Mac Problems

[dunnyrail]

I find myself in unchartered waters now.

Around 2 or so Years ago I got a new iMac. It was lovely machine Largest Screen available everything worked perfectly on it, no need to play around with settings and the world was a happy place to be Computer wise. Heck I was even enjoying Windows users problems with Version 10, praising the merits of Macs. My current predicament serves me right for being a clever supercilious idiot with regard to Windows users issues.

NOT ANY MORE

Regular updates that have occured have brought things to an ugly head, OK when I got the new Mac I had to fork out for a new copy of my Cad Program but that was all.

Problems now.
- iPhoto used (on my old iMac and Portable) to tell you about Duplicated Pictures you were trying to add to your Library. Not any more. My albums are now a complete mess with some 20,000 pics to sort out.

- Model Railroader 75 Years of all editions, I loaded the CD's into my Mac when I first bought the CD and all was well. Not any more last night when I tried to use it a piece of Code or something was missing. This may be OK if I try a reinstall but.....

- YouTube, not able to upload Vids from the iMac any more.

- Creating Vids, this has been made so complex from how it used to be that it is now pretty well unusable. Oh and the Copy from iPhoto to iVids (or whatever it is called) does not appear to work.

- I have other issues as well that I may add as I remember them.

When I bought this Mac my original idea was to never connect it to the Net just using my older Portable for this. But as time goes on for convinience..... I do really wish that I had kept this rule then it would have made sense to also keep the Mac as I bought it with no upgrades of Software. Just what I have done with my old Windows Portable that is stuck in aspic at Windows 98 and works just fine. All of the above problems are endemic of Sloppy Software Programming, something that I was faced with in my Day Job back in 1996/7 when working with a Till System Company. Something that WAS NEVER apparent with a Mac and I used to be a great proponent for them. Not any more except for perhaps iPads that I now use more than anything.

 

[playmofire]

Sorry to read about your problems, I know what you mean but from a Windows 10 perspective.

Sloppy programming is a major problem. In my programming days (it was 1979 when I was told, "We're upgrading the computer system but can't afford to have our custom software rewritten. However, do not worry, you are going on a series of course to write ANSI Cobol and you can then write the programs. The courses start in November and we will need the first software working by late February.") you had to define every field and compiling took an age and you jolly well saw that you got it right first time if you could.

 

[beavercreek]

Jon, I have used Macs since the year dot.

I used to run an ITC support company, that included an Apple Mac business, in the past, and supported many establishments (schools, LEAs, companies, design houses etc).
up to 80% of the schools that I supported were using PC's and I was kept well in business by those ones as the Windows environment (both consumer and NT) would crumble under the onslaught that the school environment would reek upon the OS and the NT network. Let alone the ease of contracting viruses if anti virus software upgrading was not done systematically etc.

I have probably been in contact with over 2000 Macs through the years running all sorts of systems and all sorts of software.

I have personally only had two major crashes or 'big' problems in all the years that I have been personally using the Mac (since 1988) and both were down to me doing stupid things, (but what I thought were clever at the time until 'uh-oh').

We, as a family, currently have 2 newish 27" iMacs, two Macbook pros (both fairly newish and are taken out for work regularly), Ipads and iphones. We use the internet and all sorts of software very extensively and I can honestly say, hand on heart, that we seldom have as much as a blip.
We do upgrade the security patches that Apple and the Webbrowsers send out as soon as they are notified.

To blame the iMac or OSX for what is happening at your end may be a little premature.

System upgrades (by windows especially) have caused many problems with 'old' software applications but Apple has tried to make the 'changes' as compatible as possible but there, obviously, comes a time when this can not be guaranteed for all software..

Apple have tried to make sure that OS upgrades do not upset software packages but it is inevitable that some older software or even applets that run in web browsers will fall foul.
This is even more true with Windows and drivers for different boards, devices etc. (although much improved by Windows 10 but then not much old software runs in this OS.)

It is also true that some applications or web 'applets' need a new system upgrade for them to work ( Java, Flash etc).

OSX 10.6 (Snow leopard) was the first big shift where the old 'Classic' environment applications stopped working. And Mountain Lion (10.7) was where some of the large and small software packages and applications began to fall down due to the changes in how the OS worked.

I suspect that if you bought your Imac 2 years ago then you would have had an OSX system possibly from Mavericks (10.9) or Yosemite (10.10), or even El Capitan. (10.11)

I have stayed at El Capitan (10.11) as some of my software packages will not work reliably beyond that OS without me needing to upgrade them (damn costly!).

It is really important to keep up with the security updates (for OS and browsers) as there are some ' malware' exploits out there that will attack older OSes if not updated.
Apple still sends out security updates for the systems that I think that you might have, but as an OS gets older, the support inevitably will peter out.

It is important to have the most recent updated versions of Safari, Chrome and Firefox as stuff will get through if you don't.

It may be a safer world with Macs and OSX but that don't mean that there are folk trying their best to exploit and little cranny or crevice in the OS if they can.

If you would like a bit of help or advice, send me a PM with the details of your machine, OS, software versions (especially your browsers etc. etc and I might have a way through

Mike