Issues with Mathematica 12 in MacOS Catalina

Questions
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1

Hi –

Has anyone encountered issues using Mathematica 12.0 under MacOS Catalina? I beta tested Catalina on one of my computers with no issues, but it was not a rigorous test.

The problem is that the second Mathematica 12.1 beta came out shortly after I upgraded and I am not sure that the issues I am seeing are due to that beta.

If I open a notebook created in 12.1 in 12.0, I have some issues. One specific one is that I get an error with every function definition I made that has a default value, such as variable_:10.0. If I type the function in fresh, or even delete the underscore and retype, the problem goes away.

I have some things to try, from deleting all output to trying the files with Mathematica on-line, to installing MacOS Mojave on an external drive. Before I go to the last step, I thought I would see if I was alone.

Thanks.

George

2

I’ve created a notebook containing the following in 12.1pre2 and saved it:

f[x_ : 10] := x; f[]

Opening in 12.0 works fine.

MacOS Catalina.

If you will provide an example, I’d be glad to check it in my configuration.

3

Here is the file I sent to tech support.

The first function was copied from a v12.1 notebook. You can see that the colons are magenta. The second copy of the function is one where I backspaced to delete the underscore and then retyped it.

For the large notebook the function came from, when I opened it in 12.0 and deleted all output, the problem went away, so I expect it is some kind of parsing issue.

Note that this is one of two issues. The second has to do with a suspected leak, but I haven’t made a notebook that succinctly shows the problem. Co-incidentally, the function in the attached notebook works great, but after some other code is executed, it fails. The notebook worked fine under Mojave.

IssueWithParameterdefaults.nb (12.6 KB)

4

I tried the notebook with Catalina only. The behaviour is the same in both 12.1 and 12.0 for me – I had to remove and restore the colon to make it “compile”.

So I can’t help with the problem but I have some observations to share:

I run “diff” on the original and “corrected” version.

Original version contains:

RowBox[{"nPoints_", ",", "setUpAltsFunc_", ",", " ", 
RowBox[{RowBox[{"radius_", ":"}], "1.0"}], ",", " ", 
RowBox[{RowBox[{"scaleFac_", ":"}], "0.0014"}]}]

The same part in modified version:

RowBox[{"nPoints_", ",", "setUpAltsFunc_", ",", " ", 
RowBox[{"radius_", ":", "1.0"}], ",", " ", 
RowBox[{"scaleFac_", ":", "0.0014"}]}]

You can see that in original version splits pattern between RowBox differently – in original version defaults are separated from the pattern.

5

Thanks, I missed this. I will send the to support. My guess is that 12.1 changed the parsing, which remains when re-opening in 12.0

6

I am pretty sure that the problem is that the notebook I created in 12.1 beta got corrupted and is creating anomalies.

Anyone know how to clear out all the meta-data and other cruft, leaving just what I typed in? Usually, I have just re-typed notebooks, but this one is rather large.

7

George, one way to do this is to open the notebook file in a text editor. In that file there is a single Notebook[…] expression. Before the instance of the Head Notebook is content that you can delete. And after the final ] bracket of the Notebook[…] expression are metadata that you can safely delete. You are then left with a single Notebook[…] expression. Saving that .nb file from the text editor and then reopening it in Mathematica will cause the FrontEnd to regenerate fresh metadata when you save the .nb file out again from Mathematica.

Let me know if this does the trick.

-David

8

Thanks. Now that you mention it, I remember this trick. For my wonky notebook, there was just the ‘normal’ stuff at the top and nothing at the end, so I’m afraid that the corruption is not going to be that easy to correct.

This has happened occasionally before, and whatever happened did so during a beta test. I am gearing up to re-type the notebook.

9

I’ve had zero problems - anything Mathematica 10+ and apple OS 10+ zero such problems upgrading (NO NEED TO RETYPE IN NOTEBOOKS) ( i had issues at one time with 10 in el capitan freezing - but it was not a notebook problem and it was corrected).

Once in a while opening help crashes Mathematica - I’ve had that issue since 10 however.

10

Hello, quick question: how did you obtain 12.1?
I couldn’t find any information on how to get a beta version or similar.

I do have issues with the 12.0 frontend under Catalina, which for the time being prevents me upgrading the rest of my Macs to Catalina.
Concretely it is a bug that messes up grouped cells in a 12.0 frontend, when copying/pasting other cells into the cell group. I had reported this bug a couple of months ago ([CASE:4288214]).

If this bug turns out to be corrected in 12.1 and I can get hold on 12.1, then I could finally start upgrading.

Thanks for info!