I'm starting to feel bullied by various software services to "upgrade" my MacBook to 10.15 Catalina.
I remember hearing that as far as audio software goes there were a number of issues on launch. Is it vaguely safe to upgrade in terms of Pure Data nowadays?
From what I've read it looks like the main build is fine (0.51)...I use a few external libraries regularly - zexy, purest_json, and comport. anyone have experience with using those with 10.15?

@yannseznec I’m quite familiar with that bullied-by-Apple-to-upgrade feeling.

Pd 0.51-1 is indeed working fine for me on Catalina 10.15.7, aside from the usual shenanigans required to launch third party software (right-clicking & selecting “open” on first launch instead of directly double-clicking on the app icon, granting permissions for microphone, network, directories, etc… feel free to ask if you’re not already familiar with how to do all of this).

I do use zexy, which works fine, but not purest_json or comport. When I upgraded to Catalina, I did have 3-4 external libraries which MacOS refused to allow to run. Some I had to manually grant permission to load in System Preferences / Security & Privacy, others I had to download source code from GitHub & recompile in Xcode. However, if memory serves I did this using Pd 0.50, and I believe the devs have done recent work that allow Pd 0.51 to load older libraries without all of these extra steps. I haven’t tested this since the new release but hopefully this should all work now without the extra hassle.

Oh, and of course if you’re still using anything 32 bit (Pd, externals, or other software), they simply won’t run in Catalina, so it’s worth going through your software library & researching alternatives before diving in head first.

@beep-beep - I'm getting "error opening audio: Internal PortAudio error" on Catalina, which I believe is related to permissions. What is the process for granting permission for microphone, as you have described above? Thank you in advance.

@ricky Hmm, I don't have experience with that particular error, but it's possible your hunch is correct.

The first time an app requests to use the mic, the webcam, access certain directories, etc., the OS will throw a popup at you asking if you want to grant permission. Either way you answer, you can change this later in System Preferences / Security & Privacy / Privacy / Microphone.

If that doesn't work, you might need to do some more searching (this forum, Pd-list, Pd's github, stack exchange, and so on). But I hope the easy solution works out for you!

Note that AFAIK if the built-in microphone is NOT authorized the DSP still might work. In that case silence is get from the input.

I only started experiencing this when I upgraded Pd to 0.51. Prior versions worked fine under Catalina.

And, FWIW, I never received a pop-up asking to grant permission to anything at any point.

It bugs with the built-in microphone and built-in outputs both set at 44.1 hz? Does it bugs with an external audio card?
I quickly scanned the PortAudio source and sadly the "Internal PortAudio error" (paInternalError) is used pretty everywhere.

Yes, no matter what I/O configuration. I get this error consistently. I reported it to the list and I think the devs are incorporating a change;