Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
OS X El Capitan 10.11.1 Public Release Coming Soon With Fixes for Office 2016, Mail, and More
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
I couldn't have said this better. El Capitan has been the single worst OS update from Apple I have seen in...forever. And I've been using Macs since System 7.5! It honestly ranks below some of Microsoft's updates.
Bluetooth? Broken. USB? Broken, and in a way that forces restarts. Encrypted external drives? Asks me for passwords when they are connected...several times and even though the passwords are in my key chain...then complains that they're already unlocked! Disk Utility? Confusing and borderline unusable UI coupled with serious bugs. Sleep takes forever and sometimes my MBP won't wake back up. Shutdown takes forever. Mind you this is with a SATA III SSD (feel really sorry for anyone with a HDD).
I've seen the menubar just stop highlighting and responding. I could pull down menus but not select anything. Restart via power button.
The Dock will stop auto showing. You can turn off auto hide and it works, but turn auto hide back on and it ignores your mouse again. Restart.
Transitions between spaces can now be terribly jerky/choppy. Wasn't this supposed to be a performance update? (And where did my previews go? Why must I shove my mouse pointer to the top of the screen to see them?)
Let's not even talk about Disk Utility First Aid reporting a major problem with my drive a couple days after upgrading, forcing a Time Machine restore. (I'm convinced First Aid actually caused the problem.)
This MBP was rock solid before the upgrade. Rock. Solid. I would reboot once a month...maybe...and not have any issues.
Now? I'm scared of the thing. How or what will 10.11 break next?
I've had several people say "oh do a clean install!" Honest question: why would that change a single thing? If 3rd party software is causing all of these problems it's just going to get reinstalled because I need it. I spend money on Macs to AVOID Windows nonsense solutions like "just start over from scratch." And people complaining about the same things have already tried that. It didn't work.
And to think I got excited when I heard that El Capitan was going to be focused on bug fixes and performance. Visions of Snow Leopard danced in my head.
What a disappointment. You can keep your gradients and transparency and iPhone integration. El Capitan isn't half the OS Snow Leopard was. I'm not sure it's half the OS Windows 7 is!
Steve is rolling in his grave.
I never said that - stop lying and stick to what was said and not what you believe was said.
While I haven't experienced quite as many problems I agree El Capitan was released months before it was ready. Its clear it was a mistake to release OS X upgrades every year because quality is suffering and I hope Apple realises their error and keeps updating 10.11 two years. Even if that happens I am not certain if 10.11 compares to Snow Leopard because it managed to correct most of the Leopards bugs and modernise some parts of the OS.
I have tested 10.11 on an external drive and there is no way I would install into my Macs internal drive at this point.
As for clean install I am also sceptical it would make any difference. It might help if the problems are due third party software, corrupt preferences or other such cause but I doubt that is the case because I clean installed 10.11.1 beta into another drive and created new user without importing anything from other drives and same problems are still there (Finder, Disk Utility, Safari, general slowness even after Spotlight indexing, etch. I am almost 100% certain these are bugs that only Apple can fix.
I am preparing to downgrade back to Mavericks, unfortunately I have quite a lot of data and third party software and I have to plan this carefully. I might consider 10.11 if Apple improves it enough but I suspect it will take at least until 10.11.4 is released. Given the number of problems I and many clients had in Yosemite until 10.10.4 (I still would not call it solid compared to Mavericks) I am not exactly impressed with Apples recent record...
To be fair, I'm not aware of any OS X release that had zero bugs on the very first release including the much beloved Snow Leopard (first 1-3, maybe 4 versions were unusable as I recall due to massive issues similar to those being reported here). I think whether El Capitan is the "worst" first release ever probably depends on one's point-of-view and whether you've had problems or not. I've had a few (not so cheap) programs not work. I've also had an issue with my PS3 controller when connected via USB 2.0 hub (odd since the 3.0 hub had issues with drives under Mavericks and Mountain Lion sometimes briefly disconnecting).
I've still also got the same old iTunes bug buying 1080p movies while a 2nd monitor is connected that is below 1080p resolution giving a "you can't view this so buy the SD version instead" kind of reply (feedback sent to Apple again, but I doubt it will do any good). But that can be overcome by temporarily disconnecting the 2nd monitor until I make the purchase, but I shouldn't have to (but then that did that under Mavericks and Mountain Lion too so I assume Yosemite also had the issue since it's seems to be an iTunes issue checking against hardware, although OS X may not be reporting one of the two monitors or whatever it considers "primary" by connector (i.e. my 2nd monitor is connected via Thunderbolt since my primary monitor needs two adapters to use it and that seems to introduce some "noise" so I connect them the other way around (one adapter each) and all is good otherwise.
On the plus side, I like the dark interface mode and for whatever reason some games seem to be faster already even though they're only OpenGL (e.g. Borderlands used to have to run below native resolution on "high" settings to be smooth and now seems to run fine at native 1680x1050 (16:10 monitor) with high settings so I don't know if they improved the Intel 4000HD driver or added more OpenGL functions for that driver since Mavericks that might be used in that game or what. I'm hoping more improvements will be found if/when they update some games to Metal and/or the new ones support it.
The "two application" mode turns out to be handy for setting up Finder two-panel copying (but they broke Xtrafinder due to SIP). I really think for larger monitors they should support at least 4 applications full screen, though. I've had a few programs "disappear" when moving between monitors and full screen modes for some odd reason (Firefox comes to mind showing live tv stations and moving it to my 2nd monitor and disappeared when I exited full screen mode instead of going to window mode on the new monitor; Finder did go to window mode on that monitor just fine so it may be Firefox itself that doesn't react right).
I'm pretty certain RAID 0 hard disk activity is now slower (XBench shows 140-170MB/sec in spot tests where it showed 240Mb/sec under Mavericks). I don't think it's just the tests since boots take longer and Borderlands 2 takes longer to load, etc. I'm sure buying a SSD drive would speed things up, but that's no excuse for slowing RAID 0 down.
Whether any of this stuff will get fixed in coming updates, who knows. Apple rarely replies to feedback, in my experience and I've seen things reported not fixed for YEARS (e.g. NFS still has no sleep token to keep the computer from going to sleep while network activity is still going on).
I've still also got the same old iTunes bug buying 1080p movies while a 2nd monitor is connected that is below 1080p resolution giving a "you can't view this so buy the SD version instead" kind of reply (feedback sent to Apple again, but I doubt it will do any good). But that can be overcome by temporarily disconnecting the 2nd monitor until I make the purchase, but I shouldn't have to (but then that did that under Mavericks and Mountain Lion too so I assume Yosemite also had the issue since it's seems to be an iTunes issue checking against hardware, although OS X may not be reporting one of the two monitors or whatever it considers "primary" by connector (i.e. my 2nd monitor is connected via Thunderbolt since my primary monitor needs two adapters to use it and that seems to introduce some "noise" so I connect them the other way around (one adapter each) and all is good otherwise.
On the plus side, I like the dark interface mode and for whatever reason some games seem to be faster already even though they're only OpenGL (e.g. Borderlands used to have to run below native resolution on "high" settings to be smooth and now seems to run fine at native 1680x1050 (16:10 monitor) with high settings so I don't know if they improved the Intel 4000HD driver or added more OpenGL functions for that driver since Mavericks that might be used in that game or what. I'm hoping more improvements will be found if/when they update some games to Metal and/or the new ones support it.
The "two application" mode turns out to be handy for setting up Finder two-panel copying (but they broke Xtrafinder due to SIP). I really think for larger monitors they should support at least 4 applications full screen, though. I've had a few programs "disappear" when moving between monitors and full screen modes for some odd reason (Firefox comes to mind showing live tv stations and moving it to my 2nd monitor and disappeared when I exited full screen mode instead of going to window mode on the new monitor; Finder did go to window mode on that monitor just fine so it may be Firefox itself that doesn't react right).
I'm pretty certain RAID 0 hard disk activity is now slower (XBench shows 140-170MB/sec in spot tests where it showed 240Mb/sec under Mavericks). I don't think it's just the tests since boots take longer and Borderlands 2 takes longer to load, etc. I'm sure buying a SSD drive would speed things up, but that's no excuse for slowing RAID 0 down.
Whether any of this stuff will get fixed in coming updates, who knows. Apple rarely replies to feedback, in my experience and I've seen things reported not fixed for YEARS (e.g. NFS still has no sleep token to keep the computer from going to sleep while network activity is still going on).
"We're talking about upgrades NOT updates - please learn the difference."
OK, I'll bite again...what are you saying here.
I don't like to be referred to as a lier either, thank you very much.
Let's just kill the "clean install" debate entirely since it's not worth mention much less a "he said / she said" debate.
On Macs "clean install" is a placebo. If you're not having significant problems with 10.11 it's because you're not exercising the machine the same way others are. It's not because you happened to clean install.
MS Office? Confirmed by MS that clean install does nothing to help. (Strangely enough, I haven't had MS Office crashing problems. Should I tell people to not clean install but upgrade from 10.9 or 10.10? Or do I simply not use Office often/heavy enough to hit the bug?)
Disk Utility? Does clean install restore the previous version?
USB? Bluetooth? Apple rebuilt these parts of the OS. (Why??? Why can't IT departments and development teams place more value on old but thoroughly vetted code?) People were complaining about these throughout the beta. They were testing clean installs on test partitions. And one recommendation I found online which helped the Bluetooth problems (but did not fix all of them) involved setting changes via Terminal which very clearly point to an Apple screw up.
The "clean install" myth comes from Windows. There have been upgrades on Windows where a clean install was the better option, but that's because the Windows registry and DLL architecture is a living nightmare. Neither applies to Mac OS.
That said, if you have a 3rd party extension that's causing problems a clean install would help, but only so long as you do not reinstall said software. If that's the case just hunt down and remove the kext yourself.
Side note: it seems that Mac OS X is getting very complex in terms of drivers, kexts, and conflicts between them. Kind of like...hmmm...CLASSIC Mac OS started to get from System 7 on.
Only classic Mac OS had a far more intuitive System Folder structure, with far more intuitive file names, plus the Extensions Manager UI from around Mac OS 8 on.
I went hunting for and removing 3rd party kexts last night and you know what? I wish I had classic Extension Manager back. Every extension listed in one UI. Turn off half, reboot, problem still there? Turn off half of half, reboot, test, repeat. It was a pain and took awhile but eventually you knew exactly which extension was at fault, or if the bare OS was at fault.
Looks like we're going to need that back.
This is what you said and attributed it to me:
I never said that yet you attributed it to me so therefore you are a liar. Quote what people actually say and not what you think they said.
Yet the growing open/save dialogue box as reported by 'Mac Performance Guide' is addressable by doing a clean install - those who have done a clean install never see that problem appear. Yes, clean installs do correct problems whose source originate from crap left over from previous versions of OS X. Also, the change in the Disk Utility isn't a 'bug' or a 'fault' but by deliberate design - just because you don't like something doesn't make it automatically a bug no matter how much you'd like to stamp your feet and throw a temper tantrum. Regarding the features taken away, if you were a power user then you'd simply using the diskutil from terminal and have all the power/flexibility that is available. Apple has simplified the GUI for the masses and if you want to go beyond basic functionality then open up the terminal.
I'm sorry, but this is an insipid downright rotten thing to say and worse yet it smacks of fanaticism to boot. Disk Utility has had those functions forever and telling someone to use the terminal defeats the ENTIRE POINT of OS X, which was the first (and only, IMO) operating system to tame a UNIX or UNIX-LIKE operating system to be 100% controllable from a slick GUI. But now according to you, we should all go back to a shell to do everything 'because that's what power users do'. So should people making professional audio or videos just use iMovie since it's made for the so-called MASSES? Give a me a fracking break! Easy-to-use doesn't mean toothless for god's sake!
I suppose that depends on what you're talking about. There are a couple of things here and there that only work through the command line, but the ones I'm thinking of are more recent (SIP on/off, SSD Trim Control, etc. plus there's always been some background UNIX commands and tools that are shell only and some things they removed earlier like NFS control from OS X Server that used to be there and isn't now but is available from the shell, but doesn't have a sleep token to keep your Mac awake if it's using it so it's like they forgot about it). But your typical consumer controls have always been available with a GUI. Mac users aren't supposed to need to use a CLI for regular OS functions. Until OS X there was no such thing as a CLI for the Mac OS period that I'm aware of.
Wanna bet it's addressable by removing a prefs file or kext?
Clean install does not solve the vast majority of problems. It solved none of the problems I mentioned and am struggling with. Further more, I would argue that if a clean install is ever necessary then the OS developer and/or installer developer screwed up.
I spent an hour fighting with the new Disk Utility the other night before giving up and booting from a Mavericks backup on an external HDD to use the old Disk Utility.
When I create four partitions, is it "by design" that Disk Utility creates two, picking the names randomly from the four I typed? (Yes, I tried this repeatedly to see if there was rhyme or reason. It was random.)
Is it "by design" that the partition button is typically grayed out when it should be available, with no indication as to why? (I'm still not sure what the rules are.)
When a drive is unmounted...and therefore should be available for ANY action...is it "by design" that Disk Utility lets you go through the work of doing something like setting up partitions, only to complain that it can't finish because the drive isn't journaled? (Why does that matter if I'm ERASING the drive?)
Crashes leaving you wonder about the state of your drive? Is that by design to?
Don't tell me I "just don't like" something and am "throwing a tantrum." I spent time with the new Disk Utility to see if I was doing something wrong. Then to document the problems for feedback to Apple. It is broken even if you like the new UI.
The GUI is worse. I'm pretty sure the novice users I know would scream trying to setup multiple partitions with the pie UI.
As far as your "power users memorize command lines" comment: I thought that silliness died in the 90's. Unless you use a command every day it becomes difficult to remember, which is why we built GUIs. And when a command is not right on your fingertips it becomes a question: did I type all that right? NOT a question I want to ask when messing with drives.