What problems if any upgrading to Mavericks?

Been a while since I've been here. I have a mid 2010 MB pro and iMac with SL, and have been thinking about upgrading to Mavericks, but I've been coming across some sites/posts of some that said they've had real problems with the upgrade (apps/other things not working right); it's put me off, but I thought I'd ask here to get some other perspectives. I really like SL and don't see a need to change, but I don't know what advantages if any Mavericks would offer. I don't use an iPhone; just use my computers for work and for learning Java.

Meant to include it's a core 2 Due with 8 MB of RAM.

I think the main issue when upgrading from SL was the inability to run Power PC applications. When I upgraded from SL to Lion it menat getting a new version of office for mac and that was the only difference I noticed. Otherwise it's been fine.

No problems at all other than the PowerPC no longer supported. As a suggestion back up to an external drive, download Mavericks and make a USB bootable thumb drive, format and do a clean install.

SL is no longer supported for Software Updates hence msalware and security threats will go unsupported.

Straitsfan said:

...but I've been coming across some sites/posts of some that said they've had real problems with the upgrade (apps/other things not working right)...

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This is always something that should be looked into BEFORE upgrading the OS. ANY OS upgrade can make older apps. not run. This is not the fault of the newer OS...simply a "system requirements" issue with an older app and a newer OS.

This is especially possible when upgrading multiple OS versions. In your case you didn't incrementally upgrade from 10.6 > 10.7 > 10.8 > 10.9. You would be going straight from 10.6 > 10.9. With that big of a jump...I would almost certainly expect some hiccups.

Review the apps you have (and their versions)...then check to see if they are compatible with OS 10.9 (Mavericks). If not...maybe there's a free update that will make them compatible...or maybe you will have to purchase an upgrade ($$ or $$$) to be OS 10.9 compatible.

- Nick

I only upgraded from Mountain Lion to Mavericks so I can't add anything to the above regarding old applications. I'm fairly religious about keeping my apps up-to-date (apart from Adobe!) and I upgrade the OS whenever there's a new version available so by and large my experience has been problem-free (momentary confusion about where they've relocated things nonwithstanding).

What I can suggest is that, after upgrading your apps, that you follow this procedure for your upgrade:

1. Make a complete backup of your entire boot hard drive. You can do this with Time Machine, you can do a bootable clone with a number of third-party programs -- whatever your preference, just make sure it's done. Disconnect the drive once this is done (you'll see why shortly). Also make sure you have plenty of HD space available (25GB or so, at least).

2. Run the version of OnyX (free, scroll down to find the right link to the version for 10.6.8) that is appropriate for the OS you have NOW, before the upgrade. Just use the default "automatic" settings.

3. Download the installer for Mavericks from the Mac App Store. Optionally, you can choose to make a bootable USB thumb drive copy of the installer for possible future use using Discmaker X.

4. Following the install of Mavericks, run Software Update to catch up on any recently-released updates. Run it at least one additional time to make sure you got them all.

5. Download the newer version of OnyX for your new OS version, and toss the old one.

6. If you used Time Machine to make your backup, don't plug the backup drive back in for a few days. Mavericks is a big jump up from Snow Leopard, and a few things will be confusing (why is the scroll "backwards"? for example) at first. Give yourself a few days, read a guide to Mavericks, get used to the changes. Once you are sure you're happy with performance and have customized to your liking, THEN start making fresh backups, overwriting the Snow Leopard install.

chas_m said:

Make a complete backup of your entire boot hard drive. You can do this with Time Machine, you can do a bootable clone with a number of third-party programs -- whatever your preference, just make sure it's done. Disconnect the drive once this is done (you'll see why shortly). Also make sure you have plenty of HD space available (25GB or so, at least).

Click to expand...

Would this take an external device at least as big as your hard drive? I have just 80GB and could probably find a USB stick that big. I have one that's 64GB that I have music files on. I can make a clone using TechTool Pro. I don't own an external hard drive.

Chas_m and pig003

Thanks for the info. Some more questions if I may:

my upgrades in the past have been w/o problems, but after reading your posts I wanted to ask 1)when you say a backup of your boot hard drive, is that the same as just backing up the whole hard drive? I have a WD backup drive, 1TB, and regularly back up both my Mac hard drives (it wont'd do the windows partition, but I have parallels running XP off my bootcamp partition) I assume -- or can a assume -- that the boot camp partition will be left alone?

Could you tell me a bit more about a USB bootable thumb drive? I'm not familiar with this or how it works; as I said I've never had any problems with my previous upgrades.

When you talk about checking for updates to apps, does that include Mac apps, or just third party apps like NeoOffice, which I use? I know that parallels 9 (which I have on both machines) is Mavericks compatible. I only have a few third party apps on my machines.

I think that's all for now. Thanks again.

If you've been backing up they Mac side of your hard drive you're in good shape. The Windows partition is left alone during the upgrade process unless you tell it to put the OS on the Windows partition.

As far as a bootable USB drive goes it is not a necessity but is nice to have, In the event of an emergency you could boot from that drive and reinstall the OS without having to download the file again. If I recall correctly creating a bootable installer takes about 8 GB of space. How to make your own bootable OS X 10.9 Mavericks USB install drive | Ars Technica