With 26.1 I had an issue with network slowness. It’s hard to know if the OS was the problem. Also the dock sometimes stopped working, requiring a restart. With 26.2, the network issue hasn’t been a problem. I had to restart yesterday using 26.2 when the dock stopped working.
In the future I will first try the terminal command “killall Dock”.
Since OS 26, I’ve had problems with the Preview app and PDF files. Zooming is very slow for large files (e.g., technical drawings exported from AutoCAD). After zooming in, you have to wait a few seconds for the file to load, and then you can pan or scroll smoothly. Zoom again, and you have to wait again. These files worked smoothly on MacOS 15. I also tested them on a second Mac (not yet updated to Tahoe), and everything still works fine there. The problem persists in 26.2.
I’ve found charging is broken from my monitor to my MacBook Pro. There are lots of UI glitches. It’s even worse on iPhone where notification go off the bottom of the screen. There are too many issues to mention. This is the worst OS upgrade to date bar Windows ME.
I can understand why Derek Sivers has ditched Apple:
Have you tried a new second account to see if the problem persists? That sounds like it might be a corrupted plist or cache file.
I hadn’t thought of that. I’ve just created a new user account and checked—unfortunately, the problem remains.
Update: I found a solution. Just in case anyone else has the same problem: Preview has some issues with comments appearing in PDF files (if drawing contains objects with SHX fonts). In AutoCAD, you need to set the EPDFSHX or PDFSHX variable to 0 (that prevents creating additional comments), and then generated PDFs would open correctly in Preview (even on MacOS 26:)
I do not intend to switch to Tahoe. MacOS 26 (Tahoe) has completely removed support for FireWire drivers, meaning that FireWire audio devices and interfaces can no longer be used with this operating system.
One of the reasons I switched from a 2019 Intel iMac to the M-series Mac Studio was to better accommodate video processing. An ongoing longer-term project is to digitize old VHS and miniDV video tapes using my Sony miniDV camera’s FireWire interface to connected to Apple’s Thunderbolt to FireWire Adapter > Apple Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) to Thunderbolt 2 Adapter > computer.
This daisy-chained adapter procedure is well-established and has been described in many YouTube videos and in blog posts.
I feel abandoned by Apple after purchasing its relatively expensive adapters. The many bugs reported in macOS 26 and the dislike of and issues created by the liquid glass interface serves to validate my antipathy toward the Tahoe “upgrade”. I consider Tahoe to be a downgrade and intend to avoid it.
Or keep an old Mac around for archival needs, and a modern Mac with Tahoe for the future.
Spinning beachballs, ‘hangs’, and one random crash have started again today 
.
One week ago:
Today, a week later:
Spinning beachballs, ‘hangs’, and one random crash have started again today
I have doubts that Tahoe is to blame here. If everything is working just great for a week after the system is being updated, only to go nuts after a week, something smells funny. Something is messing with your system / user account. Is there some 3rd party “optimization” tool running in the background? Does a different user account show the same issues? I absolutely can feel your pain. This is annoying. But it should be resolvable.
Tahoe is working without any issues both on my Mac mini and my MacBook Pro with 26.2. If somebody dislikes the design: fine. But: No crashes, no hangs. Nothing. 2025’s OS updates are better than their reputation. A lot of damage has been done by developers’ publicly outspoken understandable frustrations and lamentations a.k.a. the Alan Dye vendetta.
Thanks @Christian I’d love to get to the bottom of this!
I’m not running any ‘optimisation’ tools. Most things are pretty standard MPU fare.
In my menu bar is:
My ‘often running’ software is:
This is on an M2 MacBook Air with 24GB RAM, which normally has a very long uptime.
Same here. BBEdit had hangs in 26.1. I thought 26.2 fixed it, yet this morning I saw it happen again.
ah gotcha! it was just slowing down the mac strangely. keystrokes were slow and sluggish and it took me a while to figure out what exactly caused it. it was mainly bartender then istat menus as far as i can tell.
i was more attached to bartender so that was hard to let go off but then it got me to dig deeper where i found they were not reliable in general given how they’d sold out to some shady company etc so i guess it was good to dump it.
Im still looking for a robust, simple menubar manager.
Or keep an old Mac around for archival needs, and a modern Mac with Tahoe for the future …
Yes, excellent plan … but with one change for the “Modern Mac”:
Keep the “Modern Mac” on Sequoia (with all security updates) for the time being and maybe “upgrade” to the 2nd point release of macOS 27 in late 2026 or early 2027.
And, as you suggest, keep the old Mac on Sequoia indefinitely.
There is nothing I need or want in Tahoe. The liquid glass interface is a big step backwards, I want no part of it. As pointed out by Dave Hamilton in a recent MacGeekGab podcast episode, there are unresolved bugs and slowdowns due to Tahoe in certain situations.
I don’t remember the particulars, but problems with 10.15 Catalina caused me to skip Catalina entirely. I happily went from Mojave straight to Big Sur in late 2020. Tahoe looks like another good skip candidate.
I haven’t had any problems with Tahoe either that are bugs. The only difficulty I have is working with the contacts app which they have totally ruined.
I went back to Sequoia the other day. I also like the aesthetics of the window manager better.
Ah, yes, “Snow Tahoe”.
It says a lot that the issues are by design rather than bugs. Hopefully with new leadership this will change in future OS. We expect better when paying for a premium product.
@sgtaylor5 @tomalmy @Derek -
Howard Oakley recently posted an article in his excellent blog The Eclectic Light Company (link: Last Week on My Mac: Tahoe 26.1 disappointments – The Eclectic Light Company) in which he describes in detail the problems with the much-criticized Liquid Glass feature of macOS Tahoe.
My sentiments exactly. Judging from the large number of comments following Mr. Oakley’s post, many others are unhappy with the appearance of windows, icons and menus in macOS Tahoe.
