[chirp_users] Max OSX Woes

Mon May 19 08:22:09 PDT 2014

The MBA performed poorly after the update to Mavericks in other areas (Mail.app, Safari, and VMWare/VirtualBox) so until I ferret out those issues, I had decided to avoid Mavericks on the other two (more primary use) workstations. the MBP is my "primary", Mini my secondary, and the MBA more of an experimental toy. But, after Mavericks (immediately) a bunch of stuff started to suck. Also, docked "favorites" to mapped volumes lose permanence, which is likely linked to SMB/CIFS subsystem changes I don't have the energy to reverse-apple-engineer. ;)

What I learned from Mavericks so far is that "free isn't always better"

Anyway, I wouldn't have said anything if the CHIRP software performed differently from one to another, but the issues seem uniform across all three.

One thing I noted is that I have R10 of the KK7DS Python Runtime installed. I noted also that the note at http://www.d-rats.com/download/OSX_Runtime/READ_ME_FIRST.txt says:
"
For all current versions of D-RATS, use R5
For chirp versions before February 16, 2012, use R5
For chirp versions after February 16, 2012, use R6
"

So - - maybe I should attempt downgrading the R10 to R6 and see what happens after that?

Not sure.

Anyway, perhaps I'll leverage some sort of screen recording software to illustrate how quirky CHIRP functions on native mac. Alongside everything else I have going normally, it's QUITE obvious that something isn't right. The performance is notably degraded to the point of not being very functional. Interestingly, in a win7 VM, it works just fine. ;)

So, insofar as accomplishing the task of importing .chirp files and exporting to other formats, and vice versa (we post CHIRP files to our club website so the newer folks with newer radios can just blast the configs to the radios without programming them the "long" way. And I feel for them - I'm an expert with Icom, Kenwood and Yaesu programming just from having done it for so long.. but it seriously took me about 20 minutes to program a single frequency into a UV-5R the first time I tried. I ended up having to program the TX freq first, then RX. THen realized I forgot PL, and had to repeat the process. lol.. Anyway, A majority of users here use CHIRP, and all of them run win32/win64 OS, so I'm sure there's nobody "local" in my exact predicament with the Mac issues.)  

So.. task complete, but I sure can easily test other ways of getting it to work as expected. 

I just downloaded the R6 python runtime. Going to apply it and restart CHIRP and see if my overversioned py runtime was the issue.

Thanks, 73
Joe N8CN

On May 19, 2014, at 11:11 AM, Pete Mackie <pete at seaquest.com> wrote:

> Joseph,
> 
> I don’t know what to say regarding your woes of running CHIRP on Mac OS X. I run CHIP on Mac OS X 10.9.3 Mavericks on three computers without any of the problems you describe below. My MacBook Pro is over 5 years old. CHIRP is rock solid being most responsive on my MacBook Pro.
> 
> For security purposes, I only run Mac OS X 10.9.3 Mavericks on four family Macs. Why not upgrade from Mountain Lion it is a free O/S upgrade?
> 
> Pete
> 
> On May 19, 2014, at 6:41 AM, Joseph R. Erlewein <joe at n8cn.org> wrote:
> 
>> 
>> Hi there, name's Joe. Call N8CN
>> 
>> I've got a Macbook Air running Mavericks, a Macbook Pro running Mountain Lion, and a Mac Mini running Mountain Lion.
>> 
>> On all three units, the last version I tried (a while ago) was v0.3.1. It was terribly slow, and I had issues with tasks like.. resizing the window.
>> 
>> I basically shelved it, and ended up using RT systems software inside a VirtualBox Windows 7 instance, which proved faster. By like, a lot.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> I recently tried Chirp again (to read a chirp file for import to a website that lists area repeaters that I maintain) and was notified that 0.4.0 was available.
>> I downloaded and installed it. I've tried it an all three platforms mentioned above.
>> 
>> 1st issue: still very slow once you have a file with any data in it.
>> 2nd issue: tasks like changing the size of the window are .. glitchy.
>> 3rd issue: it crashes  (repeatably) when I attempt to open a file. Not the opening-a-file part, the "browsing to where the file is located" part, usually before finding the file to even bother trying to open it.
>> 
>> 
>> I guess my query is this:
>> If this is multi-platform software, are there test users / power-users using this under OSX with any success? If so, I'm wondering why my experiences have been so poor, as I know that with what I've already encountered, I wouldn't be able to use this software on OSX with any long-term success.. 
>> 
>> Or.. maybe I am missing a step? I've downloaded the zip, extracted the app, placed it where it needs to be, and run the application.
>> There are no other "notes" on the site about other necessary tweaks -- but if there are other OSX users out there that did something different to achieve results that yield a workable platform -- is there something on the wiki that shows what you did and where you did it?
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> I've opened Chirp under my Virtualbox Windows7 instance, and it appears to be MUCH more stable and reliable. No noticeable "speed increase" over operations on the OSX version, but the glitchiness and crashiness seem to not exist.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> Just offering what I've experienced in the last few months.
>> 
>> 
>> I'm not out to "flame" the software -- I think it's a great idea, and the effort is extremely remarkable!! -- and I'm not out to just "complain" -- and perhaps it's just lack of effort to dig deeper and/or understanding on my part -- I'm just communicating what I've run into (as an OSX user, and Windows-land escapee) in the past 4 to 6 months attempting to make use of Chirp on OSX
>> 
>> Windows, no problem. seems to work fine.
>> 
>> 
>> Honestly, out of lack of time, I haven't played with the linux versions despite having a lot of test platforms I could use. In fact, now that I've written this, I think ima go try it. :) Anyone try it on a RPi yet? (i assume yes…)
>> 
>> 
>> Best 73 and -- hey I really like the idea of this software :)
>> 
>> 
>> 
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