macOS Mojave 10.14 Beta impressions

[Slydude]

I'm running the Mojave beta and have been since last night. Had to do the install twice becasue somethign I was working on recently had split my fusion drive into two component parts.A few terminal commands and several hours later to reload software from backup rectified that situation. Here's the problem I have now:

1. I have the volume icon in the menu bar and it is completely grayed out. There is no response to the volume keys. Attempting yo load the sound preference pane causes it to hanng every time. Other preference panes seem to be loading properly.
2. This morning I noticed that neither iTunes, Pandora, or Amazon Music launches. All hang.

After I log into my user account the sound icon seems to load properly as things are finishing loading but do not function when loading is complete. Booting into safe mode or booting into other accounts does not seem to fix this issue.

Safari also seems to be having issues as well. This site seems to load fine but Youtube, Pandora, and Facebook do not. This site seems to load OK but the more graphic intensive a site is the more likely the page is to not load.

I'm sure I've forgotten some troubleshootinhg steps I have taken but thought the members might have an idea. Both issues have been reported. Although my next step is to disable /remove a couple of sound-related extensions, I doubt that this will address alll of the sound issues.

 

[chscag]

Did you install the beta on your production machine or did you install it on another machine or a bootable external hard drive? In any event, it sounds like it's time to use your CCC or SuperDuper backup and start over.

And yes... let's keep discussion about the Mojave Beta to this thread.

 

[Slydude]

I have it on my production machine because I wanted to see how the beta was handling the fusion drive. I have Time Machine and CCC backups on external drives if need be. I've alos got El Cap on one external and on the internal drive on my MBro so I can easily go backward if this becomes too annoying.

Until recenly most of my externsl drives have been USB 2 so I have put the betas on my internal drives to see how the speed compares with whatever I was using.

BTW Just to make things clear: The problem with my fusion drive being split into its components (SSD and platter drive) has nothing to do woth Mojave. In the last few weeks I've made several attempts to install a Bootcamp paritition to no avail. One of these attempts left me with a partition that neither Disk Utility or Bootcamp Assistant would remove. I had to use a Terminal command to clear that up. When I recreated the fusion drive I didn't get the Terminal command exactly right so it d9odn't work. Unfortuantely, I didn't notice this till after the first install of the Mojave beta. Migration Assistant started moving my stuff and said their wasn't enough room.

After I correctly remade the fusion drive the install of Mojave went well and so far rhw isses above are the only ones I've had.

 

[lclev]

So was this a clean install or over High Sierra? And like chscag said, what did you install it on? What other apps are installed besides the standard ones that come with the OS?

And let us remember - this is why it is called "beta"! Although it makes you wonder sometimes just what the guys are thinking when they release one that is really glitchy. I can just see a bunch of programers sitting around saying, "It's Friday, let's just post this thing and let the testers figure it out!" ;D

Lisa

Well, I don't type fast enough Sly. You answered most of my post!

 

[Slydude]

I've got a couple of sound-realted things installed that I nneed to look at. Although I've got a "clean" troubleshooting account with very few extras installed they may be there. I think to rule them out I'm going to try a completely clean install on a spare drive.

As a result of this I think I have a new tip for anyone making a ckean install of an OS (beta or otherwhise):

1. When the setup assistant runs let it create a new user account. Don't use the name of any account you plan on migrating from a previos system / Mac. You don't have to set up iClud accounts etc. unless you really want to.
2. When setup is finished do not install anything in the way of software, system extensions, etc. just yet except for any system software updates which might be needed. Test this core system's basic functionality before migrating over any user data. In this way any problems migrated over on the next step shouldn't be present yet.
3. Migrate your data over from another Mac or TM backup only if you are sure step 2 is solid.

Any problems after the data migration is likely to be the result of something in the account/data migrated over from the earlier system. Leave the "new" user account in place for future troubleshooting.

 

[harryb2448]

Bombich advises CCC version 5 is Mojave Beta friendly and of course is a paid upgrade.

 

[Slydude]

I've got that version and tried it yesterday cloning to an external APFS drive. Although it didn't oriduce a bootable clone that could have been a one off thing. I need to check that drive tomorrow to see if there is a problem.

 

[chscag]

Current version of CCC is 5.1.3 beta 3. Actually version 5 of CCC was out around the same time High Sierra was released.

 

[Slydude]

Think I have 5.1.2. I'll have to check on that to be sure.

 

[Slydude]

Finally got my issue resolved but it was very time consuming and I'm not 100% sure where the gremlin was that caused the problem.

When I did a clean install to an APFS formatted external drive sound and Safari worked with a "clean" account. I deliberately used a different one from my normal account so that I could import my data later if this worked. Migration assistant moved the user data from my external drive to the new drive but took a very long time. There were several very large files in a filder on my Desktop that I had forgotten about. That only resulted in the same error occurring.

Since I knew a clean install had worked on the external drive I performed a clean install on my internal drive. I then used the Carbon Copy Cloner beta to clone all my user folders from the external drive to the internal drive. I'm pretty sure it has to be the beta. A couple of attempts with 5.1.2 had not worked.

There were a couple of steps in before the clean install to the inteternal drive but TBH I've forgotten what they were. I think that the initial problem might have been a permissions issue since the Sound preference pane consistently crashed on all accounts. I suspect that the initial install onto my intern drive did not get done 100% correctly. I don't remember getting any warnings about incompatible extensions but did get that when I installed to the extermal drive. Yes I had good backups the entire time or this could have been a disaster.

On the up side I am liking Mojave so far. Once I was up and running its been stable and I can get down to testing the new features now.

 

[chscag]

Hey, thanks for the summary Sly. Let us know how it continues to go. I was going to download the beta on a spare hard drive that I have but right now I'm too involved with some other things that's occupying my time. So I think I'll just let you do the testing and post the results.

You might even find a little something extra in your pay envelope for your efforts! ;D ;P

 

[Slydude]

You might even find a little something extra in your pay envelope for your efforts! ;D ;P

Can I trade in the hats I've got coming for a little help with the A/C this month? I'm sure you're well aware of the temps/humidity here.

 

[Slydude]

Gentle Word of Caution !!!!

With the exception of the problem described in post #1 the Mohjave beta is working well for me so far. Please do not take the following as a comment on the stability of Mojave. It's a gentle warning (as arms flail wildly) of something that not everyone seems to understand. If you are in the process of upgrading to High Sierra, testing the Mojave beta, or plan to upgrade when Mojave is released read on.

High Sierra introduced a new way of structuring the contents on a hard drive. That new format, currently referred to as APFS is also being implemented in Mojave (with support for Fusion drives) It should improve performance on most modern Macs. The down side is that there are some issues that one needs to understand.

1. Start by making a full backup, preferably a clone, of your system before you do anything else. That is going to be your path back if you decide you don't like the changes. Boot from the clone and make sure things are working then shut down your Mac and put the clone in a safe place.

2. The installer for Mojave is pretty self-explanatory and runs as most of Apple's installers have done. Read the screens and take your time answering the choices that appear. Once a drive has been converted to the new APFS format be careful what utilities you use on that drive. If a utility hasn't been updated to be aware of the differences with APFS drives don't run it. They cann do things that lead to loss of your data. Several of the more common utilities are in beta but none are in final release AFAIK.

3. If you are using Time Machine as your backup do not convert the Time machine drive from HFS+ to APFS, If you plan to share the data with Macs running older versions of the OS. They won't be able to read it.

 

[chscag]

Can I trade in the hats I've got coming for a little help with the A/C this month? I'm sure you're well aware of the temps/humidity here.

LOL, I can hardly wait to see my electric bill this month. Fortunately we had a new AirCon system put in a while back that is much more energy friendly.

And great advice about making a cloned backup before installing the Mojave beta. Most of the popular utils have been updated to work with APFS but it's always a good idea to be cautious before using any. As far as I'm aware the following utils are safe to use and have been updated to work with APFS:

Carbon Copy Cloner

SuperDuper

Disk Warrior

Paragon Hard Disk Manager

 

[Slydude]

Landlord has put freon into our unit twice this year. The last time just a few days ago. Pretty sure he is disappointed in how long this unit has lasted. I think the goal is to keep this one going until the worst of the heat is over then take a serious look at it then. That way we won't be completely without air.

Thanks for that note about the utilities. I just updated to the CCC beta a few days ago. It seems to be working nicely although I think I say something saying they were still working on the interface a bit. Of the four programs the only other one on my drive is Paragon's Hard Disk Manager. I need to update it.

 

[chscag]

Putting Freon into the unit twice this year is not a good sign. The compressor is probably leaking (bad seals) or there is another problem. We used our old unit for 25 years before it finally gave out. Wound up spending big bucks to replace it because both the AirCon and main indoor unit (which is also the heater) had to be replaced at the same time. And we also had new ducts installed. But since we own the home, no landlord to foot the bills. LOL.

 

[Slydude]

Public Beta 2 appeared for me early this morning and I have installed it. Can someone who is still running Public Beta 1 check the build number for and post it here? I'm trying too chase down an idea and that information would be helpful. Go to the Apple menu and choose About This Mac. The build number is on that screen just beneath where it says macOS Mojave.

 

[chscag]

Hey Sly:

How about giving us some insights as to what Mojave is like? Lots of folks are commenting on the new "Dark Mode"; how about you, do you like it?

 

[Slydude]

Will do. Look for some thoughts sometime late tonight or more likely early tomorrow. After a few missteps initially it has been stable for me so far. I can say that I won't be using Dark Moode. It's not that there is anything wrong with it as much as it is that I don't like that look.

 

[dtravis7]

I kept searching Ebay and today 3 21.5" late 2012's showed up. I just won one for $250!!! All the others are way over $375-500. I have dealt with this person before. 100% feedback. 2.7Ghz Quad Core I5 with 8GB RAM and 1TB HDD and with the tool from OWC or iFixit you can cut the glue strips and there are slots for the RAM. So as soon as it arrives which should be soon as the seller is 80 miles north of me, I will make a small partition and put Mojave beta on and report back!!