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How to rollback / revert from Tahoe to Sequoia?
- Thread starter Aggedor
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Tahoe broke my ability to scroll on Chrome. It keeps freezing. It's got giant in-your-face notifications, the degeneracy is real, this is a ruined OS, when Sequoia was still good. Everything is ruined, everything is huge and round and blocky, the control center and app drawer don't make sense, there is a stupid button for stupid uneditable screen captures, etc.
When I use Chrome I notice it flashes and I love how the Dock changes colors on its own.
I rolled back today - phew! Tahoe had an awful effect on my M4 Mac Pro, super jerky animation between Spaces and the Zoom app made the fans spin up like crazy. Nothing similar has ever appeared on Sequoia for me. I think I'll actually just skip Tahoe - I really think Sequoia looks a lot better design-wise.
I think Apple screwed the pooch on this macOS. They need to QUIT trying to make Macs and MacBooks look and act like iPads and iPhones
Then they should have stopped 3 years ago. I just don't understand why everything is round and translucent / unreadable. If only it were just the look of the OS but it's buggy as **** too. And I've tried the "phone app" : it just doesn't work.
Tahoe feels like a very early beta. Heck, I've ran many OS betas that are more smooth. Definitely not ready for prime time.
Like I've been saying it reminds me of Windows Vista 🤣
For reasons I dont need to go into I just tried rolling back to Sequoia by installing a dual boot Sequoia volume on the internal. When it came to migration I first tried to migrate from the Tahoe install, and got a firm NO, with no options:
Then I tried to migrate from a Time Machine backup of the Tahoe volume, expecting to be able to select a Sequoia back up from a week ago, but it only showed the latest backup and it wouldn't let me migrate from that. No message like above but no progress. Then I tried to migrate from a CCC backup of the Tahoe vol, and that has worked as normal. I will have the issues mentioned in the second paragraph, but I can deal with those.
Moral of the story use both Time Machine and CCC...you never know which will work. Migration from Time Machine has usually been my first choice but glad I make both.
I rolled back on Tues and found it to be a less painful process than I feared it might be. This is the first time in 16 years of using macs that I had to do this. Make sure to have current TM backup. I was lazy so my TM was not very current (secondary MBA which doesn't have anything important on it) which lead to a bit more work but I did a manual B/U of my home directory to a USB drive and exported bookmarks/settings for my browsers, uBlock origin etc.
A expected the Photos lib would not open with the usual incompatible OS message, but relaunching it with opt+cmd held down launched Photos repair and it repaired to Sequoia standard OK. Mail was more difficult. I deleted all the Mail related prefs files I could find and also the ~/Libary/Mail folder and then when launched it started re-downloading my mail.
This stuff looks way too complicated
In Windows, you can uninstall an OS upgrade like you do any app. Go into add/remove programs and uninstall Windows 11 to go back to 10, for example. And it's just done automatically. You don't need to have a dedicated drive like with time machine
If, after some time, you decide you like the upgrade, you can uninstall the uninstall data to free up space
Mac should copy this.
Also, system restore points that are created automatically and/or on demand. They're like game saves that let you put the system back to a previous state. Yes there's TM but you don't need a dedicated drive or boot into system recovery or whatever
In Windows, you can uninstall an OS upgrade like you do any app. Go into add/remove programs and uninstall Windows 11 to go back to 10, for example. And it's just done automatically. You don't need to have a dedicated drive like with time machine
If, after some time, you decide you like the upgrade, you can uninstall the uninstall data to free up space
Mac should copy this.
Also, system restore points that are created automatically and/or on demand. They're like game saves that let you put the system back to a previous state. Yes there's TM but you don't need a dedicated drive or boot into system recovery or whatever
Whoever is really all that unhappy with Tahoe will eventually figure it out, or find someone to help them.
I agree though, Apple could probably make it more simple but for whatever reason chooses not to do so.
For anyone who wants compact tabs back in Sequoia and Tahoe, you can use Safari 18.6. I can confirm it works on Tahoe Dev Beta 26.1 and it's glorious.
The link is direct from Apple's servers, and it can be found on Mr Macintosh's website under 'Safari for macOS Sonoma Installer Download' and version 18.6 is going to be the last version with compact tabs: https://mrmacintosh.com/macos-safari-full-installer-database-download-directly-from-apple/
Note: When it comes to installers it's always better to go directly to the website and download it yourself
For anyone who's too lazy, here is the link: https://swcdn.apple.com/content/dow...dcebzsfju4kp761uzgl7/Safari18.6SonomaAuto.pkg
The link is direct from Apple's servers, and it can be found on Mr Macintosh's website under 'Safari for macOS Sonoma Installer Download' and version 18.6 is going to be the last version with compact tabs: https://mrmacintosh.com/macos-safari-full-installer-database-download-directly-from-apple/
Note: When it comes to installers it's always better to go directly to the website and download it yourself
For anyone who's too lazy, here is the link: https://swcdn.apple.com/content/dow...dcebzsfju4kp761uzgl7/Safari18.6SonomaAuto.pkg
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Sync not backup.
Which is fine if you don't want easy system recovery (or backup history) which is a strength of TM. Your security profile, your choice.
I just opened a Finder window where Tahoe won't let me open any of the files. 🥲 No matter how much I click either Word or PDF files (the folder has both), nothing happens. The same result by right-clicking and selecting open from the menu. Managing to mess up Finder is quite an achievement for a new OS! Never seen anything like this before (on top of other bugs and "features")
From some of the posts it seems as though it is impossible to do a recovery from a new OS to an old OS which makes it kind of useless in my eyes.
Adding my 2nd cents. I didn't want to roll back due to the lengthy process. I took a chance, turned on Beta updates (Public), installed Beta 26.1 and all my issues are resolved. Evernote, Teams, Outlook, wifi calling through FaceTime app all working perfect and the whole OS is very smooth! I now turned off beta updates and lesson learnt - never to blindly upgrade to a .0 or .1 version
When you can’t sign into Apple Recovery with your Apple Account email address and you have to “erase your Mac”, it erases everything. Reinstalled Sequoia, and the firmware is Sequoia.
You did it completely wrong.
What you need to do is if you have a se ins Mac you need to download the IPSW file for your Mac Studio. That’s the shipping software which came with your Mac. I got mine from Mr Macintosh website. With the studio in DFU mode use the 2nd Mac to restore the Mac back to shipping state. Once rebooted disconnect the other Mac and then restore your backup.
What you could do as well. Is delete the backups of old Tahoe backups before you updated your Mac. That way when you are back to the shipping OS you can restore the backup before the upgrade.
Hope that makes sense.
Thank you everyone for this thread! Special thanks to @ebika
I want to buy a new MBA M4 13", but I can already tell Tahoe would drive me crazy. I could see this coming but I was out of the country so couldn't order a new computer until now when I'm back. Missed it by that much 😐
So I was searching and came upon this thread.
I do have a question: So (don't laugh), I'm still on an Intel MBP running Sierra. Can you please let me know if this sounds right:
1) Before I ever put any of my data on the new MBA (presuming it comes with Tahoe), I do the operation described (make bootable OS Sequoia USB drive) and then erase the new MBA and install Sequoia with Terminal and the bootable USB drive.
2) THEN (and only then!), I do my migration as usual from the old MBP to get my data on the new "Sequoia" MBA.
2a) I have three choices for that migration: The old MBP/Sierra itself, a Super Duper backup on a separate hard drive, or a Time Machine backup on a different separate hard drive. Guessing any of these would work but if there is one of those that you'd think would be better I would use that one.
Were the problems described by @gilby101 in post #21 only applicable to a person trying to put their data back from a specifically-Tahoe TM backup? So IOW I wouldn't have that issue because my data is coming from the dark ages (Sierra)? I think that was the case for @gilby101's point #1, but wasn't sure if #2 was also for that case or just a general point. I don't know what DFU mode is (and didn't see it in the previous instructions or links). But maybe that wouldn't apply since I won't ever have had a Tahoe TM backup?
Thank you!
Miss Terri
I want to buy a new MBA M4 13", but I can already tell Tahoe would drive me crazy. I could see this coming but I was out of the country so couldn't order a new computer until now when I'm back. Missed it by that much 😐
So I was searching and came upon this thread.
I do have a question: So (don't laugh), I'm still on an Intel MBP running Sierra. Can you please let me know if this sounds right:
1) Before I ever put any of my data on the new MBA (presuming it comes with Tahoe), I do the operation described (make bootable OS Sequoia USB drive) and then erase the new MBA and install Sequoia with Terminal and the bootable USB drive.
2) THEN (and only then!), I do my migration as usual from the old MBP to get my data on the new "Sequoia" MBA.
2a) I have three choices for that migration: The old MBP/Sierra itself, a Super Duper backup on a separate hard drive, or a Time Machine backup on a different separate hard drive. Guessing any of these would work but if there is one of those that you'd think would be better I would use that one.
Were the problems described by @gilby101 in post #21 only applicable to a person trying to put their data back from a specifically-Tahoe TM backup? So IOW I wouldn't have that issue because my data is coming from the dark ages (Sierra)? I think that was the case for @gilby101's point #1, but wasn't sure if #2 was also for that case or just a general point. I don't know what DFU mode is (and didn't see it in the previous instructions or links). But maybe that wouldn't apply since I won't ever have had a Tahoe TM backup?
Thank you!
Miss Terri
My point 1: very much for someone who has a Time Machine backup which has been used with Tahoe. No guarantee that an old macOS can read backups created (or even volume updated) by a newer macOS. Doesn't apply in your case.
Point 2: Posts #24 and #25 are more accurate than mine.