Mac upgrade incompatibility hell

[wdfifteen]

Man, I hate this crap.
My mouse died ( the cute white one that goes "click" when you push in it, not the gray one that craps in the dog food bowl.)
So I went to order a new mouse and lo and behold Apple has a better one - Magic Mouse 2. Like an idiot I fell for it.
Upon opening the box and reading the instructions I learned that the OS on my Mac won't properly recognize the Magic Mouse 2. I have to upgrade the OS or send the mouse back. Like and idiot I opted to "upgrade." Took an hour, frustrating but it will all be over soon.
But wait! It seems half a dozen of my apps that are not compatible with Sierra - one of them being the encryption app that holds all my passwords. The solution is to upgrade the encryption app. All I have to do is decrypt my files so they can be reencrypted by the new improved encryption app that is compatible with Sierra but not compatible with its own previous version (!!) The new app is so improved that it won't even read the old version's files. The solution - reload the old OS so the old encryption app will run and allow be to decrypt the files. All I need to do is download Yosemite and ... wait. I need my Apple ID password to access the app store and I don't know it. Wouldn't be a problem except it is stored in an encrypted file. Which I can no longer get to.
So at this point, 4 hours after I opened my shiny new mouse, I've changed my Apple ID password and now I'm sitting here picking my nose while the old OS downloads. Presumably, once the OS is restored I can use my Timemachine backup from 11 AM this morning to restore my computer, decrypt my password files, redownload Sierra and install it (about an hour & fifteen minutes), upgrade my encryption app, and re-encript my password files.
I am hopeful, but not confident, that the mouse will work then. It better be a damn fine mouse.

[wdfifteen]

Oh joy!
Just as I hit "send" on the above post, this popped up.

[GH85Carrera]

Originally Posted by wdfifteen

Oh joy!
Just as I hit "send" on the above post, this popped up.

Just get a Windows machine and all your issues will go away!

That error message is freaking funny to everyone but you. Sorry but that does suck. I have no help for you.

[gprsh924]

I feel for you because I have been through similar issues...having said that, you are better off keeping the OS updated (along with your apps). They will run better and this will be less of an issue. Or pick a mouse that is compatible. OS x el capitan was released over a year ago, and upgrading is free.

[wdfifteen]

I'm getting conflicting information. One source says you cannot restore to the box's pre-upgrade state. Apparently you can recover your files, but not the old OS. True? I have hourly Time Machine backups and could go back to this morning, but it wouldn't do any good if it doesn't restore the old OS.
Another source says restore from Time Machine erases the disk and restores your computer to its state at the selected time. If that is true all I have to do is a restore.

[Scott R]

Reboot with cmd+R to get into the restore console, you can do a bare metal restore from time machine there. You will need to mount the volume of whatever you do the time machine backups to.

[RKDinOKC]

One of the reasons I always have a bootable carbon copy backup of my boot drive on an external drive. I can boot from it with whatever system I had before an upgrade. Don't have to spend any time restoring anything and then re-upgrading. External drives are pretty cheap, just make sure it is as big as your internal drive.

It would have been no big deal to boot from your external drive, decrypt you stuff, copy it to the disk with the new system on it, reboot to the new system and re-encrypt you stuff.

Get an external drive and install the old OS on it, then copy your files/old apps to it and do what you need. And move it to the drive with the new system. After you get everything moved updated and working on the new system, erase the external drive and use it as a Carbon Copy Bootable Clone backup of your new system.

Time Machine is great for recovering a few files, but pales in comparison the to usefulness of a bootable backup. I do both.
Time Machine also really needs more than 2 times the external space as the drive you are backing up to work properly.
Especially if you use something like Outlook for mail that makes huge mailstore files.

[gorthar]

It seems somewhat ludicrous to me that the latest, greatest wiz-bang mouse could be so advanced that the OS can't recognize it but I guess that is the gotcha: force 'em kicking and screaming to an upgrade. Not a mac user but I feel your pain.

[RKDinOKC]

Thought the only difference between the magic mouse and the magic mouse 2 was the 2 is rechargeable. Been using a magic mouse for years.

[jyl]

That sucks.

Your password app really should be backwards compatible with itself. That's pretty ridiculous.

[onewhippedpuppy]

Sometimes I consider upgrading to a Mac. Then I remember that Apple is doing its best to be as stupid as Microsoft.

[wdfifteen]

It got even more interesting. After losing access to Boxycryptor on my office iMac I came home in a panic to get access to the encrypted files on my laptop and decrypt them so I would not lose them in the ensuing mess. Boxycryptor's documentation on this process is sketchy at best. I tried just moving the encrypted folder and it went "poof" - gone. To make a long story short, I ended up losing the files on my laptop too. I did a complete restore from Time Machine, but the laptop wouldn't restart. I did a command-R reboot and restored the OS and got the laptop working just like it had before that damn mouse came into my life. Turns out you can move individual files out of the encrypted folder onto your hard drive one at a time and save them. So that's where I am now. Laptop is working, latest Boxcryptor version is working on it and files are encrypted. Now its time to go to the office and straighten that mess out.
Edit: Mrs WD and I binge watched Narco while the laptop was restoring. Great show! We watched 6 episodes.