If using Captivate on a MAC, WAIT before updating to Catalina

[RodWard]

Apple released MAC OS Catalina a few days ago.

Adobe now has a support page advising MAC users that there are issues with MAC OS Catalina for any of their 32 bit apps, as well as some of their 64 bit apps.  Captivate 32 bit versions happen to be among the apps that will not work with Catalina.  Some Captivate 64 bit versions may also be affected. 

Check the details here:

https://helpx.adobe.com/x-productkb/global/fix-macos-64-bit-compatibility-errors.html

Bottom line is that if you are a MAC user and you NEED Captivate for your daily work, DO NOT dive in an install Catalina until Adobe has confirmed that it will work.  

Watch the Captivate Community Forum.  It's usual practice for many MAC users to install any update released in the mistaken assumption that everything will work as before.  This means there are usually plenty of OTHER MAC users that will be posting about this issue and you can watch to see whether or not it is safe to update your own system yet.

[CDubber]

I wish Adobe would push this type of information out to its users rather than simply posting it on a web page or forum that 99% of us won't see until it's too late.

Also, MAC (acronym) stands for Media Access Control (ie "What's your MAC address?"), whereas Mac (proper noun) is simply short for Macintosh and has basically become the standard reference. Some nits must be picked. 😉

[RodWard]

"Some nits must be picked." OK.  Then my pet nit that desperately needs picking would be for MAC Mac users to simply wait a sensible amount of time BEFORE diving in to install every single new Apple OS update.  If you just WAIT a week or two, and watch the forums to see if they light up with complaints from other Mac users, then you won't likely be affected.

Apple doesn't waste much effort trying to work with the rest of the software world to ensure the changes to its OS won't cause issues.  They just release what they want and everybody else has to scramble.  Even if Adobe DOES happen to get favoured with an early release version of a new OS, it can take weeks of development and testing before they can release a patch to combat some detrimental change.  And that still leaves the possibility that Apple's latest offering will have several serious bugs of its own that will require them to issue their own patches in quick succession, which also muddies the waters.  (My iPad OS 13 is already on it's third update and it's only been released two weeks.)

Funny how Mac users almost never blame Apple for anything. But it's actually very easy to protect yourself from this kind of issue with their software.  Don't jump into any new release....just wait a week or so and look before you leap.

[CDubber]

Not sure why this would be Apple's fault. The Catalina betas have been out for months now and available to everyone, including Adobe. Most other third-party developers I've seen have had Catalina-ready versions of their software available on Day 1. Microsoft is no different in this regard - third-party developers must adjust to new versions of Windows and not the other way around. Geez, Macs have been running high-res ("Retina") displays for years now and the Captivate team still hasn't figured out how to make Captivate run faster than molasses without having to launch the app in low-resolution mode.

Yes, you are correct, best practice for the end user would be to wait a week or two before installing major OS updates, especially in a professional production environment. Also, best practice for third-party developers would be to push alerts out to its users if their software wasn't quite ready on the date of a major OS update. There's nothing wrong with requesting that Adobe be more communicative with its users. We all know this has especially been an issue on the Adobe-but-not-really-Adobe Captivate side of the house (globe).

[RodWard]

It's quite possible that the Adobe Captivate team DID start working on any compatibility issues when they saw BETA versions of the Apple OS.  However, a BETA version can still change quite a lot before the RC (release candidate) versions that will eventually culminate in the version that actually DOES get released.  Beta versions are not to be trusted.

Having worked in software companies for a number of years as a Technical Writer on HELP systems I can tell you that trying to guess what features may or may not exist in the final release is just like trying to change a wheel on a moving car.

I agree that Adobe could do a better job of supporting its end users.  It should NOT have been necessary for a mere user like myself to have posted this warning to the community.

[Senscia]

Well feel free to continue with the blamescaping Rod; it doesn't do us the user community dropped in the mess any good at all. Rollback instructions would be pretty useful right now. And don't get me wrong, many of us have a perpetual dislike of what Apple does too. We don't have time to spend countless hours planning upgrades. We want to trust our software companies that they do this for us, so once something is in the wild, we can be assured it's just going to work. Anything less looks like you are screwing us over or are contemptuous. Do I really have to wait a month or two before a patch will become available if I am unabkle to rollback?!?

[RodWard]

Your first mistake was to do exactly what you just said: "We trust software companies..."  If you look at the top of this thread you will see that I am the person who originally warned all Apple OS users NOT to update to Catalina until there is a version of Captivate proven to work with it.   Software companies (Apple, Microsoft, Adobe, whoever) are in this business primarily to make money, not primarily to help or serve you.

As a Windows user I didn't really NEED to do spend time warning Apple users.  But I did it to help this community.  That was my mistake because since then I have had little but negative comments from Apple users whenever I pointed out they should have waited rather than trusting that everything would just work because they're on an Mac. But since I continue to get flack from Mac OS users rest assured I won't be wasting time doing them similar favours in future.

I find it baffling how every time there is a new OS update (Windows or Apple) we see the same 'lemming-like' behaviour.  Experienced users know it's a bad idea to rush in to install any major OS update without considering the risks to productivity when your main earning app goes belly up. However, when the inevitable issues surface, rather than reprove themselves for their own foolishness the response is always to blame everyone else, including those that tried to warn them of the dangers.

And the answer to your final question is: YES.  If you are unable to roll back to a previous OS, then you WILL need to way for Adobe to release a Captivate update to work with Catalina.  As far as providing information about how to roll back from Catalina, there's this really cool website called GOOGLE that I found.  It took me about five seconds on it to find a whole bunch of websites that explain what to do.

[Senscia]

You raise many valid points here Rod and I'm amused at how you put them. Updates are a tricky thing to get right. For those of us who understand InfoSec issues, we appreciate there is a real sense of urgency in getting updates applied, because they close up significant vulnerabilities for our IT environment to be exploited. We have a contractual obligation to care about cyber security. This risk is greater than the one where apps stop functioning and we lose productivity.

Other people are more comfortable with the possibility of cyber criminals reaching deep into their private locations 😉  [OK, many people assume that ignorance is an actual countermeasure!].

Thanks for your valiant efforts on other people's behalf.