I advise everyone to turn off “automatically keep software up to date” and always maintain the previous well tested software in its own volume or boot drive so you can revert back to safety without oain!
Asher
So strange. I guess I am lucky. I have never had an issue with Sonoma. I have been running it since it came out back in Sept 2023. My current version is Sonoma 14.5 which I would have installed back in May of this year. I am one of those guys who installs updates as soon as they come out and done that for years on both my computers and my mobile devices - never an issue. I have never use Antivirus software on my Macs, feeling it isn’t necessary. So far so good.
One reason that I never get too worried about things like that though, is because 20 or more years ago I made a decision to never use the computers built in hard drive for any files other than program files. All work files are stored and edited from external drives. I learned that lesson after having a main hard drive fail and losing programs that I had paid for plus all of my work files.
Nowadays, I don’t worry about losing programs I have paid for as things have changed so much from the days when I went to a computer store or Staples and paid $700 for Photoshop and hundreds of dollars for other programs. Everything I have purchased is online and I can access fresh downloads at any time. Plus my complete Mac hard drive is fully backed up on iCloud. I just get another computer of iPad and sign into my Apple account and I am back in business. My work files are all external hard drives so good to go.
So sorry to hear you are having those concerns and issues Asher. Your suggestion of having a backup boot drive is a good one I am sure. I have never made one. I do have to admit that I use very basis gear (computers) though so maybe higher spec’d Mac’s with more features are seeing more problems.
I have been in the process of moving around hundreds of thousands of image files from, to and between multiple large 14 and 16 TB hard drives from older 4 TB back up drives, over the last few weeks - without an issue or loss of any files. Then again, worse case scenario for me is that I have absolutely every photo and video file in my possession backed up to BackBlaze with new files being added on every day. If I lose everything, BackBlaze will courier me a hard drive with everything to restore or rebuild my library. I don’t currently have any usb-c hubs but I do have a powered 10 port standard usb hub that powers all of my external hard drives and memory card readers etc. It has worked flawlessly under ever macOS I have used so far.
I did notice that the article you posted is related to Sonoma 14.4 and is dated back in March of this year. I’m sure most of the issues have been sorted out with updates that Apple constantly put out to resolve issues. You may want to give Sonoma 14.5 a try. I love many of the subtle functionality and improvements that Apple puts into each new version.
