Today’s Question: I have held off on upgrading to [MacOS] Catalina out of concern for how it might affect Lightroom [Classic]. Am I worrying about nothing?
Tim’s Quick Answer: At this point I would say it is perfectly safe to upgrade to MacOS Catalina, though your worries are understandable since there were more than a few significant problems with this update when it was initially launched.
More Detail: One of the side effects of my work is that I often need to install software updates early, sometimes before they are even released to the general public. This enables me to learn about the updates quickly so I can be ready to help educate photographers about those updates and help them troubleshoot problems should they arise.
The update to MacOS Catalina was my most painful operating system in recent memory. A variety of software applications and device drivers did not function properly, in some cases because the software applications hadn’t been updated and in part due to bugs and compatibility issues. There were also a variety of operating system or related features that were not working properly, crashing, or experiencing other problems.
I upgraded to MacOS Catalina as soon as it was officially released in early October 2019. I almost immediately regretted performing that upgrade from the standpoint of running into a number of problems with the update. Over time, with additional updates to the operating system and other applications, things started to stabilize. Within a couple months of the initial release, I was back to completely normal functionality with MacOS Catalina.
In the last few months I have not experienced any issues with the latest update to Catalina. Everything is stable with all features working properly, and all applications that I use also working without any issues.
I should also note that there are a variety of new features and other improvements in MacOS Catalina that I feel make the update worthwhile. But of course, the most important first requirement is that your system and software applications will be fully functional when you upgrade, and at this point my feeling is that there is no reason to postpone this update.