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Done with Mavericks

8K views 92 replies 26 participants last post by  wonderings 
#1 ·
Going back to Mountain Lion as we speak. First time I've ever given up on a mac OS but I just don't like it. Can't stand the new labels in Finder. Chrome continually craps out on me since updating. In trying to diagnose that issue I found that you can no longer copy selected text in Console, just the entire section. Why? Activity Monitor has also taken a giant step backwards. Booting in Safe Mode takes about 10 minutes. And why does Apple insist on hiding the user library?? I know its hidden in ML, but I'd done something long ago to make it visible again. Overall Mavericks just made my MBP feel old.

I'm done, who's with me? :p
 
#2 ·
  • Copying from Console works for me.
  • Why are you booting to safe mode often enough that the boot time is an issue?
  • Hidden Library stops users from deleting files that they think they don't need. It's a good thing, and also easy to undo.
  • Chrome is just fine on my computers.
 
#3 ·
Biggest problem is that Chrome keeps doing this....



ever since I started using Mavericks.


The only way I found to resolve the issue was to boot in safe mode (where Chrome works) and log out of my Google account. Then reboot and log back in to Google. So yes, I've had to do it several times over the last few months,

In Console, can you highlight and copy half a line? I was only able to copy a full line.

Hiding the User library makes no sense, especially when the main Library and System folders are in full view.

Chrome is fine on lots of peoples computers, but it isn't on mine (and lots of other peoples) after Mavericks. Possibly a hardware/software incompatibility, who knows. Just because you don't have an issue doesn't mean it doesn't exist.


The frustrating thing with Chrome is that all the prefs are web based, meaning you can't do anything to fix it when it breaks. Only option is to delete the app and all associated files which happen to be HIDDEN and do not even show up in Spotlight.

Sorry, Apples latest efforts are geared towards people who know absolutely nothing about computers, with all sorts of safeguards being built in to stop them from hurting themselves.
 
#4 ·
In Console, can you highlight and copy half a line? I was only able to copy a full line.

Hiding the User library makes no sense, especially when the main Library and System folders are in full view.
Not sure about copying half a line, but copying a full line isn't the end of the world. More often than not, I need the full line anyway.

Hiding the user Library makes a lot of sense - the main Library and System folders are both read-only to users, whereas the user Library must be read/write by definition. If a user wants to delete something from the System folder, they'll have to enter their password. There's no way to do the same with the user Library.
 
#5 ·
You may want to delete Chrome (and its supporting data in ~/Library if applicable) and reinstall. The issue with Chrome definitely isn't relevant to Mavericks. I use Chrome in Mavericks without issue. Booting into Safe Mode to get Chrome working is just ridiculous.
 
#6 ·
Yes I did that. I removed every piece of chrome then reinstalled. Same issue. And if booting in safe mode to get it working is ridiculous, what would you suggest? BTW, I've got about 15 years of mac tech support under my belt so I'm not exactly an amateur at this kind of thing.
 
#7 ·
Obviously I make it a habit to be at least an OS or two behind the times.

My question here is if Chrome is causing you so many headaches why not just use a different browser? I am guessing there is something that Chrome does enough better than other browsers that makes it more or less mandatory for you?

That said I completely agree that a ten minute boot to safe mode is obscene. The 2 or 3 minutes it took DiskWarrior to boot (in the PPC era) drove me bonkers.
 
#11 ·
Worked in another user account. But it has worked for stretches of a week or so in my account as well. Nonetheless, I removed all startup items from my account, removed and reinstalled chrome, rebooted.... and no change. The message I was getting in console said something about a sandbox error. Googling that, I found that others had this issue although it wasn't widespread. So it could be a problem specific to certain machines, who knows.

Anyway, I think its the first time in my career where I have not been able to fix a specific issue :(
 
#10 ·
I reverted back to ML one day after installing mavericks. It was not because I disliked anything in Mavericks, it just did not work with one specific device at work that I need it to work with. Seems to be no solutions that work for me as of yet and it might mean I stay locked in with Mavericks for years until I am either forced to upgrade our machine or there is some work around that is fits in with our work flow.
 
#13 ·
FWIW, I'm sticking with, but suffering with, Mavericks. Lots of little sniggling problems:

- Horrible Finder performance
- Mail loses focus - e.g., try to scroll using my trackpad in a message, and I can see the main mailbox scrolling in the background.
- Dragging attachments from Mail to the Finder is a two- or three- effort process. NEVER works on first try.

I'm trying to find free time in my schedule to reinstall the OS, see if that helps (troubleshooting / maintenance / Onyx / .plist trashing - nothing has helped).
 
#14 ·
FWIW, I'm sticking with, but suffering with, Mavericks. Lots of little sniggling problems:

- Dragging attachments from Mail to the Finder is a two- or three- effort process. NEVER works on first try.
I finally figured out this one CM. When you drag an image out of Mail to the desktop, grab the image with the pointer in the upper left corner of the image. It will drag properly every time! I stumbled upon this by chance, but it works for me. ;)
 
#15 ·
SINC, thanks for the tip - but I'm using Mail Attachment Tamer (it "iconizes" oversize files in Mail's windows), so this doesn't work for me. (FYI, I've removed MTA during my troubleshooting efforts and found it to have no adverse effect. I've reinstalled it, as I prefer to have my attachments "iconized" :)
 
#17 ·
To show your Library folder in Mavericks is to go into your Finder prefs under View Options and selecting Show Library folder. How easier could that be? One step closer to hanging on to Mavericks. I find that Mail acts up on occasion. I also see quick spinning beach balls once in a while but nothing to convince me to go back to ML.
 
#19 ·
These are the kinds of things that were getting to me. Obviously the Chrome issue was the major factor, but the slow finder performance was another thing. I'd kind of gotten used to it, but now that I've reverted to ML I can really appreciate how slow it was. And I absolutely couldn't stand how they changed the labels to being a tiny dot on the far right. In my freelance work folder I keep adding notes to the names of the folders with info as to what I've done and how much I'm owed. Paid jobs are green, unpaid are red. Some of the folder names are quite lengthly, so when I expand the column enough to read everything, those dots are so far away from the shorter named folders that its impossible to tell which dot applies to which folder. And with those dots being so small, its impossible to distinguish the yellow from the green unless you are in optimal lighting. I keep getting software update notifications that you cant dismiss without launching the app store. And I liked the old software update better! Other than being able to tab the finder, I really didn't find anything that I actually liked better about it.
 
#21 ·
I'm in beachball hell. Hoping that a memory upgrade (next paycheque?) will address that.

And I'm in complete agreement on the new labels implementation (tags). Those stupid little dots that seem totally disassociated with the file to which they are applied... who thought that was a good idea?
 
#23 ·
Not the first time I post this here, but during the last 4 months I've experienced Safari to be an utter resource hog. Read the same about FireFox, too.
I myself am at fault, too, because I always leave a myriad of tabs open, but hey... is this 2014 or what?
Apart from clearing the browser cache from time to time, I find it very helpful to drastically kill Safari Web Content in the main window of Activity Monitor with the stop button in the upper left corner. Usually frees up ±1 GB for some time. And I only have 2 GB...
And no, I'm not on Mav (yet).
 
#24 ·
I hate to be an almost "me too", but I decided for the new year that I'd give the latest Mac OS X another chance and try. Otherwise it's back to SL, as I didn't like any of the previous Lions and they offered me nothing new that didn't work better in SL.

At least most of the suff is working with my mid-late 2011 27" iMac with 20GB RAM, but I sure don't like some of the changes such as:

- the user GUI is like being in a thick grey fog in a grey graveyard and almost no color.
- the multiple clicks needed when only one or maybe two were needed previously.
- the Finder is so slooooow too often. My SL volume is consistantly waaay faster.
- the inconsistency in the Finder and Applications windows.
- the popup Cheshire Cat type of icons to do..???
- the occasional quick spinning beach balls for no apparent reason.
- the labels or tabs color labelling with the small color dot is someone's idea of a sick joke.
- the mouse cursor not changing correctly from I-beam to Pointer for example.
and I could go on.

But there are some new features, even if they are hidden and not obvious, are handy, but awkward to control, and the Help is almost more of a useless joke that ever before.

I wonder if the Mavericks quirks are due to Jonathan Ive and his leadership with the OS X lately??

Anyway, I'll keep giving it a try for a while longer, but I don't know how much longer, and I'm sorry I don't have much constructive help to offer.
 
#25 · (Edited)
Well now - odd as it might seem, I'm feeling better knowing that my compadres here at ehMac are sharing my woes.

pm-r - your list mirrors my own experiences exactly.

John Clay - yeah, 4gigs (EDIT - 4megs - what was I thinking?). I had just blown my upgrades budget on a memory boost for my previous MacBook (non-pro) Unibody when the chance to pick up this baby came along... and of course, the ram chips were incompatible with the new model. So my wife has a better performing system than I do... go figure.

hexdiy - we are similar creatures. I've never been able to feel comfortable in FireFox or Chrome, and Safari still can't handle (memory-wise) as many tabs as I usually like to have open. But Safari isn't the only thing that is impacting on my system performance, which remains mediocre even if Safari isn't running (but with Safari open, I frequently have often minutes-long waits for the system to recover).

So - memory upgrade is the next step. I also need replacement keys - good thing I'm a touch-typist. It's also a helpful semi-security measure, as pretty much no-one else can easily use my laptop without spending a lot of time looking for letters...
 
#35 ·
Well now - odd as it might seem, I'm feeling better knowing that my compadres here at ehMac are sharing my woes.

pm-r - your list mirrors my own experiences exactly.
... ... ...

Bummer isn't it, and as I said, I could go on and list many other oddities and weird quirks or loss of functions and features even SL has.

But unfortunately my gut feeling is it's not going to get much better, and may even get worse until Apple reverses its decision to have Jonathan Ive given and assumed leadership of Apple's Human Interface team.

It seems to me that is when the Mac OS X started going downhill - even though it added some new features.

Maybe send their precious Johnny on an extended sabbatical or at least removed from any Mac OS X involvement - and maybe iOS as well and maybe we could have some good Apple OS designers back to do things properly!! :D
 
#30 ·
Paddy beat me to it... I've just spent the last 15 minutes with beachballs and freeze-ups trying to find the option - and he's right, it's easy to forget - because Apple didn't put it in a logical spot, like Finder--> Preferences. Sigh. If you need more detail with imagery, MacObserver has the step-by-step.
 
#32 ·
By the way - it shouldn't have to be said, but it's a useful reminder - third-party software always has the potential to introduce problems.

Since our Canon point-and-shoot died a horrible, crushing death, and my big Canon isn't exactly convenient, we've resorted to using my wife's Blackberry and its surprisingly good camera for shots of our adorable little monster's antics.

OS X will not recognize the BB as an external disk, so we can't just mount it and pull off the images we want. Nor will iPhoto recognize it. The only way to access the stored data is to have BB's own Desktop Manager software installed. Once it's installed, the BB will mount as a disk. It will also annoyingly auto-launch the DM software too, but you don't need to use it for synching (in fact, I highly recommend against it).

All of this to say that I suspect the BB DM software of being one culprit in my laptop's current state of unreliability. I frequently (like, four times in the last hour) get the damn RimAlbumArtDaemon Unexpectedly Quit error. It's a common issue, apparently. No solution that I've found, apart from uninstalling it using the installer's uninstall feature... and even then you need to resort to the terminal to really clean out the crap.
 
#45 ·
I can't say I've had much problem with mavericks, I love the tabbed finder, and I don't really get many beach balls. Running it now on a 2010 macbook pro with 8 gigs of ram. Of course it ran great on the new retina with 16gigs of ram, but that's likely in for a repair after tomorrow.

I don't dig the new labels. It seems pointless now that you barely see it anymore now that it's just a wee dot. Knuckleheads.
 
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