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Upgrade to Sonoma?

mac57mac57

mac57mac57

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Aug 2, 2024
263
135
Myrtle Beach, SC
I am considering upgrading my M1 Max Mac Studio from Monterey to Sonoma, since (a) Sonoma is the same version of macOS that is on my new laptop, and (b) some software I really like REQUIRES Sonoma as a minimum in other to install.

My Mac Studio presently runs Monterey, is nicely stable and reasonable fast.

I have read both horror stories and accolades re Sonoma...

For horror stories, I have read that Sonoma will not support the two 27" Dell displays I use, supporting only Apple displays. On the plus side, I have read that Sonoma is the Snow Leopard of its age... highly optimized vs. loaded with tons of new bloatware...

I am looking for folks with experience of the upgrade from Monterey to Sonoma... how much pain will I unleash on myself?

Thanks!
 
I recently upgraded my M2 Studio to Sonoma (from Ventura).
Works really nice, and dual Dell U2715H monitors work the same as they did in Ventura……

Only niggle I have is some software is a bit hit/miss.
Pages/Numbers etc takes ages to open a file (but that is all).

Affinity apps don’t show recents list, but this seems to be a common issue with various apps in Sonoma (from what I have read). I may need to update to Affinity V2….
edit this seems ok now (as below).
 
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Zero pain but I'm always a little nervous because of a disaster I had upgrading to the newest macOS one year. My Time Machine backup saved me.
 
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I have just tried Affinity apps again, and the recent menu opens without a beachball (although it’s always empty…).
It may have been spotlighting my drive after the upgrade….;)

I did also turn off iCloud backup for the apps (some annoying reason Apple added them for me….😖)

I think mainly it’s little things that may need something turning on/off.
 
Thanks All... particularly the note about Dell monitors. That was a major impediment! Now that I can expect that it will work, I feel better about the upgrade. Thanks again.
 
Upgraded many times .. I think I had most of the OS versions starting from Version 6 :)
The worst upgrade I did was from Ventura to Sonoma last week ... Many issues with Logic - also issues with recent files in Logic, QuickTime Player & GarageBand ... Still not resolved .
I also have a MacStudio Max that came with Monterey. Upgraded to Ventura without any problems.
 
My main issue is that I use Logic Pro and plug-ins (Arturia, Omnisphere, Native Instruments, ...) that are not always compatible with the latest O/S immediately so I can never upgrade quickly ... mostly running 1 O/S behind
 
My post assumes you mean Sequoia even though you wrote Sonoma in the title...

You are seeking advice from Apple fans where- in general- whatever Apple is pushing now is golden. Beware.

The first thing I would do is google a search for "macOS Sequoia bugs" and start reading for any issues important to you.

In the good old days, I used to follow the "don't update until about the .2" update, I'm now on a modified version of that: "wait for .4 or .5 and/or approx. WWDC."

If you look through threads, you can find all kinds of references to "and now <this> is no longer working", etc. If you want to risk being one of these people, go ahead. If that Mac is not mission critical, you can gamble on everything working as good as the Mac that is already there.

If this is about file compatibility issues between "as is" and current, maybe update the "as is" to the LATEST version of Sonoma, which I think is 14.7.1 until .4 or .5 and more "all clear" messages than "now this doesn't work" messages. If you really did mean Sonoma- not Sequoia- I basically did the same late in Sonomas time and had few issues that didn't already exist in Monterey (and still do).

I continue to cling to .4 or .5 or approximately WWDC myself. I see too many posts about what the latest has "broken" with no remedies to fix whatever it is until Apple gets around to debugging it.

If it is still possible to install it on an external so you can easily revert, that's worth a consideration. If it works well, go ahead and update the internal. And if it doesn't, reboot into the "as is" and wait for updates.

Or if it is still possible to perfectly duplicate the internal drive to an external, do that, then update the internal and if it disappoints, boot and use the external "as is" OS until there are more updates.
 
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@HobeSoundDarryl had a great idea, and it should have been obvious to me... clone my Monterey setup to an external, bootable drive, and update THAT! That makes rolling back to Monterey as simple as selecting a different boot volume.

Let the upgrades begin!
 
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