macOS: Should I upgrade on Day 1?

Got this from my IT department yesterday. Big Sur is now available for my corporate MBP. Should I upgrade on Day 1?

well since it was released a year ago, I would :joy:

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As mentioned, Big Sur is last year’s release. Monterey is this year’s macOS release.

I would say yes with the caveat that you should make sure any software you use is compatible. As I recall, there wasn’t a big compatibility change between Catalina and Big Sur (assuming that’s what you were on) and Big Sur ended up being way more stable than Catalina ever was. If you’re using all the usual suspects of software, it should be fine to upgrade, but if you have some internal tools, you may want to speak with the teams that maintain those tools to see if anything will be weird after the upgrade.

If you were on something older than Catalina, definitely check to see if you’re still using any 32-bit software. That will crash and burn in Big Sur.

Hope this helps.

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Thanks, guys! I’m on Catalina, so I got rid of all 32-bit SW. And since I’m running Big Sur on both my personal Mac and my server, I’m very familiar with it. Given how much trouble if I have with it (both are M1, though), I may hold out.
My MBP is more than 5 years old and I’m secretly holding out for an Apple Silicon-based MBP. But even if they launch one in October, it will take us quite some time to get one - maybe late next year, assuming my MBP doesn’t die before then…

What kind of trouble are you having?

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Jimmy Cricket, I didn’t even catch that! LOL!!. My excuse is that I just awoke from a nap.

I have been running Big Sur for a few months now, no issues. 3 year old MBP.

Are you on the latest version of macOS Big Sur?

No problems whatsoever…

Here’s what I wrote in another thread two months ago:
Any good Mac Power User worth his/her salt running Big Sur on an M1 mini knows:

  • when your M1 mini reboots and all your privacy settings are gone again, just smile and reboot again to get them back
  • when your M1 mini cannot run for more than 3 days without a reboot, it gives you extra practice time to hone your rebooting skills.
  • when your favorite folders that you dragged and rearranged in the Finder sidebar are all gone, simply drag them there again and again. Just takes a few minutes each time. Easy peasy!
  • when you are old school and plug in your SD card into an SD card reader (Who still does that?) and you select it from the Locations section in the Finder side bar and 5 minutes later, it is gone, just check the network section of your Mac and you’ll find it there. And never again in the Locations section. After all, you did know that an SD card is a network device, right?
  • when you get up from your chair with your AirPods Pro in your ears and you plan on leaving the room, take the AirPods out and leave them on the desk. They are not supposed to work in other rooms, and them having worked throughout most of the house on Catalina was just an accident. If you leave the room with them, Apple just makes it a bit harder each time to reconnect so eventually you have to reboot.
  • when you plug in your iPad Pro to move files from your Mac to it, dragging them has now been designed to keep you more entertained by often failing. Maybe you should use Airdrop instead? Hey, we all prefer to use WiFi in our Ethernet-networked homes anyway, right?
  • when your M1 mini crashes and after rebooting lets every device know that another Mac connected using your Apple ID, it’s just Apple’s way to keep said devices entertained.

Today I’m on Big Sour (pun intended) 11.6 - none of these issues are resolved. Furthermore, it changes my desktop background and screen saver randomly. No rhyme, no reason.

Worst experience ever on a mac, yet I love the M1 mini, since it’s so fast…

Yikes! I would have bought an M1 Mac mini if it had been in stock. The M1 MacBook Air I got instead makes me smile every day.

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Not sure it’s the mini’s fault. Im guessing that mine is not a normal experience, so my hunch is that the migration assistant fouled up when I brought stuff over.

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Ah - I seem to be experiencing similar things. I assumed it was Apple Silicon rather than Big Sur - but that assumption wasn’t based on much. I don’t have another recent enough Mac to compare anything with.

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It’s still ongoing and the longer I run it after a boot, the more symptoms I’m getting. Usually, it becomes unbearable on Day 5 or so. I read about (unconfirmed by Apple) memory leaks, which would not surprise me and would explain some of the stuff that is going on…

Given this is Apple, the fix will certainly be to upgrade to Monterrey - I doubt they would backport memory leak fixes to Big Sur. My current plan is upgrade to Monterrey during the holidays, then to do a full erase, restore data from backup and make all apps earn their right to be on my SSD again…