Catalina and Big Sur

All news and info and updates about 64bit (Catalina compatibility) will be posted on this page. Everything I know is on this page (so writing to me won't yield any further info ;-)

Latest News

Remember you can track my progress here.

November:
Still moving along well. I've mostly finished the media player, optimizing all media types for hardware playback. My engineer is working a lot on the database too. A few more critical things before "public beta": in the "tracks" view, the selection model doesn't work (things outside the view tend to lose being selected). That's a pretty big problem that we have not figured out. Once we solve that, I think i can start a limited beta release!

October:
Things are moving along. In database-related news: Search / sort is working pretty much. We need to now make sure music stores work, and the ability to mount / eject CDs. We will also need to ensure the Server is working. In media-player news: I've gotten video playback in hardware working, and have optimized the "about" rainbow too. Next is optimizing CDG graphics (including upscaled), and text overlays. Then do support for transparency. After that: the activity view (which will now be built into the Browser window cuz basically everyone just closed that window then never thought to open it again.

September:
The developer is back to work and we now have proof-of-concept search sortof working. By that i mean, with a database of 200,000 songs, you can do pretty much instant searching. Note this is a long way from "functions" as in "functions well enough to actually get work done", but it's a major milestone.

I've also been working on the Media player, and i've fixed a few bugs with it too. Progress is being made!

August:
The developer that was working on the SQL database and Search seems to have just stopped working. This happened about a month ago. Seems I may need to find another developer. That means we've already lost a month of development time, AND it may take some significant time to find someone else :(

July:
There are two very hard parts to this port:

1. The SQL database: Fast Search!
2. The hardware accelerated media player, which means the ability to stack these layers:
   1. camera input
   2. CDG graphics
   3. Video (like a movie)
   4. MediaStream
   5. Producer Overlays
   6. ShowScreens
   7. The "About kJams" spinning rainbow
   8. The Text Messenger

Relatively good news on both fronts: I have a developer helping me with the SQL database and he is making steady progress.

For media playing: I already have 2, 3, 6, 7, and 8 working, although they draw using software (slow) not hardware (fast). And I have, during the weekend of August 8, gotten the Video playback (4) actually working. It must be debugged, but getting it working at all was the hardest part. We do not NEED the rest (for now) to have a functional kJams that can run a show!

Therefore, once SEARCH actually functions, I can start letting people test the Catalina compatible version. No word yet on how long the search functionality will take, the developer hasn't actually started that part.

Is kJams currently compatible with Catalina or Big Sur?

No. You can not run kJams under macOS Catalina or Big Sur.

Why not?

kJams is currently a 32bit application, and the newer OSs do not support 32bit apps.

When will kJams be able to run under Catalina or Big Sur?

The hope is "hopefully Q1 2021". We are *close* !!!

Always beware "the planning fallacy".

I do have a developer working on the SQL database, so things ARE moving forward. It's just very slow going, it's a complete rewrite of the entire front end (GUI) and the entire database (from hand-coded to SQL). Both tasks are monumental.

How can I run kJams today if I have Catalina or Big Sur?

You can use Virtual Machine software such as Parallels Desktop or VMWare Fusion. Be aware they unfortunately do NOT support multiple monitors. Then install macOS Mojave, see below for how to download it. There is a forum discussion here.

Can I downgrade back to macOS 10.14 Mojave?

If you have a mac purchased PRIOR TO October 2019, then YES, you can downgrade to, or otherwise use, Mojave. Try one of the following:

1. use your time machine backup from before the upgrade
2. reinstall from scratch using a USB stick. You can make a bootable Mojave Installer USB stick using DiskMaker. BACK UP your kJams installation before you downgrade, Start with this article (the "old computer" is Catalina, the "new computer" is Mojave). During the "Cloning" phase, use the "Backup and Restore" sections.
3. install Mojave on an external drive and boot from that

How do I download Mojave?

• get it from the app store
• get it from my web site

I'm sorry I dropped the ball

I tried really hard to inform all users of kJams not to upgrade to Catalina:

1. directly within kJams: a notification would pop up
2. on the kJams web site: prominently at the top of every page
3. in the newsletter, i sent it out over a year before Catalina was released, and a few times since
4. on my Facebook page
5. via my Twitter account

Unfortunately if your auto updater was broken, because you were on a very old version of kJams, you never got the in-app notification. If you never visited the web site, and you weren't subscribed to the newsletter, and you never went to the facebook page, or saw the tweets, then sadly i was not able to reach you in time. I am truly sorry about that.

Can I track your progress?

Yes you can!

I have another question

email me