Trouble with Logic ...

[Fred GuggenbergerParticipant]

Hello everybody!

I got a little problem with Logic ... I have an iMac from 2013. OS was El Capitan. I got addicted to the new features in Logic 10.4.4. so I updated to OS Mojave, because the update was not running on my old OS.

After the upgrade my Mac was not as "healthy" as it was before. Safari had troubles in opening websites ... needed 3 - 4 times until it worked ... Sometimes I needed to start Logic 3 or 4 times, before it worked ... and other things.

After moving to another town, my studio is not longer in the house I live. So I got me a new iMac for the house, so that I can work there, too (you know, this fear of writing a hit at three in the morning and no gear around to record it, just kidding). Since Logic still caused problems on my old Mac, I went back to OS El Capitan on it (reinstalling by using Time Maschine). The idea was too have two Macs that are both working great, so that I can take my work with me from studio to bedroom and back. Sadly it doesn't..

My old Mac is now having the same problems with El Capitan ... He can't find my virtual UVI-instruments (I checked it out, they files are where they always were) and Safari has the same problems, that started with installing OS Mojave. Not too mention, that Logic is pissed now, because I use files that are "recorded with a newer version of Logic, which can cause problems" 🙁

The best way to go would be having OS Mojave and the same version of Logic on both computers without any trouble. Right now, I don't know, how to do it. :-(.

Any help would be welcome. Thank you!
Fred

[DavidParticipant]

These sort of problems can drive you nuts. I would turn off any ad blockers, security software, and blocking cookies. You computer needs to be checked for malware. An excellent program is Malware Byte, https://www.malwarebytes.com/mac/. You can download a demo version, when the trial period ends, it reverts to a free version with less features. See if any of this helps. First you have to deal with any OS issues before you tackle Logic. This has worked for me.

If you haven't, re-download the latest Logic from the App store after the OS is installed and see.

The next step that I would take is pretty dramatic, a clean download. Use an external USB disk so that your main disk isn't changed, make it a boot drive and install the OS onto it. There are instructions on the net as to how to do this. See if this cures your system performance issues. If it does, you'll know what needs to be done on the computer's main drive. Install the latest Logic from the App store onto this external drive and see. You don't need to reload all you plugins for this test.

David

[Fred GuggenbergerParticipant]

Thank you, David!!

[face (chris) JantonParticipant]

I will offer slightly different advice. I run macOS Mojave on my 2013 iMac, and my 2014 MacBook Pro.
A change from El Capitan to Mojave skipped 2 versions of macOS - Sierra and High Sierra.

It is highly unlikely that all of the plugins from the El Capitan system are going to be Mojave capable.

The way to get a predictable and workable system is to re-install all of it from scratch. This is can be traumatic - all sorts of things change...

Pick a machine to be "the original". Install macOS Mojave on it, along with all of the plugins. Get this to work! Putting El Capitan on the new machine isn't going to help the old software.

Once you get a fully working 10.14 system get yourself an external SSD drive (500GB at least) that you can connect to the USB3 port on the iMac. Clone the iMac to the external drive (Carbon Copy Cloner is an excellent to) making it a bootable drive. Once the clone is finished boot from the external drive and verify that the studio is happy.

Whew! Step 1.

Take the external SSD drive to the old iMac and boot the old iMac from the external SSD. If the old iMac is a spinning hard drive you will probably be amazed.

The reality is that modern Macintosh operating systems cannot be run from spinning hard drives. The extreme slowness makes the machines appear to be broken. An external SSD (has to be USB3) gets to a survivable performance level.

As I write this I am waiting for my new 1TB external SSD 😉 I have tested all that I propose and I am completely happy.
New SSD is going to get a bootable macOS with Logic and all the tools installed, including my now quite large sound library (500GB).
I should be able to boot any of the Macs from the new drive, and run Logic on all of them.

The changes to the Mac OS that have happened in the 6 years since Yosemite (pre-El Capitan) showed up are beyond dramatic.

If you need to run El Capitan you should "freeze" the machine, take it off the network, and lock it in the studio. Treat it like a non-upgradable piece of analog gear.

NB - this is true for Logic, ProTools, Studio One, all of them.

Long winded. Hope it helps.

[DavidParticipant]

I use Samsung T5 SSD drives, very good product. I have both 1TB and 500GB. The 500GB is the best bang for the buck in terms of cost per gigabyte. Performance will vary with the type of USB interface that your computer has.

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1346575-REG/samsung_mu_pa1t0b_am_t5_1tb_portable_ssd.html

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1346577-REG/samsung_mu_pa500b_am_t5_500gb_portable_ssd.html

[Fred GuggenbergerParticipant]

Hi Chris!

That's a lot of information. Thank you!

After all that trouble, I really decided to treat my Macs like non-upgradable analog gear: Never change again, what is working. Thank you so much for all the information!

Fred

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