Ventura has made Bridge largely unusable

[thomaso377944]

I understand there is a deluge of people reporting this problem, which is really part of a larger problem with the Ventura update.  Apple wants to further reduce support for NTFS-based architecture, and so virtually everyone using an external drive which comes with an NTFS-for-MAC program has had their workflow very brutally interrupted.  This will of course include virtually all photographers, whose massive archives will typically not fit on their Mac hard drive.

My previous NTFS-for-mac softeware became completely nonfunctional upon upgrading the OS, and I was no longer able to write to external drives, leading to a collapse of my itunes, my ability to torrent, and a realy appalling slowness in even reading data on externals. 

I've since been forced to purchase a new NTFS-for-Mac program (I'm currently using Tuxera), which somewhat addresses the issue, but my computers ability to read the data on externals is radically slower.  Using Bridge to open a folder of images from only one single shoot can take 3-5 minutes or more to load.  Simply directing bridge to my photo drive leads to a lag of 10-15 minutes before it even shows me the folder structure of the drive.

Obviosuly this is completely unacceptable.  I called Mac tech support and they advise me that I've done all that can be done, and that as this is part of a larger corporate decision everything is working as intended.  He suggested replacing my 5 10TB external drives with new external drives formatted solely for mac, which would cost more than a brand new imac.  I'm not even sure if this will restore Bridge functionality.

Has anyone found any workarounds or has Ventura simply killed Bridge forever?  

[Lumigraphics]

Apple has never supported NTFS and recommends against using it. Format your drives as APFS, HFS Extended, or if necessary, exFAT.

And if you want to gripe, Microsoft doesn't support ANY Mac formatted drives where macOS can read and write FAT32, exFAT, and read NTFS.

You can reformat drives for free using Disk Utility which Apple conveniently includes with every computer.

[thomaso377944]

This is not simply petty "griping" and "Microsoft is worse" is not an appropriate reponse.  Apple very cavalierly destroyed my ability to work in the manner I have been working for a decade without really giving me any heads up at all.  The NTSF format has been functional on macs with a huge array of NTFS-for-mac programs, which are basically omnipresent and come bundled with all major externals.  If they wanted to radically restrict ability to use the vast majority of external drives overnight, they should have prominently featured a very big warning about this with the OS update information, and Adobe should have messaged all of its Bridge and lightroom subscribers to warn them about the danger of installing an OS which would abruptly end their normal ability to work.

[Lumigraphics]

No, this is not correct. While third-party addon programs have been available for years, Apple has not changed its support for NTFS. They are not omnipresent and complaining because an unsupported workflow breaks because utility software isn't compatible doesn't make this Apple's or Adobe's problem.

Adobe has been upfront about issues with Ventura. This is not "normal" and no, nobody should message all customers about something that has never been supported.

[thomaso377944]

Virtually all readily available externals in virtually all major outlets are packaged as dual format, but come in NTFS format bundled with NTFS for mac.  

A basic element of customer service involves understanding what customers actually do and how they actually operate, even if those things are not consistent with the corporations desired best practices.  

Had they simply announced their intention to drop a nuclear bomb on people using externals in a "discouraged" manner, they might have given many users an opportunty to attempt work-arounds.  Trying to transfer even one photo in the post-Ventura environment to a drive formatted in a manner that Apple Corporate prefers can now take 5-10 minutes.  I have decades of such images to transfer.  Meanwhile, I am out of work for the foreseeable future ebcause of this corporate decision.

[Lumigraphics]

This is not true either, NTFS reader software is commercial (Paragon sells a license for $40) and I've never seen it bundled with a new drive. And reformatting just takes a few seconds. I have seven external drives plugged into my production Mac and they all work great.

[thomaso377944]

Apparently you've never heard of Seagate, the world's largest manufacturer of external drives, which are all bundled with Paragon NTFS.  Seagate is the only external drive manufacturer offered in most major stores, and they all come with NTFS for Mac. But hey, I'm not the "community expert", I'm just the guy who's bought about 20 of them over the last 5 years and used the free Paragon NTFS-for-Mac software that comes with them all.  

As for the "reformatting just takes a few seconds" quip, you've either got a lot of empty external drives or you've clearly never tried to transfer data from an NTFS-formatted drive to an APFS drive.  It's a labyrinthine and incredibly time consuming process, requiring multiple backups, and in my case it's one which involves more than 40TB of data.  To my knowledge, there is no way to convert NTFS formatted data directly to APFS, so typically you have to convert NTFS data piece by piece to HFS+, which can then be converted to APFS.  And that's only in the optimal scenario when everything is going smoothly; more typically, options to convert to APFS are greyed out for various reasons, such as that the drive is formatted with MBR rather than GPT, which is why many people who migrated from PC to Mac have opted to avoid going through this nightmarish conversion process and will be as horrified as I am by the whimsical decision of Apple to slaughter my workflow on the altar of the Apple v Microsoft corporate spat.

[Lumigraphics]

You are not a victim here. You made a bad choice of how to set your system up. And I own a pile of drives myself and no, they don't come standard with Paragon software.

Millions of people are using CC software to make a living, including me. I've told you the solution. You can keep ranting or you can fix the problem. Sorry but I have no desire to waste more time on this.

[thomaso377944]

If denouncing me for my "bad choices" like some professional heretic smiter is telling me the solution, then yes, you've been super helpful.

A solution would provide useful information on how to actually accomplish the reformatting of irreplacable data from multiple 10TB externals, a matter that in my decade on Macs has never been a simple or straightforward feat, despite your smug insistance that it "just takes a few seconds".  Obviously you know nothing about what that actually entails, so maybe you should just stop rushing to defend the sacred honor of the holy apple and just hear what is being said - that apple has created a very massive problem with no clear or simple workaround for a lot of users - instead of mocking, scolding and dismissing this as "griping", "complaining" and "ranting".  Since you have no understanding of the scope of this problem, perhaps you should make space for people who might actually be able to provide some input that is useful?