Updating OSX is generally good practice. There are improvements and security fixes.
But for someone who performs using their mac, and especially someone who uses a variety of software and hardware on a variety of projects, it is an untenable risk. Every update could break something you rely on. And, it could break something in a project you are not actively working on, in a way that you might not notice until you go to perform.
An abbreviated list of actual things that have bitten me (or that I have dodged by not upgrading OSX):
- Quicktime library changes the way it calculates frame index, causing a bunch of Modul8 projects using clip start- and stop- features, or accessing specific frames via a time value to be off by one. Imagine that instead of "4 3 2 1!" your New Years countdown ends with "5, 4, 3, 2 .....".
- Audio routing software stops working until you boot into recovery mode and execute cryptic terminal commands.
- Full-screen output used onstage gets an orange dot in the upper corner. You can't hide it, then someone finds a kludge to hide it, then on the next OSX update that kludge stops working.
It sometimes takes time for people to discover workarounds to changes in OSX. Sometimes you are at the mercy of Apple to decide to change something.
My routine is that when I get a new macbook, I update it to the latest version of OSX. Then I start installing software and migrating my projects to it, referring to the notes from when I set up the previous macbook, as well as notes for each project. I keep the prior macbook to run projects that won't run on the new one for some reason. Sometimes I have to rebuild projects using different technology to get them to run on the new macbook. On rare occasions I might risk a point-release upgrade of OSX (12.1 to 12.2) if I expect it to fix a specific problem. I will often update artist software as long as I can, until they stop supporting my older version of OSX. In 5-7 years when new software no longer supports my old version of OSX, and the macbook is starting to have hardware problems, I buy a new one and repeat.
