macOS Catalina: 'More trouble than it's worth'?

Nah, as long as you don’t need 32bit apps and don’t mind getting forced to upgrade some apps to subscription model it’s all fine.

You get used to the extra step to give apps permission it’s fine.

Remember that negative news about Apple sells.

What things are happening when you use Catalina that make you conclude this? You’re not the only who has asserted this proposition, of course. But nobody seems to do much more than make the pronouncement.

I’d also like to know what’s the problem with security? The OS asking for access for apps the first time you use them? And BTW, being “paranoid” is exactly the right mindset when it comes to security.

I’m not sure what I get out of Catalina. But I know CleanMyMac 3 didn’t work with Catalina and I’m forced to try CleanMyMac C, which is a subscription base. I’m not happy.

No, there has always been a one-time purchase option, and upgrade option.

18 months ago I purchased the $44.98 upgrade (compared to the $34.95/yr subscription), three years after buying CleanMyMac 3 upgrade for $19.95 (after essentially getting it for free in a 2013 MacHeist bundle). It’s a good product, it’s well-supported, and the upgrade pricing has seemed fair to me. And when I made that 2018 upgrade to the current version I was also sent a non-expiring coupon-code for 30% off any of their other products. An unexpected surprise, a nice lagniappe.

I see their subscription pricing as a strong hint for people to consider their SetApp subscription product, as SetApp contains all their apps plus several dozen of the highest-quality Mac apps around, for a very affordable overall price. (If I didn’t already own most of the SetApp apps I’d want I’d jump at it.)

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Here is an example -

Every time I use the Devonthink 3 web clipper I am presented with this question:

It would be fine if I had to grant permission once and have it remember my approval of the web clipper. But that is not possible - I have to add this step every single time I use the web clipper.

Devonthink development has concluded that the problem is at one point when I installed Catalina, I answered “no” when presented with a security requesting offering Devonthink this permission. If I did not grant the permission then, there is no way to go back and change that decision short of doing an entire re-install of Catalina from scratch. Some of the new security settings cannot simply be changed by the user ad lib; they can only be changed when the query is presented to the user, and that may occur only once during the installation of the software.

More details here:

and especially here - a related security issue:

Not if “security” locks yourself out of your own home.

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Where am I locked out of?

DEVONthink web clipper is constantly locked out unless I give explicit permission every time - no way for me to change it.

Reminders script is permanently locked out of DEVONthink - script can only be run externally

That would be annoying to have to approve the web clipper every time you use it, especially if you use i multiple times a day. You are reporting this here as a Catalina problem. But when I read your post about the web clipper in the Devon forum that you linked, it looked like you have been having this problem since you were on Mojave (macOS 10.14.6). Or did I misread the post?

There are lots of DevonThink users here, I wonder if any of them have confronted this? I understand, for example that @OogieM is a faithful DT user, but I don’t know if she’s upgraded to Catalina. I also don’t use Chrome so I can’t speak to that.

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I agree, and I say this as someone who’s job is managing information security. Although it’s something of a paradox, “paranoid” thinking is generally counterproductive to effective security.

To keep this on topic: I was recently working on my MBP while out of the office and on something that would have benefitted greatly from having a second display. Swiping back and forth between spaces was fine, but not nearly as nice as having two displays. Then I remembered Sidecar, pulled out my iPad, and within 20 seconds (really) I had my second display, a Catalina win :slight_smile:

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Correct - the problem started with 10.14.6. I mention it as a Catalina problem because Catalina has required similar mandatory security permissions to an even greater extent than Mojave did. But perhaps the problem would be better stated as related to the recent increased requirement for apps to request security access which is an evolving an increasing trend over multiple macOS versions.

The bottom line is that there exist macOs security settings that can be changed only if the user is prompted to do so, and for some reason in some apps the user only gets one chance to grant that permission, with no way for even the developer of the app to allow the user a second chance.

I don’t have this issue with DT3 and Catalina - but it’s related to a problem I had with Tinderbox on Mojave. If you once deny the app permission to access Reminders, there isn’t any option to change your mind later.

You might be able to resolve this using Terminal and tccutil, as described at the bottom of the page here

That seems interesting - thanks. Not exactly sure yet which security setting to reset and thus the syntax of the needed tccutil reset - but I will look into that.

I know there were some problems with the web clipper script that seem to be fixed now. I don’t use the reminders script. I honestly can’t remember if I used the web clipper script or just added the clip to DT button into Safari but that is all I ever use and it works just fine on Catalina. I never use Chrome, sorry but web clipping is great under Catalina in Safari.

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The problem currently is with the Chrome extension for web clipping.

Absolute worst OS I have ever used. Downgraded for sanity’s sake. I really tried to make it work.

MATH PUNS!

On the subject at hand, I’ve had a laundry list of issues since upgrading to Catalina where prior I rarely ever had any trouble with macOS. Issues include the escape key intermittently not working on the touch bar, random issues with zsh and ruby (some of this was configuration issues that were more forgiving on High Sierra), but most egregiously is iCloud Drive sync completely breaking between my devices suddenly and without warning. I’ll definitely be looking at alternative sync solutions now.

The Windows Vista comparisons I do agree are overblown. It was a little ridiculous to get a million prompts when first upgrading, but from there it’s been nice to know when apps are requesting access to other apps or folders on disk.

The worst part is having no downgrade path and feeling like I’m now absolutely stuck with terribly buggy OS software with no way to install anything else! That being said, it mostly works, so I guess I’ll just have to live with it for now.

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I am trying to work out though whether some issues are due to the OS or the apps I am using? I find DEVONthink 3 is seamless as is Alfred which I loaded in place of Launchbar after getting really frustrated and not being able to put my finger exactly on why. I was constantly redoing things and not being able to find places I used to, ironically I find Alfred already a lot more congenial.

This is a bit of a challenge how do other folk go about doing this? Is there a simple method? I doubt it. @tjluoma or @JohnAtl I am looking at you. :face_with_raised_eyebrow: :relieved:

Yeah @rkaplan and @iPersuade I had issues with the DEVONthink 3 clipper. DEVONthink 3 guys say it is a OS issue. You can try, it worked for me, well a similar problem, to restart in Safe Mode and click permissions and then restart normally and don’t toggle extension permissions in Safari. I find Safari fine. I have Chrome loaded but I only use it sparingly.