After months of putting it off – I finally decided to update to Mavericks!
I’m never an early adopter of software and rightly so. There’s always too much at stake when upgrading, especially to a completely new OS. I’d read many forums and reports of issues with Mavericks, but also of issues pertinent to Traktor with Mavericks.
Upgrade Path
I live in a Town with the slowest internet ever (surprising really for someone who runs an online community), so there was no way I was clicking the upgrade button, it would’ve taken 8 hours or more and most likely would’ve timed out in the middle, causing me to restart all over!
Without that option I had to wait until I visited the big city where internet speed was ‘normal’. I decided to make a USB bootable drive for Mavericks so that I could take it back to my sleepy town for when the moment of truth came about. After much deliberation; the lack of uniformity and connectivity forced my hand to upgrade.
Back Up
I use a 3 Terabyte external hard drive, partitioned into 3 separate Terabytes. One terabyte for the Time Machine back up of the iMac, one terabyte for the Time Machine back up of my MacBook Air, and the final terabyte for miscellaneous, drag ‘n’ drop back up.
Upgrading the iMac to Mavericks
As my Macbook Air was my main DJ computer and as such, it was extremely important that it work. I decided to first update the iMac.
I ran the Time Machine backup then booted from the USB, installing Mavericks.
The screen seemed to stick on the “About a second remaining“. Googling this pulls up a bunch of information, but I decided to go with the ‘Patience is a virtue’ response and decided to see how long an ‘Apple Second’ really is!
It’s 15 minutes!
After the 15 minute second, we move to grey screen and a further 50 minute install process.
Following successful installation, I wanted to test out the Kontrol X1 Mk1 with Traktor, as this was the offending article in most of the damning reports on the net.
At this time I was still running Traktor 2.6.4 and with this, there were no issues with the X1.
So, now it was time to upgrade Traktor to the latest version of 2.6.7.
Again, no issues with the Traktor Kontrol X1 Mk1.
Upgrading the MacBook Air to Mavericks
The Macbook was already running Traktor 2.6.7, yet was still sporting the Mountain Lion jacket. Given the fact that all had gone smoothly on the iMac, I decided to give it a shot on the MacBook Air.
The initial process was the same with regards Time Machine and USB install. The moment of truth came with the Traktor Test.
Opened it up and no problems. I took it for an hours test run with no glitches that I discovered.
Went for a second hour the following day and again no issues!
I’m glad I waited, but it feels great that I have finally now taken the upgrade toMavericks. Lets hope all my other programs work fine now!
Traktor Tips 
have a macbook pro 2.53ghz 15.4 mid 2010 with the mountain lion 10.8.5 and when
i upgraded to mavericks 10.9.2 does not recognize the default operation of kontrol
x1 mk1 in traktor 2.6.8 and recognizes only those that i have i assign to
midi. I send to native instrument and the answer is:
Please rename the ‘Traktor Settings.tsi’ file to ‘Traktor Settings_BACKUP.tsi (and
please do this while Traktor is not opened). The default path for this file is:Mac:
Macintosh HD:user*your user name*DocumentsNative InstrumentsTraktor
2.x.xTraktor Settings.tsi
Just rename this file to ‘Traktor Settings_BACKUP.tsi’, and then please start
Traktor again, and let us know if this solves your problems.
I dont try it becouse i downgrade again to lion . If someone try it to tell me?
i have traktor 2.6.8 and osx 10.9. I can use x1 but its not showing in the drop down menu of the set up wizards. Just got bought this macbook, retina, 13 inch and been having lots of freezes. Does anyone have solution? Thanks!
If it’s connected and still not showing p – you’ll have to load it manually. http://youtu.be/BkjdB43CB8Y
Thanks for the suggestion! I watched the video, added x1 manually. Still froze. Not sure what do now. The funny thing is that i let the macbook sit for a while and then i was able to log back in, it unfroze.
I’ve had Traktor freeze up on me twice. One at home and one at a gig. first time my mac has ever crashed like that while using traktor on a mac. Hopefully the new update will correct this issue.
I’ve been noticing the preferences are taking a little longer top open that usual since the last update to 2.6.7 – now that 2.6.8 is available, hope this fixes it!?
Good luck – it sure sucks when you have to deal with crashes.
Pretty sure I upgraded to OSX Mavericks when it first came out and had no issues whatsoever with Traktor.
One of the lucky ones! 😉
2013 Macbook Air
My friend you find the main problems are With the retina display macs late 2013.
Excellent to know – thanks!
What were your Macs’ Specs as the upgrade has various issues with certain year models as well as processors?
My main machine is MBPr 15inch (mid 2012) with i7 2,3Ghz, 8GB RAM and 256GB ssd drive. DJ laptop is MBP 13inch (late 2011) with i5 2,4Ghz, 8GB RAM and 750GB HD.
good point – I will add them in to the article!
Nice overview! As we discussed over Twitter, I had a flawless upgrade on both my machines as well. Both were running Lion OSX and upgraded them to Mavericks, no issues found so far. My main MBPr has NI Maschine and Ableton and I use it for broadcasting my online sets, haven’t ran into any problems after almost a week. Neither on my MBP DJ laptop, upgraded to Traktor 2.6.7 before running the Mavericks install, afterwards tested Traktor right away and all works just fine with 2 Xone K2 controllers.
yep, seems like things are doing ok for me too still! Thanks!
You sir, are a brave, brave man, we all salute you. Some of us sir, are cowardly waiting until NI says it loud and clear “you may upgrade” in which of course we will still wait at least a couple of months (2.6.6 anyone?) until finally taking the plunge. again, you are a brave, brave man…many gigs shall come your way as a reward.
I now, I’ve been waiting too, it never came, so just had to go for it!