AC 22 + Mojave

[rm]

Mojave has been out for since Sept. Graphisoft still shows 10.13 as the approved Mac OS for ArchiCAD 22 on their website. Does anyone know if Graphisoft has any reasonable delivery date scheduled for the release of a Mojave ready AC22?

I have several other major pieces of software that are ready to use with Mojave, but I concerned to make the switch before AC22 is ready for it.

Thank you!

[Karl Ottenstein]

Hi Robert,

AC 22 (and 21) are supported in Mojave with the most recent product updates.

That said, there is a reported issue where the File Open, Save, Save As etc dialogs within ARCHICAD perform slowly with the current release AC 22 build 4023:
https://archicad-talk.graphisoft.com/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=63149

For general Graphisoft Mojave info, see:
https://helpcenter.graphisoft.com/knowledgebase/84821/

[rm]

Thanks for your reply Karl!

What seems confusing to me is that on the Graphisoft US site, Graphisoft only recommends Sierra and High Sierra for AC22. There is no mention of Mojave being recommended in conjunction with AC22 without a "fallback" to the previous OS. That is not a solution most people would want to rely on.

The text below is copied directly from the link you provided concerning AC/22 & Mojave.....

"There might still be some incompatibilities that hasn't surfaced yet though. If we receive reports of any new issues that hasn't been fixed, we will publish them here, and try to fix everything in the next Update of ARCHICAD 21 (80xx) and 22 (50xx). Until then, only update to macOS 10.14 if you have the option to roll back to macOS 10.13"

The errors you mentioned with AC22/Mojave seem to reinforce my point here.

[DGSketcher]

I have grumbled elsewhere about this. It looks like the next (50xx) update may be January, by which time Mac OS will be a quarter of the way towards its next release and AC will be 8 months closer to the v23 release, yet we still don't have a "compatible" AC22 release to work on the Mojave OS. It's not like GS don't know when Apple will release their next update... AC23 should be ready to run on Mac OS 10.15.1 at public release date! For some of us there is pressure to keep Mac OS and iOS in sync. Not to mention the benefit of new features and protection against vulnerabilities that comes from the updates.

[Karl Ottenstein]

I didn't read closely enough, Robert. Thanks for catching that. Personally, I've put off upgrading to Mojave... and will continue to wait based on your reading - or at least until I make both a bootable clone of High Sierra and/or a High Sierra virtual machine...

[Karl Ottenstein]

Karl wrote:
... a bootable clone of High Sierra and/or a High Sierra virtual machine...

Just wanted to share that AC 22 does NOT run adequately in a High Sierra virtual machine using Parallels Desktop 14 (newest version). AC 22 requires OpenGL 3.3 or higher, which Parallels does not support in its virtual environment. (Some online posts suggest that VMWare Fusion may support OpenGL better.)

A bootable clone of my High Sierra machine launched AC 22 fine. So, I continue to recommend making a bootable clone prior to any MacOS upgrade if anyone is concerned about running into post-upgrade issues and still being able to quickly get back to work. Some online discussions even suggest applying the (Mojave) update to the clone (or a copy of the clone) to test all functionality before upgrading the actual system disk.

[Daniel Kovacs]

Hello Everyone,

Actually, every bug that we are aware of so far have been fixed in the first update of ARCHICAD 22 (40xx), so whatever has been reported to us or we had found during the beta period of macOS 10.14 is fixed, so we could say it is compatible with ARCHICAD.

The reason we can't say that macOS 10.14 is officially supported is that we are still waiting for feedback from the early adopters about anything we might have missed (because anything could change in the OS, even the most unexpected things that we wouldn't even think to test for), so that we can safely say that there are no clashes with this iteration of macOS.

This means that you can upgrade to macOS 10.14, just proceed with caution, because you might run into something unexpected (e.g. the dialog error that Karl just mentioned). But I personally think that since everything had been silent so far, we can say everything is fine after the 50xx (though it is up to what we find out about the file dialog slow-downs).

A colleague of mine from the GRAPHISOFT US office has created a chart that explains this timeline visually. Let me attach it for you, I think it is pretty handy. I hope this explains everything. Let me know if you have any questions about macOS 10.14.

Regards,

[Anonymous]

Here's an issue for GS to ponder: Total program lock-up when initiating receive changes from Server.
Has anyone else encountered and figured out a work -around?

[rm]

dkovacs wrote:
Hello Everyone,

Actually, every bug that we are aware of so far have been fixed in the first update of ARCHICAD 22 (40xx), so whatever has been reported to us or we had found during the beta period of macOS 10.14 is fixed, so we could say it is compatible with ARCHICAD.

The reason we can't say that macOS 10.14 is officially supported is that we are still waiting for feedback ..........

With all due respect, your reply is infuriating! In the same breadth, you first state AC22 is compatible with 10.14, then one sentence later you state it is NOT officially supported.

So which is it? I think we know what the answer; GS is not sure OFFICIALLY if the software is compatible, pushing the blame on early adopters!

The diagram you attached from your US colleague is equally frustrating. I use the entire Adobe CC studio along with accounting software, graphics, design, utilities, printers and everyone supplying me with MacOS compatible software, drivers or devices is saying OFFICIALLY they are MacOS 10.14 compatible and have been for months now. ONLY GS is scratching their heads and being completely non committal on whether their software is fully compatible or not with the latest MacOS.

As another user noted, by the time GS actually states AC22 IS fully compatible with MacOS 10.14, that will only leave about 7-9 months before Apple releases the next major OS update and we will be in the same mess all over again, with AC23.

GS used to have fully compatible versions released within just a couple months after a major MacOS update, those days are long gone! To make things worse, GS now releases their "major" updates too frequently to keep up with Revit's absurd software update model.

GS please, stop pushing out unfinished, non-fully tested software, just to boost sales revenue. We get it, you are a business and you need steady cash flow. But do you really think your current process is going to help your shrinking US market share. 9/10 Job postings in the US are looking for architects with Revit experience, not AC. Your current software release model is not helping your cause at all!

[furtonb]

I think the stability has declined generally in a severe manner on the macOS side during the past few years. Even the initial release felt like it's still in public beta... Not to mention the mess on the hardware side (yup, Nvidia GPU here), which is even more infuriating. I simply cannot keep my computers in sync (I am on Mojave on my laptop - dark mode ftw, but 10.13.6 on the desktop: no Nvidia drivers for me)…

The annual releases stir the pot in the other direction, many software companies suffer from this worldwide - on the development side at least, because the shareholders are happy, I guess. I would prefer less frequent, but more meaningful and rock solid releases. McNeel does a pretty decent job in this sense with Rhino, but they are at least a magnitude smaller, thus easier to pull things like this.

[Anonymous]

It seems like every time I update to a new macOS, I have problems with ArchiCAD. I am currently running 22 on 10.13.6. I awoke this morning and decided to move to Mojave, and spent the morning organizing my machine getting ready to install Mojave. I am glad I found this post before giving myself a headache and more frustration and work. I am going to stick with High Sierra for now. I appreciate and agree wholeheartedly with rm's post on January 2nd. I too appreciate that Graphisoft is running a business, but they are able to because of us. The yearly updates are very weak for what we pay. We should at least be able to upgrade our operating systems in a timely manner and have ArchiCAD work. I don't think that's too much to ask.

[Daniel Kovacs]

Hello,

I just wanted to let you know, that we have updated our article on Help Center with some new entries, and also with a statement that it is about time that we can say it is safe to update to macOS 10.14.

I get your criticism and frustration about this topic. In my previous message the reason I was trying to make a difference between "compatible" and "supported", was because while they are similar, they don't mean the same thing.

With the first update after the official release of macOS, ARCHICAD became compatible with it, meaning that it had no known/serious issues or incompatibilities. But since ARCHICAD is an extremely complex software, and the main production tool for huge companies, we won't be able to say that we support moving a production environment to the new OS, until we have enough data about it.

Unlike a more simple software (such that states they support macOS from the day of the release) if we find a serious issue that didn't come out during our preliminary tests, we can't issue updates and small fixes as quick, and if it affects production, that is a serious halt in the daily work of entire offices.

In this regard I don't think we are pushing out an unfinished software, but AC22 was developed and tested on macOS 10.13, and was released for that version. Yes, like every software, AC22 also had issues when it was released, but we are constantly working on making our QC processes better and faster to reduce the number of these issues to a minimum and to release more reliable updates. We might fall short on this sometimes, but based on your feedback, we are trying to improve it. But the issues are usually not related to the operating system the software was released for.

Regards,

[rm]

Daniel -

Thanks for your comments! No doubt AC is a very complex piece of software to engineer. I dont think anyone here would dispute that. Words matter, as you noted, ie. compatible vs. supported. I hope the "BIG PICTURE" is being heard by GS - the cycle of "major" AC updates is too fast and too frequent and not keeping pace with Major OS changes.

Version updates used to represent MAJOR updates in AC, but they were not coming out every year as they are now. The obvious downside is the updates no longer represent "Major" improvements, rather they are generally smaller, evolutionary improvements. Understanding it must be very challenging for developers to keep up with the pace of "Major" updates to the Mac OS. it seems MS Window has calmed down now and it is Apple with the schizophrenic update schedule, I say that as an Apple "Fan".

I am sure most here would prefer that "Major" updates from GS track much closer to the release of the OS "Major" updates. GS must keep in mind, most customers are using multiple software packages in their practices, not just AC. Therefore if AC is holding customers back from updating their OS just to AC, while their other applications are keeping pace with the OS updates, this does not help your customers.

It is my hope that AC 23 is fully supported by all current OS's upon its release.

dkovacs wrote:
Hello,

I just wanted to let you know, that we have updated our article on Help Center with some new entries, and also with a statement that it is about time that we can say it is safe to update to macOS 10.14.

I get your criticism and frustration about this topic. In my previous message the reason I was trying to make a difference between "compatible" and "supported", was because while they are similar, they don't mean the same thing.

With the first update after the official release of macOS, ARCHICAD became compatible with it, meaning that it had no known/serious issues or incompatibilities. But since ARCHICAD is an extremely complex software, and the main production tool for huge companies, we won't be able to say that we support moving a production environment to the new OS, until we have enough data about it.

Unlike a more simple software (such that states they support macOS from the day of the release) if we find a serious issue that didn't come out during our preliminary tests, we can't issue updates and small fixes as quick, and if it affects production, that is a serious halt in the daily work of entire offices.

In this regard I don't think we are pushing out an unfinished software, but AC22 was developed and tested on macOS 10.13, and was released for that version. Yes, like every software, AC22 also had issues when it was released, but we are constantly working on making our QC processes better and faster to reduce the number of these issues to a minimum and to release more reliable updates. We might fall short on this sometimes, but based on your feedback, we are trying to improve it. But the issues are usually not related to the operating system the software was released for.

Regards,