Originally published at: https://tidbits.com/2019/10/07/macos-10-15-catalina-ships-upgrade-with-caution/
Apple has released macOS 10.15 Catalina, matching the date on which Europeans first arrived on the island of Catalina in the year 1542. We advise delaying upgrades to Macs you rely on, or at least upgrading cautiously.
First time in ages I am considering skipping this one altogether.
Trying to remember what the selling points are over Mojave.
It’s WAY too early (it’s been out for hours, not months) to even talk about skipping it entirely. 
As I say in the article, upgrading is a “when” question, not an “if” question.
Catalina has some fabulous features too. Voice Control is impressive, and I think we’ll see some interesting Catalyst apps coming over from iOS.
Upgraded as soon as it was available this morning. Seems to be fine so far. The things that I knew wouldn’t work don’t work. Everything else seems fine. All my daily use apps are working. That said I’m not running a business on this Mac and could live off my iPad for a while if I had to.
Anyway, fingers crossed.
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Perhaps, one should wait until November 24, the date in 1602 when the island was rediscovered and renamed from San Salvador to Santa Catalina.
Catalina seems to be causing Homesharing issues for Apple TV users:
The demise of iTunes is apparently causing several other problems, according to Macrumours posts.
As I have stated previously, I have no intention of replacing Mojave and these latest issues reinforce that decision.
I’m awaiting Hazel compatibility with Catalina.
“The demise of iTunes . . .”
Er, uh, wut.
Homesharing is managed by iTunes in Mojave but, I understand, is separated from the media apps (that replace iTunes) in Catalina. Users are reporting problems with the Catalina version.
Well my Mac is such a Heath Robinson affair, I have to wait a good while as it is for all the various apps and service to update.
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So did anyone else’s Mojave turn on auto updating for them? Luckily it posted a notification (which is one of the numerous that for some reason doesn’t show up in Notification center so I can’t get the exact wording or a screenshot) and I was sitting at my computer or I probably would have woken up to a machine running Catalina.
Did anyone else notice the horizon line in Catalina doesn’t line up either side of the island?
I participated in the beta program and, yes, there were a number of problems but they were eventually fixed with the updates. However, when Catalina was officially released, my system said that I was up-to-date, which wasn’t true. Finally, I restarted in Recovery mode and Catalina installed as expected.
Yesterday afternoon it took several hours before the “upgrade” of my mid-2015 iMac (with its spinning platter system disk) reached the “Setting Up Your Mac” screen. Then I waited. And waited. After 2 hours, I was still stuck on that screen, so I finally gave up, crashed out of the install and rebooted. It booted to a progress gauge that was about 85% filled. Then, after a few minutes, I was logging in to Catalina, having never seen the “Setting Up Your Mac” screen again. Last evening I learned my brother had exactly the same stuck on the Setting Up screen problem, and he, too, had to do the same thing I did. I wonder if Apple ever tests their installers on actual user systems. Status: pissed off and stressed out. Thanks, Apple!
I had similar problems with the beta’s. After each install, I run Disk Utility on the internal SSD and my external HDDs. Those usually go well, but the external that houses Time Machine can take several hours to run. I have no idea why it should take so long unless it has something to do with the fact that it is encrypted.
The release notes indicated only minor changes from last beta/GM to what was released and it was not necessary to update. Also suggested refreshing Software Update pane to see the update if wanting to install the release.
While I delay installing Catalina, I wonder how to stop the daily APP UGRADE notifications to “do it now, or wait until tomorrow”
This is apparently a common problem. Three people on another list I’m on reported it, and this MacRumors thread has a number of sufferers as well.
There are suggestions for turning of the incessant upgrade notification here: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/250711218?page=1
Being on Apple Discussions I expect it will soon be removed by moderators so here is the gist of it:
From Terminal:
sudo softwareupdate --ignore "macOS Catalina"
when you are ready to install it (if
sudo softwareupdate --reset-ignored
This will not clear the red counter in the Sys Prefs icon in the Dock but will stop notifications.
It is also suggested that you go part-way through the Catalina upgrade process and halt it once the Install macOS Catalina.app file is in the Applications folder. Instead of that I just tried renaming the Mojave installer but that has not achieved anything. In any case both methods waste 8GB of storage.
Yes, for anyone writing Terminal commands in Discourse, please format them as code text using the </> button on the composer toolbar or by prefixing them with four spaces or by enclosing them in tick marks. I’ve updated the previous post to reduce confusion.