Hey guys, 

Today, I’ve just face an unexpected driver issue
with my Macbook laptop and Wacom Cintiq 22HD tablet. 

If I were no prepared, it could be highly damaging… 

Lucky I could prevent it,
and I wanna share with you how you can protect your work station as well.

Installing a new Wacom driver

This afternoon, 

I saw an update was available for my Wacom tablet.
I was pretty happy as my tablet could gain in performance or practicality. 

Even though, I secretly know most updates are invisible and cover bug fixes and better adaptability to the latest iOS (Catalina). 

But who knows? 

Wacom driver 6.3.38-3 update not working lag cintiq 22 hd

I click on “Update” to install the latest “Wacom driver 6.3.38-3”.
The installation performed well. All good (apparently)…

Then, it was time to check my digital pen performance. 

Major lag from my digital pen…

I opened the app Affinity Designer,
and felt a major lag in the display of the arrow cursor.
However, the curves I was drawing went smooth though.

(I didn’t record any picture of the issue as I haven’t yet though about writting about it. Oops! So I add below a screenshot of the respective websites of the designer apps)

Affinity Designer

I carry on the test with Krita.
It is an amazing free software for artists and designers.

But the lag was huge…
When I tried to draw a circle, it was more like an octagon…

KRITA

So I reboot the laptop,
hoping things would go smooth after… but no change.

I couldn’t bear this bug…
By updating the driver, I “damaged” my Wacom tablet performance…

Googling the problem

To solve this,
my first reflex is to google the problem to see
if other people may have faced the same issue, and may found a solution. 

At first,
I found a tutorial on the “Wacom customer support” – on How to manually remove the Wacom tablet driver, and reinstall it. 

Sounds great! 

But the steps was complicated to me..
and I didn’t feel safe doing these repairing steps. 

I had to delete many files manually.
And it gave me the feeling that my system would not be 100% clean.

I felt annoyed about it. : /

I love Wacom, and I rarely face issue with them.
Their material are strong are reliable.

But this driver thing is frustrating.
I wonder why Wacom do not suspend (or create a patch) for this driver
as their technical support is aware about this issue.

Plan B: My Time Capsule Back up!

Then I thought about a PLAN B.
My Apple Time Capsule back-up!

If you wonder what is a Time-Capsule is:

It is a hard disk connected to your laptop, that regularly save a full back-up.
So if whenever your laptop crash, or lost important files,
you can “go back in time” to recover your system or missing files.

Apple Time-Capsule

So instead of pulling my hair trying to repair the damaged driver,
I decided to tell my laptop to recover the whole system like it was yesterday night.

Press “Enter Time Machine” on top right of your screen

Recover your system at the anterior date of your choice

It was easy and magic!!

To do so, you just need to:

1. Reboot,
2. Press Cmd -R and follow the very simple instructions. 
3. When it ask you to erase your hard disk, say Yes.
   (It will then automatically recover your healthy version)

About 6 hours later, your laptop will be fully recovered!
And the damaged driver simply will disapear in outer space.

“Back up is your life insurance”

My work station with my Wacom Cintiq 22HD tablet and Time Capsule

It reminds me the importance to back up regularly your laptop.
As we never know what could happened. 

• a virus?
• a wrong manipulation erasing the wrong folder?
• your laptop fall and broke?
• a faulty driver?
• …

As a designer, your life and your professional data are all in your laptop.
Such as your family pictures, your portfolios… and so on.

The content is invaluable.

Your laptop is your best ally as a Designer.
Do not neglect the Time capsule back up.

The Time capsule is pretty expensive,
but note that you can use any brand of external hard disk as a backup drive.
I recommend you to choose one with a minimum of 2Tb of memory.

Choose a Time-Capsule if you can

I still recommend the Apple Time Capsule for its longevity.

I got mine for more than 10 years, and it is still fully working.
I personnaly connect it using the Ethernet cable.

Connecting the Time Capsule with the Ethernet yellow cable

Note that you have now newer versions of the Time-Capsule that support wi-fi.
So you can place it anywhere of your choice. 

But recently,
Apple announced they discontinue the Time Capsule.
You can still buy them in Apple store and retail till supplies last.

Set up your back up material asap.
So you won’t lose precious datas. 

Like a life insurance,
the best time to get your protection, is when you don’t need it.

Hope it helps!
Cheers,
Chou-Tac

PS: I recently bought a portable hard disk from Western Digital for travel purpose.
The plug connection is already faulty after 2 years.

Do not use your back up drive as a portable hard disk.
Your back up drive should remain at home or office.
So you will reduce the risk to damage your disk, lose it, or get stolen…