Beatbuddy Manager macOS Catalina Compatibility

Has anyone used the Beatbuddy Manager after upgrading to macOS Catalina?

Suspect it works, but you never know.

I would actually assume not. Doesn’t Catalina require 64 bit programs? Anyhow, Persist probably has better insight on this.

Might work. The app is saying it’s 64-bit.

I’m kinda screwed anyway. I have a 2012 MacPro and Apple is not supporting those. I finally found a hack, but I’ll probably just live with High Sierra.

It works with Catalina.

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Thanks! I’m about to update to Catalina and needed to know if BBM works.

im running Catalina too but when i downloaded it gave me this

" “BBManager.app” can’t be opened because Apple cannot check it for malicious software.

This software needs to be updated. Contact the developer for more information.

Chrome downloaded this file today at 2:34 PM from forum.singularsound.com ."

i need help here!

Press ctrl-click and from the contextual menu, select Open.

The issue I’m having with macOS 10.15.3 (Catalina) is although BB Manager asks me if I’d like it to remember this memory card for next time I want to update, it never does. So I have to re-load my whole ‘project’ every time I make any edits. This new MacBook Pro is exceptionally fast so it doesn’t take long but I have to remember to re-set my preferences on the BB itself, ie: what the 1st external footswitch does (playing/not playing), what the 2nd one does (playing/not playing), cue-time for the main footswitch
things like that. Not the end of the world at all—just a minor headache. But I wondered if there’s a fix for this maybe? Thanks.

The Synchronize Project is greyed out and this issue seems to be common with all Mac OS versions (≄ 10.12.6) and the BeatBuddy Manager (BBM). It forces users to Export Project to SD card.

There are two workarounds that might help you: (this worked for me when testing the beta versions of Catalina with the BBM but I have not tried it with the 10.15.3.

  1. If you export your project to your SD card and accept the prompt for future synchronization, as long as you don’t quit the BBM and shut down your Mac, the Synchronize Project should continue to be available. I realize that many users don’t want to leave their Mac in a sleep state so they power it off (or quit the BBM).
  2. Having to reset the settings every time you’re forced to export is a real pain so here’s a workaround: once you’ve completed exporting your project to your card and then resetting all of your settings, power the pedal down and remove the SD card; place it in your Mac SD slot reader and opt-drag the PARAMS folder to your Mac desktop. Next time you export your project to the card, opt-drag the PARAMS folder from your desktop to your SD card and accept the prompt to overwrite it.

Singular Sound seems to know what’s causing the issue and may have solved it with a beta version of the BBM they were working on but so far because it’s still so buggy in other ways, they’ve chosen not to make it an official release.

Thanks very much for those useful tips. I’ll try those later. :+1:

This non-recommended beta workaround seems to be pretty old (not weeks or months). Pretty major issue that has been known for a while.

Wonder why a fix is so elusive and who they have on this project? Not confidence inspiring.

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Just wanted to confirm that both Persist’s work-arounds work perfectly. As Persist said, if you keep BB Manager running but ‘hidden’ and therefore the computer asleep and not shutdown, you don’t need to worry about option 2 that Persist mentioned, ie: all footpedal/footswitch settings remain the same. However, if you do close BB Manager it’s handy to keep the ‘PARAMS’ folder on the desktop and drop that onto your SD card AFTER you’ve updated so any personalized footpedal/footswitch settings remain intact.

So it’s a workaround that isn’t difficult once you’re aware of the issue. Obviously, I look forward to the developers making a permanent fix but in the meantime, thanks again Persist. :+1:

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The workaround (to keep the app running and don’t ever restart your computer) is not very practical. Might work for a week or a few months at best.

The settings workaround is very useful. Thanks.

That’s true Quad, but hopefully Singular Sound will resolve the compatibility with macOS Catalina in the foreseeable future. I keep my MacBook ‘asleep’ for a few weeks and shut down/restart when required. It just means then, when syncing BB Manager to my SD card, it re-loads everything because it doesn’t ‘remember’ my SD card. But as Persist said, if you keep a copy of the ‘Params’ folder on your desktop, and simply drop that onto your SD card after sync has finished, your foot-pedal settings will remain as you previously had them. So not a perfect situation but not that much of a problem at the same time. :slightly_smiling_face:

Hi everybody. Just wondered if there is any update on the horizon regarding compatibility between BBManager and macOS Catalina?

No change. The BBM is compatible with 10.15. Most issues are caused by users not knowing how to get past Catalina’s Gatekeeper.

One user reported repeated crashes but done know if that issue has been resolved.

Hi Persist. Yes, BBM runs perfectly on Catalina except BBM does not remember the SD card for the next time you copy your loops/patterns/settings—unless you keep BBM manager ‘open’ all the time. The situation I originally referred to in February 2020 hasn’t been resolved as far as I’m aware, hence my question. You were very helpful with a workaround, ie: do not close BBM if possible, and that has worked fine thanks. But it would be even better if BBM developers could resolve this issue?

That’s not a Catalina issue. That’s been screwed up since at least Yosemite. Sync has been broken and has not been fixed. The only way to keep sync working is to not quit BBM. And, yes, of course, Singular should have fixed this by now. But, it’s not some recent Catalina issue. It’s a long-standing screw-up that has not been addressed.

OK, thanks Phil. I had Yosemite running on my previous MacBook (10 year old computer) and it synced perfectly, whether I’d closed BBM, shut down the Mac, or not. So I didn’t realize this was an old issue. Hmmm. :confused: