naive). To try answer you:

1. I tried to read up on upgrading first, and asked others who have macs, and the advice I received was that I could upgrade straight to Mojave. Now that I have done that, what should I do now with the upgrade?

2. I have not done any disk cleanup, maintenance/repairs. What program (s) should I use?

3. Backup was not done. I know - stupid. In the past I just copied to an external hard drive, but it always took so long. What is the best way to have a backup done, ideally can it be done in the background automatically without me thinking about it?

4. I'll check on 3rd party software.

5. Do not use MacKeeper. Should I? I use AVG Antivirus.

Appreciate your help. Cheers.

A couple of questions:

1. Did you just upgrade "in place" from Yosemite to Mojave? If you did, that was/is rather risky and (potentially) problematic, as you skipped 3 versions of the Mac OS. That's quite a lot.

2. Have you ever done any disk cleanup/maintenance/repairs? You can actually do a lot of disk cleanup on your own, and there is some excellent software available (both free and commercial) to help with those tasks.

3. This is critical: are you making backups to an external device? If (hopefully) you are, what software are you using for that?

4. Prior to upgrading, did you insure that any third party (ie, non-Apple) software you use is compatible with Mojave? This link can help with that:

https://roaringapps.com/apps

5. Do you have any third-party utilities like MacKeeper or antivirus installed?

As for specific reasons why you are having issues, for the "x-ray"one, maybe there is some kind of adware/malware on your system. To help with that, download and run the following 2 programs, in the order listed (make sure you have a backup first):

1. Malwarebytes: https://www.malwarebytes.com/mac/

2. CalmXAV: https://www.clamxav.com/

For your other issue, could be due to lack of disk cleanup/maintenance. But not sure about that. Maybe someone else could "chime" in.

 

[honestone]

OK, I will try and answer your questions:

1. A clean installation of the newer Mac OS would have required 1) an erase and re-format of your internal drive, 2) a clean, fresh installation of Mojave (now at OS 10.14.2), and 3) a "migration"/copying of "needed" stuff from a backup. So, a backup is mandatory.

2. You can do quite a lot of disk cleanup on your own. One place to start is your downloads folder. Also, if you have upgraded any software, maybe there are older installation files you no longer need. I myself have a separate folder entitled "Useful Software" where I keep such items.

For software to help you with those tasks, here are some excellent ones:

a. Onyx - https://www.titanium-software.fr/en/onyx.html

Notice there are specific versions for each Mac OS.

b. AppCleaner - https://freemacsoft.net/appcleaner/

Notice again there are specific versions for "ranges" of the Mac OS.

c. GrandPerspective - http://grandperspectiv.sourceforge.net/

Excellent, graphical way of seeing what is taking up space.

d. Tech Tool Pro - https://www.micromat.com/products/techtool-pro

Excellent commercial program. I use it very effectively together with Onyx.

3. For backups, you can either use Time Machine (comes with the Mac OS), or either of the excellent commercial programs SuperDuper! (https://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescription.html) or Carbon Copy Cloner (https://bombich.com/). Either one of them creates a bootable backup/clone of your system (I use SuperDuper!). It makes such an installation described in step 1 above much easier than with a Time Machine backup.

There are a number of threads here that discuss backups. You can do some "hunting" around.

4. Yes, check out your third party software for Mojave compatibility.

5. MacJKeeper, NO, NO, NO! That malicious software will cause you much grief. (I already provided you with an excellent, safe, proven one in Onyx).

As for using AntiVirus software that is "in the background" all that time, that can cause problems. Some folks have had issues with that. It is probably better to occasionally run the following excellent software to check for adware/malware/viruses:

a. Malwarebytes - https://www.malwarebytes.com/mac/

b. ClamXAV - https://www.clamxav.com/

I actually purchased ClamXAV, and it has been useful at times. But Malwarebytes is good also, although it does not "dig as deep" as ClamXAV does.