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macOS Catalina (10.15) Compatibility


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On 2/13/2020 at 9:56 PM, P Bartoli said:

What about VW 2018 ? Does it work with Catalina ?

 

No. It would require major adaptions to be compatible with Catalina and Vectorworks 2018 is outside the support period. 

 

Vectorworks Inc provides support for the current and prior version only. This is an industry norm and has always been the case for Vectorworks. The reason prior versions of Vectorworks remained functional for more years than they received updates for, was purely due to good fortune. Apple made major changes in both macOS Mojave and Catalina that required many adjustments for existing software to remain compatible. As Vectorworks 2018 is outside the support period it won't receive the adaptions required to make it work in current operating systems. 

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Quote

 

If Vectorworks behaves poorly after upgrading your operating system …… then reinstall Vectorworks. …… Search the Vectorworks Help for more info on each of the concepts mentioned here. 

 

If … your operating system upgrade went awry. In which case I'd call Apple for support. 

 

 

Honestly, I think this is a huge cop-out and an abdication of responsibility to the customer. I pay for VW service select every year and dutifully install increasingly buggy upgrades and lose time and work from continual bombs. This is on several computers with everything from old messy drives to brand new top of the line clean computer installs… and the behaviour of VW is the same. 

 

While I know that Apple is to blame for a lot of the problems, I'm not paying them for system upgrades, but I am paying VW for service select. Any yet I have to search VW Help for advice which is normally 'nobody else is experiencing this, or 'your computer config is unusual' or 'wait for the next bug fix release.'

 

The alternative is to call a live human at Apple (who I have not paid) for a chat about the problems with a third party app?

 

2018 was pretty solid. Sure there were feature limitations which largely still exist in 2020 but it did run reliably. 

 

•• Only two crashes yesterday and one was VW leaving the room while it was in the background. Probably only 15 minutes lost reconstructing files from backups.

 

D

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@DMcD, I've looked over your many posts regarding Vectorworks compatibility and performance with Mojave and Catalina and it looks very much like you are experiencing abnormal and untypical performance. Meaning, unless the cause turns out to be a common condition that can't be readily changed (i.e. insufficiently supported hardware or certain drivers), you can expect to achieve a timely resolution. 

 

To do so, please contact (or prompt, or get back to) the tech support provider for your region about this so they can either establish a path to resolution or escalate to Vectorworks software engineers. You also have the option of submitting a bug report directly to engineering. Use the 'Bug Submit' link at the bottom of this page to do so. 

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>>please contact (or prompt, or get back to) the tech support provider for your region about this so they can either establish a path to resolution or escalate to Vectorworks software engineers. You also have the option of submitting a bug report directly to engineering. Use the 'Bug Submit' link at the bottom of this page to do so. 

 

Done all that and the replies were… 'nobody else is experiencing this, or 'your computer config is unusual' or 'wait for the next bug fix release.' And also, on submitting a complete working bomb and procedure with a file,  "that bug is really obscure, don't expect a fix any time soon.'

 

I have been religious about submitting well documented bug reports over the years and on every new release looked to see if my bugs were squashed and the answer is overwhelmingly no.

 

This thread is about Catalina compatibility. VW 2020 is compatible with Catalina under some circumstances but bombs a lot for me, often many times a day. What else can I say?

 

D

 

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 3/10/2020 at 3:54 AM, shorter said:

Does this happen from the outset ie when creating a brand new file and copying a group?

 

is the view rotated when you copy?

 

is the data far from absolute 0,0?

 

does the file contain scaled symbols?

 

are you using PS?

 

are you using design layer viewports?

 

does the file contain legacy DWG import data eg line styles, hatches, symbols?

 

how large is the file or does it not matter?

 

which version was the file originally created in and has it been converted to 2020? Check by opening a copy of the file using TextEdit.

DMcD describes exactly the same problems I'm having with VWx 2020 on loaded i9 MacBook 16" and i9 iMac, both w/32GB Ram and upgraded cards running two monitors.... I have crashes every hour or so, my autobackup is set for 7min so I don't lose too much work.

From the list above, I observe crashes with:

- rotated plan (quite a bit)

- data far from absolute 0,0 (I'm working on a large urban design project with many collaborators)

- scaled symbols (coming from other consultants)

 

My file is typically under 250Mb, which shouldn't be a problem for the RAM and VRAM to handle, I'd think. But even saving and reverting to saved doesn't seem to help for long. 

I clean all caches, do a safe boot and then reboot again after every crash or two, this seems to make no difference, neither does purging, compressing images, etc... The file has been made (and remade a few times through both: layer import reference and/or copy and paste) entirely in 2020 version. 

 

We also run an i9 PC with Nvidia 2080, I haven't tried the file on it yet, should I? Any help would be precious as I'm fighting against a deadline...

 

Independently, I seem to have some snapping problems (they were there since MC times, but seemed to have been largely addressed before), but I assume it must be the issue of re-setting the key preferences again....

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On 3/18/2020 at 7:06 PM, DMcD said:

 

2018 was pretty solid. Sure there were feature limitations which largely still exist in 2020 but it did run reliably. 

 

•• Only two crashes yesterday and one was VW leaving the room while it was in the background. Probably only 15 minutes lost reconstructing files from backups.

 

D

Congrats on only 2 crashes! 

I just had another darn crash, so I copied the automatically generated report and I'm posting it here. 

I opened an older version of my file (1 week old) and wanted to test the plan shadows on it. Crashed as soon as I hit OK on class settings... the file is barely over 50Mb... 

I'm switching to PC tomorrow (everyone is at home due to the bloody virus, so I can use any one of my machines... lucky? not so sure in these circumstances...)

Automatic crash report.rtf

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It looks like you ran out of virtual memory. I didn't spend much time on the crash dump, but memory is the problem. I could be physical or virtual, but the exception happened when trying to expand virtual memory beyond the allocated memory. 

 

How much memory do you have on your system and in your GPU?

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7 hours ago, RonMan said:

It looks like you ran out of virtual memory. I didn't spend much time on the crash dump, but memory is the problem. I could be physical or virtual, but the exception happened when trying to expand virtual memory beyond the allocated memory. 

 

How much memory do you have on your system and in your GPU?

Thank you, RonMan!

That's a thought! I'll go tweaking! I'll increase the limit on virtual memory, but I wonder how it could run out of memory, while I have 32Gb, optimize it regularly and never use more than 75% of it... It was closer to 50% while I worked on this file... 

 

I'll also try to replace imported symbols, move the origin (I'll make a new drawing and just keep a loci on the current origin, to return to it before exporting - not sure how this will work)... I'm not very optimistic, I suspect the fix will have to come from Apple and VWx... but let's keep trying 🙂

 

GPU is Radeon Pro 580X 8Gb ... there must be a way to check how it's working, I can do it on PC...

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1 hour ago, tdebicki said:

Thank you, RonMan!

That's a thought! I'll go tweaking! I'll increase the limit on virtual memory, but I wonder how it could run out of memory, while I have 32Gb, optimize it regularly and never use more than 75% of it... It was closer to 50% while I worked on this file... 

 

I'll also try to replace imported symbols, move the origin (I'll make a new drawing and just keep a loci on the current origin, to return to it before exporting - not sure how this will work)... I'm not very optimistic, I suspect the fix will have to come from Apple and VWx... but let's keep trying 🙂

 

GPU is Radeon Pro 580X 8Gb ... there must be a way to check how it's working, I can do it on PC...

 

A corrupt file can cause this problem too. In VW2008(?)) it happened so often we published methods to recover your file to stop the crashing. I have not seen the problem in years, but perhaps your file has a problem. Import it into a blank file and see if that helps. 

 

Also, all the mobile GPUs can have problems when they get short on memory, for any reason. Istat Menus is the tool I use to check on my GPU. I purchased an eGPU and added an AMD Radeon Pro WX 7100. It is FAST, and has made my system much more stable for both VW and other graphic stuff I do. (I am also a photographer)

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Well here we go...

I took the plunge six months after the official release of Catalina and having failed to renew the Service Select.  

 

I have downloaded Catalina and have been running VW 2019 with good success.  It is as stable as it was under Mojave six months into that update (the first three months of Mojave/VW2019 were a nightmare).  

 

As others have said, wait six months after each Apple OS and Vectorworks annual update and you have far less chance of losing productive time while the two catch up with each other and iron out incompatibilities.

Edited by SVA Architects
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  • 3 weeks later...
On 4/14/2020 at 10:31 AM, SVA Architects said:

Well here we go...

I took the plunge six months after the official release of Catalina and having failed to renew the Service Select.  

 

I have downloaded Catalina and have been running VW 2019 with good success.  It is as stable as it was under Mojave six months into that update (the first three months of Mojave/VW2019 were a nightmare).  

 

As others have said, wait six months after each Apple OS and Vectorworks annual update and you have far less chance of losing productive time while the two catch up with each other and iron out incompatibilities.

Hows it going the past few weeks? Still stable?

 

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 5/21/2020 at 1:10 AM, A McDonell said:

Im thinking about upgrading to Catalina with VW2020. Am i crazy?

 

Not necessarily.  All is fine now.  

I was driven crazy when first using Mojave with VW 2019 but have recovered after a year of rest and rehab.  

Catalina is now OK also with 2019 so I assume 2020 is too.  

 

I cancelled Service Select after losing so many months of productive work last year and now cannot justify spending £1100 for the 'upgrade' to 2020.  I don't mind paying for additional features but object to paying annually for unfinished compatibility.  There are long debates on this last issue (is it Apple's fault or developers, timing of OS release vs VW releases etc)  so please don't anyone restart that one.

Edited by SVA Architects
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i waited six month after the release of Catalina / VW2020 upgrading my computer and VW. Since last march I upgraded both, the OS and VW. What a disaster. I have countless crashes and despite several sessions with Designexpress (local support in NL, very friendly and usually also helpful) nothing really solved the problem. I'm VW and MiniCad user since more than 25 years. Just awful. I see that the warning about comparability is still not removed from the VW upgrade site. Why not just withdraw the complete VW 2020 version for MacOs?    My system:

 

Modelnaam: iMac

  Modelaanduiding: iMac19,1

  Processornaam: 8-Core Intel Core i9

  Processorsnelheid: 3,6 GHz

  Aantal processors: 1

  Totale aantal cores: 8

  L2-cache (per core): 256 KB

  L3-cache: 16 MB

  Hyperthreading-technologie: Ingeschakeld

  Geheugen: 40 GB

Edited by Matthias Veen
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OK. Back to Troubleshooting 101.

 

1. Reset Vectorworks Preferences.  Go to Vectorworks Preferences and click the Reset button in the bottom left corner. This will return to factory defaults and you will have to reset to your liking.

2. Rename the Vectorworks User Folder and Restart VW.  Your Home Folder:Library:Application Support:Vectorworks:2020 Rename that folder to 2020-Old or something. (Library is hidden by default. Go to the Go menu and hold down the Option key to get there) Restart VW. If the problem goes away it is a problem in your User folder. You can either just use the newly created one or you can copy items from the old one testing after every batch (folder) to try and find where the problem is.

3. Reinstall VW.

4. Create a new User Account and try and run VW from there. If it works there is a problem in your user somewhere.

 

Good Luck.

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"Good luck" is about right. Not a professional standard though.

 

Rather than having to reset everything, I bought a new Mac Pro running Catalina, new monitors etc and did a new, clean install of VW 2020. Isn't this. troubleshooting 100?

 

Currently running with a backup every 10 actions and the lowest, worst graphics settings, I regularly get crashes (well, regularly within each hour) and lost time and work in backups.  It's a miserable state of affairs. 

 

What's worse is that with SP3 now, VW 2021 is just around the corner. 

 

I feel that it's time some software companies concentrated on stability rather than new features and at some time, said sorry to their users and gave a year or two free until the software was (at least in this case) at professional level.


D

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