To update or not to update, that is the question.

[cheddar-caveman]

Once again, as with Catalina, there seems to be multiple "issues" with this Big Sur update! Also, As with Catalina, which I didn't bother with, I am reluctant to do it.

"If it works, don't fix it" comes to mind and my 2018 15" MBP works just fine on Mojave!

Apple seem to be continually using its customers as guinea pigs to "try out" their latest products but if it all goes wrong I doubt they'd show much interest in our older computers.

 

[Juicy Box]

I used to be excited about new OS versions on my Apple products, but no longer.

For Mac, I just like my stuff to work, so if there isn't a feature I really want/need, or if there isn't an app compatibility reason to update, I just stay with what I know works.

I know that there are plenty of people out there that say they have no problems on (whatever new OS version), I tend to see issues. Maybe because I use a lot of older devices, or maybe it is because of what I do with my devices.

Even for the small SW updates, such as the security updates, I make sure I have a bootable back up, just in case something goes wrong.

At least we can still go back to old OS versions for the Macs, everything else is really risky to update.


For iOS, I was burned bad by iOS 9 on my iPad Mini 2 and I couldn't go back, so I am extremely reluctant to do any OS update on any of my iDevices, even the minor ones.


tvOS is probably the worse for OS updates. You cannot back up the ATV, so you have the potential to lose apps, and lose them forever with no recourse. I lost about 30 games when going from tvOS 14.1 to 14.2.

Also, my screensaver is broken again with tvOS 14. I really wish I could go back to tvOS 12.

With changes with the tvOS UI, Apple has basically made tvOS updates automatic even when you have it auto-updates turned off.

 

[jagolden]

Updated to Big Sur two weeks ago. Have yet to encounter any "doesn’t work" issues.
I did have to make one (free) software update for Audio HiJack Pro.
I like the clean interface.
As with any major update, a Time Machine or other back-up of your current operating system and other files is simply common sense.
I’m using a 2017, 27" retina iMac w/64g of RAM.

As to the iOS updates, again, I have never encountered any important glitches. Been running iPP 12.9", iPad Mini5, and iPhone 11Pro Max on iOS 14 developer betas since available - nothing show stopping

 

[mollyc]

I updated my MBA, which I use like an iPad. For the most part I haven't had any major issues, but search in Mail doesn't work except for finding things in the main inbox. I can't find anything that has been moved to a folder. For that reason alone I will not update my iMac, which is my main working computer.

 

[shinji]

I've had no problems with Big Sur, and I upgraded on day one.

People with issues post on the forum, but it doesn't mean you're going to have the same issues they are.

 

[nebojsak]

Once again, as with Catalina, there seems to be multiple "issues" with this Big Sur update! Also, As with Catalina, which I didn't bother with, I am reluctant to do it.

"If it works, don't fix it" comes to mind and my 2018 15" MBP works just fine on Mojave!

Apple seem to be continually using its customers as guinea pigs to "try out" their latest products but if it all goes wrong I doubt they'd show much interest in our older computers.

It seems you already have the answer to your question. Don't update.

 

[Tarken]

Is there a path to roll back the update without having a backup? Does MacOS have that ability? So far, I am not going to update, but if there is a path back, I would consider it.

 

[Earl Urley]

Don't think so, but if you have Time Machine running, you can always restore to a local snapshot taken just before you run the updates..

 

[lambertjohn]

I updated my MBA, which I use like an iPad. For the most part I haven't had any major issues, but search in Mail doesn't work except for finding things in the main inbox. I can't find anything that has been moved to a folder. For that reason alone I will not update my iMac, which is my main working computer.

What model MBA do you have?

 

[VideoFreek]

I updated my MBA, which I use like an iPad. For the most part I haven't had any major issues, but search in Mail doesn't work except for finding things in the main inbox. I can't find anything that has been moved to a folder. For that reason alone I will not update my iMac, which is my main working computer.

Big Sur Mail is different, and it is easy to miss how to do this. When you enter a term into the search box, an option appears at the top of the side panel that allows you to search across all mailboxes:

To the original question, Big Sur has been a pleasant surprise running on my secondary machine (2015 MBP), so I plan to move my primary 2017 iMac 5K off of High Sierra (finally!!) once the first bug fix update comes out next week. It should be noted I do a "clean" install in all cases. Some argue this is not necessary, but I feel better knowing that my build is "fresh".

 

[cheddar-caveman]

Thanks for all the replies folks. Please bear with me, at 82 I'm easily confused 😩

So if I do a normal Time Machine backup onto a clean, external HD, then do the update to see if it works flawlessly and I like it, I can easily go back to Mojave if I don't like it just by plugging the HD back in and re booting?

If that is the case I just might have a go just for something to do during this very scary time😳

Is the Time Machine backup disc the same as a Bootable disc, does it have the operating system (Mojave in my case) on it?

 

[mollyc]

What model MBA do you have?

The 2018.

Big Sur Mail is different, and it is easy to miss how to do this. When you enter a term into the search box, an option appears at the top of the side panel that allows you to search across all mailboxes:


View attachment 1691307

To the original question, Big Sur has been a pleasant surprise running on my secondary machine (2015 MBP), so I plan to move my primary 2017 iMac 5K off of High Sierra (finally!!) once the first bug fix update comes out next week. It should be noted I do a "clean" install in all cases. Some argue this is not necessary, but I feel better knowing that my build is "fresh".

Yes, I am searching under All Mailboxes. I use gmail as my email provider, set up through Mail. I can search for my husband's first name, and it will only show my mail from him in my actual live Inbox. I have an entire folder of emails from him with over 1200 messages, and not a single one pops up if I search under All. I can run the same search on my iMac with Mojave and it finds all of them. I like to sort my mail into separate folders, but under Big Sur I can no longer search.

ETA: maybe I am doing it wrong. I have an All Inboxes under Favorites but then as I searched I noticed a second All Mailboxes popped up at the top.... so thank you, I would not have realized I had to hop up to a "different" inbox. I prefer the old method of search, but this will work, and I suppose it could have an advantage of some sort.

 

[mollyc]

@VideoFreek since you taught me about searching with Mail, is there a way to get back to the default behavior of hitting the Delete key to actually delete a message? Now when I hit delete, if the email is open, it just closes it. And if it is just a line item in my Inbox, it deletes it for about a half second, then it reappears and then it selects the message above. So now it's a 2-3 step process to delete an email.

 

[Dc2006ster]

Thanks for all the replies folks. Please bear with me, at 82 I'm easily confused 😩

So if I do a normal Time Machine backup onto a clean, external HD, then do the update to see if it works flawlessly and I like it, I can easily go back to Mojave if I don't like it just by plugging the HD back in and re booting?

That’s close to what I did but I used a bootable backup rather than TM. It is a bit of a hassle but , as you say, it is something to do for a, in my case, 75 year old.


Before I installed BS I used Carbon Copy Cloner to clone my startup disk (Macintosh HD) onto an external SSD (Catalina bu) My initial reaction to BS was that I liked it but I ran into problems and decided to go back to Catalina. To do this I booted from my backup (Catalina bu) and then cloned that backup back onto my startup disk (Macintosh HD) which is now , once more, my startup disk.

Turns out my problems were not BS related so I will likely repeat my original backup and install process and reinstall BS. Another afternoon’s activity sorted 😏

 

[cheddar-caveman]

That’s close to what I did but I used a bootable backup rather than TM. It is a bit of a hassle but , as you say, it is something to do for a, in my case, 75 year old.


Before I installed BS I used Carbon Copy Cloner to clone my startup disk (Macintosh HD) onto an external SSD (Catalina bu) My initial reaction to BS was that I liked it but I ran into problems and decided to go back to Catalina. To do this I booted from my backup (Catalina bu) and then cloned that backup back onto my startup disk (Macintosh HD) which is now , once more, my startup disk.

Turns out my problems were not BS related so I will likely repeat my original backup and install process and reinstall BS. Another afternoon’s activity sorted 😏

Thanks for thatDc. I've made a backup with Time machine on a clean HD. By the way my computer is a 2018 15" MBR currently running Mojave 10.14.6

 

[DWHH1]

In answer to the original '...To update or not to update, that is the question...' question.

If I could I would return immediately to Catalina. There are a range of problems and bugs listed elsewhere in this forum that have appeared in Big Sur, some very unnecessary and quite surprising. The biggest BUG-Fest is now TextEDIT. This is probably not something most of you bother with but for some, like me, it is an important although simple tool. It worked well in Catalina and I see NO reason why anyone in the Apple Software team needed to do anything to the code but someone did and it doesn't work, is very slow and is, as I said, full of some very big bugs. More info on them can be found on this forum using TEXTEDIT as the search term.

In addition, there a bugs in the WiFi and Bluetooth functionality, in AirPort Utility that now doesn't display IP addresses or computer names next to the 'Wireless Clients' field and instead injects just the tops of the chars in a sort of Morse Code. As with TEXTEDIT why did anyone in the Apple Software team feel the need to mess with AirPort Utility?

Outside of Big Sur I have noticed that in Google Earth Pro when selecting the 'Show Ruler' measurement tool that any selected tab label is blank whereas under Catalina it wasn't.

The list of admittedly smallish bugs (except in TEXTEDIT - where you could easily fit a saddle to those BUGS) found in Big Sur is well in excess of that normally found in a MacOS update, and no doubt linked to the transition to Apple Silicon, but whatever the reason this BUG-Fest needs to be fixed asap and a BUG-fix update released.

 

[VideoFreek]

@VideoFreek since you taught me about searching with Mail, is there a way to get back to the default behavior of hitting the Delete key to actually delete a message? Now when I hit delete, if the email is open, it just closes it. And if it is just a line item in my Inbox, it deletes it for about a half second, then it reappears and then it selects the message above. So now it's a 2-3 step process to delete an email.

Weird. Not sure what hardware you are using, but on my 13" MBP hitting the DELETE (backspace) key works as it should. One thought--are you doing this from the Inbox, or from search results? In search results, by default the Trash folders are included. So, if you delete an item from your Inbox, it will immediately re-appear in search results, but from the Trash folder. You can opt to not consider Trash items in search results under Mail --> Preferences --> General.

 

[MisterSavage]

I had an OS upgrade (High Sierra?) brick my iMac and I had to drag it into the Apple Store. I'm putting it off for as long as I can until the pandemic gets better.

 

[mollyc]

Weird. Not sure what hardware you are using, but on my 13" MBP hitting the DELETE (backspace) key works as it should. One thought--are you doing this from the Inbox, or from search results? In search results, by default the Trash folders are included. So, if you delete an item from your Inbox, it will immediately re-appear in search results, but from the Trash folder. You can opt to not consider Trash items in search results under Mail --> Preferences --> General.

No just from regular inbox. As explained above I didn’t understand how search worked in Big Sur until the new method was described.

 

[canuckRus]

Big Sur destroyed my email setup lumping iCloud email and provider email together. Elimination of Top Sites yet another pain.

 

[cheddar-caveman]

At 82 I can do without any more issues in my life, thank I'll stay with Mojave for the time being!!😎😎

 

[alexsa]

I upgraded when 11.01 came out.
I haven’t had any issues. Everything works same as Catalina.

However unless you are a big safari user or love widget I really don’t see any big useful changes.
if you are worried then wait for 11.2 to update.

 

[mollyc]

Weird. Not sure what hardware you are using, but on my 13" MBP hitting the DELETE (backspace) key works as it should. One thought--are you doing this from the Inbox, or from search results? In search results, by default the Trash folders are included. So, if you delete an item from your Inbox, it will immediately re-appear in search results, but from the Trash folder. You can opt to not consider Trash items in search results under Mail --> Preferences --> General.

No just from regular inbox. As explained above I didn’t understand how search worked in Big Sur until the new method was described.

I have discovered that if I use opt-Delete that the delete behavior works like it use to. Is there a way I can remap the keyboard for Mail? I only know how to do that in Adobe programs.

 

[Isamilis]

I would recommend not upgrading to Big Sur (at least until .3 or .4 release where it has been matured with minor bugs only). Performance wise, Big Sur will be slower than Mojave a bit, though the UI is much better and consistent.

 

[russell_314]

At 82 I can do without any more issues in my life, thank I'll stay with Mojave for the time being!!😎😎

This is why many big companies don't download the latest updates (Except security) for Mac or Windows. I downloaded Big Sur on my 2018 Mac mini and the only issue I had was getting my unsupported eGPU to work. I was prepared for that though. If you like stability it's best to let others try it first. It could be a one in a thousand problem but if you're the one it's not good.

Also it's a good thing to have a Time Machine backup. I bought a $75 4 TB Western Digital external drive from Walmart and it seems to be doing the job. I can hear it because it's a spinning drive but I didn't want to spend the money on an SSD.