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I've had it with Mavericks. How do I revert?
#27227 10/31/13 10:43 PM
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I have tried the suggestions contained in Apple Support threads without success. My configuration may be causing problems. Here is my configuration and the pathway I would like to use:

As shown below, I have a MacPro early 2008 running OSX 10.9. I have an iPhone 4S running iOS 7.0.3. I back up Time Machine to an external hard drive and also to a separate internal hard drive that occupies one of the bays on my Mac Pro, but it is NOT the same hard drive on which Mavericks resides.
Before migrating from Mountain Lion 10.8.5 to Mavericks, I did a final backup of Time Machine to each of the two drives mentioned above. I then proceeded to install Mavericks 10.9. For me, this was a mistake. I normally wait until at least three updates have occurred before moving up to the next OS X offering. The many flaws I have encountered in the way Mavericks currently operates have funally exhausted my patience and I must revert to 10.8.5.

I would like to make the change using Time Machine for both the Mountain Lion operating system and all of the applications and documents. If I were going to reinstall Snow Leopard 10.6.8, I would start by reinstalling the OS using the DVD which I have and then I would restore the apps and documents from Time Machine. However, neither Mavericks nor Mountain Lion have DVDs. I believe that they both can be installed by Time Machine, but this is where I run aground. I don't know how to make it happen. I have tried and have been hindered by popup windows telling me I can't change the Applications. I can't go on from there. I would prefer to dowload from the hard drive version of Time Machine rather than the external drive for the simple reason that the internal hard drive is faster. If that is not advisable, I am certainly willing to go with the external drive. It is my understanding that I can restore Mountain Lion directly from Time Machine along with all of the documents and other stored items such as Applications, Library, etc.

I have tried to do this, but can't seem to get the hang of it. I need a tutor who knows how to do the job using this path. Assistance will be greatly appreciated.


Mac Pro dual Quad-Core Intel Xeons Early 2008; 16GB RAM; MacOS X 10.11.6, iOS 9.3.5
Re: I've had it with Mavericks. How do I revert?
JoBoy #27228 10/31/13 11:12 PM
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Jon

macOS 11.7.10, iMac Retina 5K 27-inch, late 2014, 3.5 GHz Intel Core i5, 1 TB fusion drive, 16 GB RAM, Epson SureColor P600, Photoshop CC, Lightroom CC, MS Office 365
Re: I've had it with Mavericks. How do I revert?
JoBoy #27229 10/31/13 11:16 PM
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You might find Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions at pondini.org helpful. (See for instance How do I restore my entire system?.)



dkmarsh—member, FineTunedMac Co-op Board of Directors
Re: I've had it with Mavericks. How do I revert?
dkmarsh #27232 11/01/13 06:27 PM
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Thanks to jchuzi & dkmarsh. I read their suggestions and several others like them. There were so many caveats and side issues included on many of them that didn't apply to me that I thought it was a bit confusing. However, I got the idea that restarting while pressing down the option key would give me access to the Recovery drive. I tried it and it gave me several choices. The top one was irresistible. It says "Restore From Time Machine Backup." I had done full backups using Time Machine to both an internal hard drive and an external hard drive just before installing Mavericks. I clicked on "Restore From Time Machine Backup" and selected the external drive since I wasn't sure that the internal drive would work. The internal backup drive has nothing else on it, but I felt the external drive was a safer bet. A window came up asking me to choose which backup I wanted to use. I picked the one I made just before installing Mavericks and it went to work. It took a couple of hours to finish, but as it restarted and Mountain Lion 10.8.5 appeared on the screen, I was totally relieved. I feel liberated. Everything works. No wacky glitches to say "gotcha!"

When you consider all of the written instructions, many of which are very difficult to follow, this very simple method of restoration is amazingly easy. I hope it helps others who are considering moving to OS X 10.9. Just get a good external Time Machine backup of your present system before you venture.

Last edited by JoBoy; 11/01/13 06:28 PM.

Mac Pro dual Quad-Core Intel Xeons Early 2008; 16GB RAM; MacOS X 10.11.6, iOS 9.3.5
Re: I've had it with Mavericks. How do I revert?
JoBoy #27235 11/01/13 11:50 PM
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I'm happy that things worked out for you. An alternative method is to make a clone using SuperDuper or Carbon Copy Cloner just before installing 10.9. You can always clone back if necessary.


Jon

macOS 11.7.10, iMac Retina 5K 27-inch, late 2014, 3.5 GHz Intel Core i5, 1 TB fusion drive, 16 GB RAM, Epson SureColor P600, Photoshop CC, Lightroom CC, MS Office 365
Re: I've had it with Mavericks. How do I revert?
jchuzi #27259 11/03/13 04:38 AM
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I used SuperDuper for a couple of years, but abandoned it a couple of years ago because I was keeping SD copies of the main hard drive on separate internal hard drives. When I made changes to the main drive, SD would sometimes change the copies, too, and I didn't want that. I finally went to Time Machine that does keep things isolated to the internal backup drives. I change which drive I want to back up to and do it. It maintains its integrity. I told the SD folks why I was changing. They may have made modifications to correct the problem, but I'm now hooked on Time Machine and will probably stay on it for the foreseeable future.


Mac Pro dual Quad-Core Intel Xeons Early 2008; 16GB RAM; MacOS X 10.11.6, iOS 9.3.5
Re: I've had it with Mavericks. How do I revert?
JoBoy #27260 11/03/13 04:51 AM
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One glitch associated with reverting to 10.8.5 from 10.9 was the Adobe Creative Suite CS4 lost its authorization and I couldn't use it. Finally, I had to get out the DVD set and re-install CS4. It worked just fine after that. It's the only major problem I experienced in the operation.

If I'd waited much longer to downgrade, I would have lost a lot more work than I did during my time using Mavericks. As it was, the loss was minimal. You can avoid the loss by attaching documents to one or more emails that you can send to yourself if you have more than one email account.

Last edited by JoBoy; 11/03/13 04:52 AM.

Mac Pro dual Quad-Core Intel Xeons Early 2008; 16GB RAM; MacOS X 10.11.6, iOS 9.3.5
Re: I've had it with Mavericks. How do I revert?
JoBoy #27261 11/03/13 04:55 AM
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Can't you now go into Time Machine and update your documents, etc, to their state before you reverted? (Not your entire home folder!)

I thought that was part of the beauty of TM...that you could kinda go in both directions.

Edit: Why do you need more than one e-mail account?

Last edited by artie505; 11/03/13 04:57 AM.

The new Great Equalizer is the SEND button.

In Memory of Harv: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire
Re: I've had it with Mavericks. How do I revert?
artie505 #27262 11/03/13 07:43 AM
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A lot of people need more than one email account.

For example, I have an AOL account that I've used since 1991, and that many friends (from all over the world) and family use to communicate with me.

I run two businesses and have two email accounts, one associated with each of them.

I have an email account that goes with my franklinveaux.com domain, which is my main email account that I use for 80+ percent of my email.

I have an email account not associated with any of those accounts that I use for novels I write under a pseudonym.

And, finally, I have an email account that's just for tech problems/moderator contact for Fine Tuned Mac.

I have an elaborate system of folders that keeps them all separate, and rules in Mail that automatically sort incoming emails into the proper folders. I have not yet upgraded to Mavericks on my main production computer because a serious and well-known bug in Mavericks can and often will completely trash your email, in some cases deleting some or all of your saved emails, if you're using more than one email account. That is, in my opinion, an issue that should never have made it into the final release version of 10.9.


Photo gallery, all about me, and more: www.xeromag.com/franklin.html
Re: I've had it with Mavericks. How do I revert?
tacit #27263 11/03/13 08:03 AM
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I've got five e-mail accounts, myself. (You answered my question out of context.)

I was questioning JoBoy's statement that "You can avoid the loss by attaching documents to one or more emails that you can send to yourself if you have more than one email account."


The new Great Equalizer is the SEND button.

In Memory of Harv: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire
Re: I've had it with Mavericks. How do I revert?
artie505 #27264 11/03/13 01:24 PM
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Quote:
Can't you now go into Time Machine and update your documents, etc, to their state before you reverted?

Yes. Restoring from a Time Machine volume doesn't change what's on that volume. (Note, however, that if an application installed under the later OS was used to create new documents, those might not be compatible with the earlier version of the application found in the restored system.)



dkmarsh—member, FineTunedMac Co-op Board of Directors
Re: I've had it with Mavericks. How do I revert?
dkmarsh #27267 11/03/13 07:12 PM
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The purpose of my outlining the simple path I took was to point out that it is there for those who use Time Machine if they will make a full copy of their current OS before installing a newer OS. It enabled me to recover from my mistake. Things are now back to normal with 10.8.5. I'm likely to stay there for a substantial amount of time.

I'm aware of the alternative methods and apps, but chose to go with Time Machine after having some problems with SuperDuper using my hardware configuration.

Thanks to Artie505 for catching my error. I had very little sleep and have no business "driving" my computer in this condition.

Last edited by JoBoy; 11/03/13 07:52 PM. Reason: wrote iTunes instead of Time Machine

Mac Pro dual Quad-Core Intel Xeons Early 2008; 16GB RAM; MacOS X 10.11.6, iOS 9.3.5
Re: I've had it with Mavericks. How do I revert?
JoBoy #27268 11/03/13 07:36 PM
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Originally Posted By: JoBoy
The purpose of my outlining the simple path I took was to point out that it is there for those who use iTunes if they will make a full copy of their current OS before installing a newer OS. It enabled me to recover from my mistake. Things are now back to normal with 10.8.5. I'm likely to stay there for a substantial amount of time.

I'm aware of the alternative methods and apps, but chose to go with iTunes after having some problems with SuperDuper using my hardware configuration.

iTunes? I assume you mean Time Machine?


The new Great Equalizer is the SEND button.

In Memory of Harv: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire
Re: I've had it with Mavericks. How do I revert?
JoBoy #27269 11/04/13 12:14 AM
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Quote:
I'm aware of the alternative methods and apps, but chose to go with Time Machine after having some problems with SuperDuper using my hardware configuration.

I think artie's point was that one can also use Time Machine to avoid the loss of any work that was done in the new OS prior to the reversion to the earlier one.



dkmarsh—member, FineTunedMac Co-op Board of Directors
Re: I've had it with Mavericks. How do I revert?
dkmarsh #27270 11/04/13 12:49 AM
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I thought you answered that question for him in message #27264 above. I don't know the answer so I didn't try to augment what you said. At the time, I was so distraught with and distrusting of 10.9 that I simply deleted all its entries in Time Machine after moving a few items as described above in message #27260.


Mac Pro dual Quad-Core Intel Xeons Early 2008; 16GB RAM; MacOS X 10.11.6, iOS 9.3.5
Re: I've had it with Mavericks. How do I revert?
artie505 #27531 11/24/13 12:51 AM
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Artie505: My apologies for a very late reply.

Yes, of course I meant Time Machine and not iTunes. I use iTunes to sync my iPhone with my Mac, so I'm using it a lot… it was just a brain cramp.

Last edited by JoBoy; 11/24/13 12:52 AM.

Mac Pro dual Quad-Core Intel Xeons Early 2008; 16GB RAM; MacOS X 10.11.6, iOS 9.3.5
Re: I've had it with Mavericks. How do I revert?
JoBoy #31218 09/17/14 11:36 PM
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Originally Posted By: JoBoy
One glitch associated with reverting to 10.8.5 from 10.9 was the Adobe Creative Suite CS4 lost its authorization and I couldn't use it. Finally, I had to get out the DVD set and re-install CS4.


I just bought a machine with Mavericks and Adobe Creative Suite installed -- no DVD set. I'd like to downgrade to Snow Leopard and understand the steps, but I'm afraid I'd lose the CS authorization. Is there a way to restore a usable CS installation from the Disk Utility clone I'd make of my startup disk as the first step? Thanks.

John R.

Re: I've had it with Mavericks. How do I revert?
jrethorst #31219 09/18/14 03:59 AM
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Be careful! Downgrading to Snow Leopard is far more complicated than you might think. I downgraded from Mavericks to Mountain Lion 10.8.5. Before I was through, I was referred to two levels of Apple service that I didn't know existed. They have some real pros in a couple of locations that handle cases nationwide, but you have to go through the local folks first and they decide whether to send you on. They may not tell you those other services exist if they don't think it will help you. I don't know how you'll deal with the CS4 with no DVD set, but an Apple Genius may know.

My advice to you is to go to the nearest real Apple Store and not just a storefront that sells new and used machines. Call ahead for an appointment with a "Genius" and tell them what you'll be asking them to do and the kind of machine you have. Let them do the job for you. As I said, it is far more complicated than it would seem. I learned this through a long and distressing experience. I don't wish it on you, so I'm telling you what finally worked for me.

Last edited by JoBoy; 09/18/14 04:11 PM.

Mac Pro dual Quad-Core Intel Xeons Early 2008; 16GB RAM; MacOS X 10.11.6, iOS 9.3.5
Re: I've had it with Mavericks. How do I revert?
JoBoy #31231 09/20/14 02:41 AM
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That sure sounds like good advice. Thank you.


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