Bug #1870
SV 3.2.1 doesn't start on macos 10.11.6 without showing a meaningful message
| Status: | New | Start date: | 2019-01-15 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Priority: | Normal | Due date: | ||
| Assignee: | - | % Done: | 0% | |
| Category: | - | |||
| Target version: | - |
Description
Tried to run 3.2.1 on macos 10.11.6 . Try to run the app, no warning, no error message, but the app doesn't start.
Had to ran it from the terminal to find what the error was:
```
$ /Applications/Sonic\ Visualiser.app/Contents/MacOS/Sonic\ Visualiser
Sorry, "Sonic Visualiser" can not be run on this version of macOS. Qt requires macOS 10.12.0 or later, you have macOS 10.11.6.
```
Ideally, the user would be displayed an error message warning that this version is not supported on their operating system.
History
#1
Updated by Chris Cannam over 5 years ago
Mm, macOS can be a pretty harsh environment for anyone who doesn't routinely update to the latest version. Unfortunately I can't test anything on any older version of the OS than the newest either (I have to update to the newer versions myself or else I lose the ability to ensure source compatibility with their SDKs).
The SV download page does tell you what the minimum version is - currently 10.12 - although even there I had to divine it from the Qt version/mac SDK compatibility matrix: it's not under my control and I can't easily check it.
I'll have to have a think about whether the version testing code (#1869) can be updated to know about this in a backward-compatible way.
Telling you properly on startup may be tricky, since the problem is that the UI toolkit won't start. Perhaps there is some system notification thingy that could be used. I'll see if I can find out.
Any particular reason you're still using 10.11? I remember the days when lots of people were stuck at 10.6 because it was the last 32-bit version, but 10.11 doesn't ring a bell as the last of anything in particular.
#2
Updated by Giulio Moro over 5 years ago
No particular reason except "never update a machine you depend on" (especially in the last six months of your Phd) :)
#3
Updated by Giulio Moro over 5 years ago
oh no wait I have another "good" reason: given how Apple deliberately slows down older iPhones with system updates, I wouldn't want to have to find out that it now happens on Macs as well.
Also, this is the first piece of software I encounter that wouldn't run on my OS, so in other words: never had the need to update until now.
#4
Updated by Chris Cannam over 5 years ago
OK, fair enough! (Though I have heard iPhones are actually faster with iOS 12 than 11 - but this isn't the place for that, and it's not like I have one)
Just for info: the change in compatibility, which happened between 3.1.1 and 3.2, was actually caused by #1861 "Left/right arrows to scroll tab bar not working in Mac build". Fixing this required an update to the Mac SDK we were building against, but the newer SDK was only supported by Qt 5.12 - it was possible to build against it using 5.11 but only by ignoring dire warnings about incompatibility, with unknown consequences. And unfortunately Qt 5.12 brought forward the baseline supported macOS version from 10.11 to 10.12.