Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

Thorzdad · Oct 4, 2016, 04:03 PM

Welp...It seems official. Updating my iPad to iOS 10 killed-off my ability to connect to iTunes in Snow Leopard, even just to back it up.

When Apple released iOS9, users of older Mac OS'es (a.k.a. Snow Leopard) discovered that, as long as they did their iOS updates over the air, you could still connect your device to older versions of iTunes to back-up or sync music. Trying to update your iDevice through iTunes while physically wired to the Mac, though, killed your ability to connect anymore.

But, after updating my iPad to iOS 10 (via wifi) I can no longer connect to iTunes on my Snow Leopard iMac. You get this message in iTunes:

iTunes could not connect to the iPad because an invalid response was received from the device.

Meanwhile, you will get the following alert on your iDevice:

Trust This Computer?
Your settings and data will be accessible from this computer when connected.

Clicking "Trust" doesn't do anything. Your iDevice will never connect with iTunes 11.4 again. I'm not even sure it's charging while hooked to the iMac.

(yes, yes..i know..."old OS" and all that. but i can't see any reason why i shouldn't, at the very least, be able to back-up.

andi*pandi · Oct 4, 2016, 04:35 PM

Thorzdad · Oct 4, 2016, 08:21 PM

So, since I apparently finally need to upgrade, how far up the chain should I climb, given the following needs?

~ One mission-critical (non-web) app that requires Java 6.
~ Adobe CS 5. Mostly Illustrator and Photoshop.
~ Obviously, trouble-free sync with iOS 10.
~ I prefer to use Airport Utility 5.6.1 because the update from that version seemed to remove a lot of detailed control. If it's improved, that's cool.
~ I also have a Wacom Intuos 2 tablet, so I need to be able to run that driver software. I haven't checked to see if Wacome makes compatable software for this tablet beyond Snow Leopard.

For the record, this is on a late 2009 iMac 10,1 / 3.06G core 2 duo / 8G ram.

So...Mavericks? Or would I be safer going lower, to Mountain Lion?

P · Oct 6, 2016, 08:03 AM

Java 6 is available for anything up to El Cap:

https://support.apple.com/kb/dl1572?locale=en_US

CS5 doesn't seem to support anything beyond SL officially, but I guess it may work anyway?

reader50 · Oct 6, 2016, 12:06 PM

Adobe went to universal binaries with CS3, so there shouldn't be any PPC dependencies in CS5. I don't have it for testing.

Why don't you set up a spare drive or partition with Yosemite (the oldest OS currently supported) or earlier, and do a test migration. Then fool around a bit, see what works. There's no reason to jump in cold turkey.

Thorzdad · Oct 6, 2016, 12:21 PM

Oh, I definitely have a cloned drive (with my current setup) ready to go in case migrating to Mavs tanks. I just hate dorking with this stuff, and was hoping there were people who had made a similar move as this with helpful tips/horror stories.

Thorzdad · Oct 10, 2016, 11:48 AM

Soooooo....This morning, I took the leap and installed Mavericks and the Apple Java 6 runtime and....It all works! Woot! I'm almost modern.

Mail looks just like iOS on my iPad now. And that upside down scrolling tripped me up for a moment, LOL.

reader50 · Oct 10, 2016, 01:24 PM

You can fix the scrolling in the Mouse pref pane. It's one of the first things I do after every OS install.

Thorzdad · Oct 10, 2016, 01:52 PM

You know that iPad/iTunes incompatibility that started this whole upgrade? Well, after rebooting into Mavericks, I plugged my iPad in and...iTunes could not connect to the iPad “The Pad” because an invalid response was received from the device.

W
T
F
?

For just the second time in my life, I decided to call Apple Support. As it turns out, iOS 10 demands that you use the latest version of iTunes. Once I DL'ed the new iTunes, all is well. Well, except for the cretinous excuse for a UI that thing has now. I mean, I know it has always been bad but...jesus. It's right up there with the Music app in iOS 10.

I don't think the new iTunes was compatible with 10.6.8, so I was going to have to upgrade anyway. Still. Good lord. Maybe the error should have said something like, oh I dunno, "You need to upgrade to the latest version of iTunes?"

Do devs know anything about UI anymore?

Thorzdad · Oct 10, 2016, 04:55 PM

So, how far up the OSX tree can I upgrade before I can no longer run Java 6? Yosemite, right?

Thorzdad · Oct 10, 2016, 05:31 PM

Aaaaaand my scanner is not supported. The next model up is.

reader50 · Oct 10, 2016, 06:27 PM

Are you trying to use the manufacturer's scanner drivers? I've had good luck skipping their drivers. Just using Image Capture in vanilla OS X.

Thorzdad · Oct 10, 2016, 07:38 PM

No. I've always used the drivers in OSX. Image Capture stopped seeing the scanner after the update. I took a look at the supported list on Apple's site, and mine is no longer listed.

reader50 · Oct 10, 2016, 10:11 PM

TWAIN SANE - free drivers, though it's fussy with Image Capture. Developer suggests using a different capture app.
VueScan - $50 (supported scanners list).

The last time I had an unsupported scanner, I ended up buying a new one. But if your scanner is worth well above $50, 3rd party software might be a good value.

If your scanner works under Mountain Lion, you could try borrowing the driver from ML, see if Mav will load it.

P · Oct 11, 2016, 03:55 AM

Originally Posted by Thorzdad

So, how far up the OSX tree can I upgrade before I can no longer run Java 6? Yosemite, right?

I posted the link above. El Cap is still supported by that Java 6 download (and a way better OS than Yosemite).

Thorzdad · Oct 11, 2016, 07:47 AM

Sorry if this is starting to sound like a four year thread, but...Is there any way to make that ridiculous Dock transparent?

Thorzdad · Oct 11, 2016, 08:12 AM

Hey! I just copied-over some Image Capture files from the SL clone I still had, to Mavericks and Image Capture recognizes my scanner again! Some good news today!

Thorzdad · Oct 12, 2016, 08:24 AM

Can someone please explain this iCloud message like I'm a five-year-old...

I don't use iCloud at this time, so, I just want to turn it off in Mavericks. But, when I do so, I get some very, very scary messages, all seemingly threatening to erase data from my Mac. Like these two...

To the un-techish eye like mine, these seem to say unlinking iCloud will delete important shit from my Mac. Is this a scare tactic, or will turning off iCloud really erase Contacts and whatnot form my home iMac?

Or, is it only items I might have uploaded to iCloud will also be erased from my iMac? Since I never put anything up in iCloud, this is less of a threat (but, still a pretty shitty business practice, imho.)

With each passing day, I miss Snow Leopard more and more...

P · Oct 12, 2016, 09:39 AM

I hate that message. What it means is that documents stored in iCloud will no longer be locally cached on your Mac, but things that you manually stored in the file system will not be affected.

Note that Sierra has the ability to sync Desktop and Documents to iCloud. That is a different thing, but I don't think you have Sierra.

Thorzdad · Oct 12, 2016, 09:41 AM

No. I just now jumped from Snow Leopard to Mavericks, thus the confusion. I'm used to an actual Mac OS.

Annoniem · Oct 17, 2016, 12:20 PM

My entire 10 year old iTunes library of music, movies, photographs, etc sits on a dedicated 250 plus GB iTunes dedicated which is now completely inaccessible to my iphone/ipad devices for organizing and re-syncing my devices. I find new media and generally add them to my libraries for syncing purposes and that media does not come from direct downloads Additionally, my backups are there as well and this is so frustrating.

I do believe in if it ain't broke don't fix it. I run a Macpro with 64GB ram, 4 internal HD's, OS 10.7.5 and iTunes 12.2.2.25 and this is just irritating. Are there any solutions to this at all? So all I'll be able to sync is my second and maybe 4th generation ipod - seriously Apple.

Anyone have any suggestions other than the obvious and upgrading my desktop?

reader50 · Oct 17, 2016, 12:55 PM

I'm guessing your MacPro is a 1,1 or 2,1? It is possible (unofficially) to get later OS's installed up to El Capitan. Sierra is being experimented with.

What MacPro do you have, and what graphics card?

Annoniem · Oct 17, 2016, 01:23 PM

The graphics card is NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT 512 MB
MacPro1,1
Processor Name: Dual-Core Intel Xeon
Processor Speed: 2.66 GHz

Lion was the last update I was able to do.

reader50 · Oct 17, 2016, 02:06 PM

Unsupported OS installs on MacPro 1,1 or 2,1:

Yosemite 10.10
El Capitan 10.11

It is possible to install Mountain Lion or Mavericks, but those OS's are no longer supported by Apple. If you're going to upgrade, you might as well choose a supported OS.

Read the instructions fully before trying anything. This isn't as tricky as a real Hackintosh, but things can still break. A later graphics card is recommended (they have card links) since your 8800 may work poorly.

I strongly recommend trying this on a separate drive (or partition) so you can go back.

Annoniem · Oct 17, 2016, 08:20 PM

I will have to do some reading before I'll embark on that journey. I do appreciate the info and will have to study this a bit more. Thank you

Brien · Oct 18, 2016, 11:11 AM

I'm on El Cap (and will be forever since Apple axed support for my MBP with Sierra), and CS5 ran just fine on it before I upgraded to CC... other than the ability to have multiple strokes/shadows/etc. I miss CS5.

And I'm just fine being stuck on El Capitan given that it seems all the software makers are moving to "mandatory update everything, always" like the consoles went awhile back (and I am still unconvinced it's a good thing).

anthology123 · Oct 20, 2016, 03:34 PM

I have recently installed Sierra on a blank drive, and installed CS 5.5 web Premium on it. Although it requires the Java 6 install from Apple, and a few command lines in Terminal, CS 5.5 installed just fine and files open. I haven't used it enough to see if there are issues with the software functions yet, but at least it installed without problems.