Q: El Capitan is rubbish

See: OS X El Capitan: Revert to a previous OS X version

I have always trusted Apple upgrades. This time El Capitan is a big disappointment. My Mac Book Air 11'' from 2013 crashes 3 - 4 times in each session, while before it had never crashed. I thought the cause is at Firefox, but Safari is not any better, it crashes as well. El Capitan often hangs keeping me waiting for minutes at any more complex task like for example three are applications open. The colorful wheel will turn for several long minutes and if I do not reboot the system, it  will eventually restart my machine. It may not be good for my SSD drive.

When watching video on a browser, also Safari, I often have a part of the screen garbled, sometimes when viewing video on a small screen a strange dancing distortion spears in other part of the screen and remains there flickering, also after I have stopped viewing video or browsing. It will eventually disappear when I restart my laptop.

All that reminds me of the Windows Vista system created in 2007.

90% of the people who come here complaining about one thing or another related to El Capitan get their problem resolved by removing out-of-date, bloated, crapware they don't need on their systems.  They also see improvement when they update applications/drivers that they've neglected to update in who knows how long.  20 million people have downloaded and installed El Capitan — people with issues are a small minority of that number. 

piotrinam wrote:

 

I have always trusted Apple upgrades. This time El Capitan is a big disappointment. My Mac Book Air 11'' from 2013 crashes 3 - 4 times in each session, while before it had never crashed. I thought the cause is at Firefox, but Safari is not any better, it crashes as well. El Capitan often hangs keeping me waiting for minutes at any more complex task like for example three are applications open. The colorful wheel will turn for several long minutes and if I do not reboot the system, it  will eventually restart my machine. It may not be good for my SSD drive.

 

When watching video on a browser, also Safari, I often have a part of the screen garbled, sometimes when viewing video on a small screen a strange dancing distortion spears in other part of the screen and remains there flickering, also after I have stopped viewing video or browsing. It will eventually disappear when I restart my laptop.

 

All that reminds me of the Windows Vista system created in 2007.

Start your own new thread.

Post the kernel panic reports

<http://support.apple.com/kb/ht2546>

<https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201753>

Post the output from EtreCheck in reply after the kernel panic reports

<https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-6174>

Look at your Applications -> Utilities -> Console to see if you have frequently repeating log entries.  You are most interested in a process starting, dying, starting, dying, starting, ...

I know that eventually I can make my system work, my printers print, have my own setup rebuild. I am complaining about the time it costs. Eventually you were also able to make Windows 95 work. A friend has Mac Book Air 13" one year old. He tries to reassure me - his computer does not work well under El Capitan either, it also often hangs and stops.

As for now I am still using Firefox but I removed all plugs, all extensions, removed Skype, removed some smaller applications, agreed to provide Apple with info from my computer.

I am not a computer freak. This is an annoying experience. Macs are top product, let it be not only through their design.

I would echo the previous suggestion. Please start your own thread. That means stop posting in this one.

piotrinam wrote:

I know that eventually I can make my system work, my printers print, have my own setup rebuild. I am complaining about the time it costs. Eventually you were also able to make Windows 95 work. A friend has Mac Book Air 13" one year old. He tries to reassure me - his computer does not work well under El Capitan either, it also often hangs and stops.

 

As for now I am still using Firefox but I removed all plugs, all extensions, removed Skype, removed some smaller applications, agreed to provide Apple with info from my computer.

 

I am not a computer freak. This is an annoying experience. Macs are top product, let it be not only through their design.

This is a user-to-user forum.  If you want help we will try.  If you just want to complain, please use the feedback link

This is my experience as well: maybe I'm not allowed to say it, but I have to because it is what I've experienced so far: OS EL Capitan is total crap. But on this blog such a statement must be motivated, so here we go. And, to avoid the many almost religious believers in this blog, I'll limit my comments to Mail, which used to work fine before installing El Capitan, but now is a total mess.

- To begin with, after upgrade I had to delete all acounts and reconfigure them to get anything in;

- Next, the folder list is different for one account: it used to make separate IMAP-subfolder groups for each account, but now one of my accounts shows the subfolder right under the inbox. I fixed this by setting the IMAP-prefix, but this wasn't necessary before;

- All of a sudden I can not move server folder contents to client folders;

- I have to manually assign Sent folder to server, instead of local as it used to be;

- Everytime Mail is started, it begins with downloading ALL mails anew, performance goes out the window;

- I just found out mails end up in the folder of ANOTHER account.

I have other problems with El Capitan as well, e.g. with accessing the keychain. Note to all the Apple sectarians: I have no crapware or bloatware installed!

Finally: I used to be a very happy Apple user for the past five years, coming from the Microsoft Windows ****. My trust in Apple software was almost unlimited, so much that I did not even make a baseline backup (lukily I do have 'em, though) before the El Capitan upgrade; that was a big, big mistake, I admit that.

start a new thread if you would like to have these issues examined. Otherwise if you wish to discuss your umberage directly with apple:

apple.com/feedback

Many problems can be avoided by taking some precautions when installing a major upgrade. Your best friends in this process are NOT allowing upgrades to be installed automatically, and having one or more spare hard drives and Carbon Copy Cloner on hand. You can then clone your main system to an external drive and apply the upgrade to the clone. Booting from the upgraded clone allows you to test for compatibility and stability issues without compromising your existing system.

If you are already experiencing some issues with your system, upgrading your existing system drive is unlikely to help. In this case, if you really want to try the new OS version, you can install the OS upgrade "clean" on your spare HD to see if you see the same issues in the absence of whatever has accumulated on your current system.

We could debate whether Apple should do a better job of educating its users about how to upgrade safely. It's unlikely that they will ever do more than urge you to back up your system first. But people routinely ignore this critical step anyway.

EC runs perfect on my computer, no issues what so ever. I completely agree with Pinkstones, those who have problems are those who have filled their computers with junk and outdated software. Clean your Mac from everything you absolutely do not need. Be a minimalist.

Problem with Mail

Mail crashed very shortly after opening, sent details to Apple, but not sure wether they've done anything. So reverted to Yosemite to be able to be able to use Mail. Had good back ups, fortunately.

iMac (24-inch Early 2009), OS X Yosemite (10.10.2)

Download and run Etrecheck.  Copy and paste the results into your reply. Etrecheck is a diagnostic tool that was developed by one of the most respected users here (and recommended by Apple Support personnel) in the ASC to provide a snapshot of the system and help identify the more obvious culprits that can adversely affect a Mac's performance.

Thanks for the lead to Etrecheck. Should I install El Capitan again or run Etrecheck on my present OS - Yosemite and send them the report??