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I am new to this group and have joined because I am stumped trying to install a newer version of DecoderPro. I have been a model railroader for almost 60 years but fairly new to DCC about 4 years with a lot of help from 3 different clubs Including using JMRI at the Columbia Gorge Model Railroad Club in Portland, OR. So have had a diverse DCC training after a life of working on the ATSF/BNSF 12" to the foot scale for 40 years.
I had been working with DecoderPro 4.8 installed on my MacBook Pro with 10.13.6. It has been some time since I had used it on my own program track. So have had some experience working with DecoderPro and was pleased with the ease of using the program. So, Yes, JMRI worked before on this Mac Book Pro, MacOS High Sierra 10.13.6. I had a friend purchase a SPROG and he inclosed it into a box with his 3D printer. And the system worked fine. I use NCE Power Cab for a controller, but preferred the JMRI DecoderPro to fine tune the DCC decoders instead of the hammerhead. The DecoderPro operates by connections to the NCE cab thru the NCE standard hook up board without any additional power booster then thru the SPROG into the USB port on the MacBook. The electronic boards are well protected in their own box.

I just purchased a new pair of HO Scale Walthers PA units ATSF 72L, 72A an A-B set. Unknown to me, until receiving them in the mail, Walthers changed the decoder to an ESU LokSound decoder from the previous run of the PA model with Sound Traxx which I had purchased last year, ATSF 71L. My plan was to make an A-B-A set with 72L-72A-71L with the new units leading. Also, At some point just last month, I discovered the older 71L had lost the address assigned to it and had defaulted to 3, so I waited until receiving the new 72L, 72A and work with them in DecoderPro speed matching, sounds, etc. and assigning a new address.?

So I carefully read the Walthers instructions with the new 72L and according to Walthers instructions it is possible to use the DecoderPro to change the address in the ESU decoder:
With the Walthers list of features on the new ESU decoder it states:
"Changes to these can be made manually using CV entries or JMRI, but please note that sound files cannot be changed using the ESU LokSound Programmer." I understand the sound programming issue.
Then it goes on to say in the Walthers "Basic Programming Notes":
"We recommend using Paged Mode programming to adjust CV settings - Please refer to your DCC system manual for more information. Programming track boosters are not necessary in order to program the decoders."
Jumping ahead - I just learned this week, from Walthers service tech, that a program track booster is required to deal with sound decoders and the need to use the ESU LokSound program on a PC in order to program the new ALCo PA units with ESU decoders. It was also suggested by one of the people who responded to my inquiry on Trainorders,com Model Railroad board. I received several other responses on Trainorders with ideas.
What do you recommend?
So following the Walthers instructions I opened JMRI DecoderPro and had the program set to Paged mode. Then did the routine DecoderPro process of finding the decoder, noting it did have a list of some ESU decoders.
I set the new Walthers PA 72L on the program track hooked up thru the SPROG and my own NCE Power Cab, clicked onto the top bar "New Loco" to open the drop down box to let the program determine the decoder. Instead of an ESU decoder it selected "Massoth Elektronik, GmbH" with four drop down folders for unknown decoders. Then I selected ESU maually. Still no response. Then the JMRI program is locked into Edit Only mode and did not respond to multiple attempts to revive it.?
After a few more attempts (closing the DecoderPro completely) double checking my own methods using DecoderPro - Unfortunately the DecoderPro picked the list of decoders for LGB every time. Plus it did not activate the box to advance into the actual program mode. So I tried the older 71L with SoundTraxx decoder. It too read it as the "Massoth Electronik, GmbH" with the drop down of 4 specific decoders. So I could not even program non-ESU decoders.?

So now on to the next problem. I figured JMRI team had an up dated DecoderPro that might work better for the new ESU decoders. Up-dating the DecoderPro was also suggested in a response on Trainorders. So I removed the v.4.8 DecoderPro from my MacBook and went to the JMRI website and found two new DecoderPros 4.16 and 4.17. I tried downloading and installing them. Downloading was no problem. Installing was a problem. I got nothing when I tried to open the new JMRI. I even moved it into the Applications folder for JMRI. Nothing. Except at one point the Mac told me I would have to go through the App Store in order to install the DecoderPro. I tried that using the search tool on the App Store. It did not find DecoderPro nor JMRI. So I always have fairly good help from Apple Support. They had no clue why it would not let me install the DecoderPro. Of course the Apple tech had never heard of it, so go figure.
So now I'm stuck! I can't even install the JMRI DecoderPro that I really like on my MacBook Pro. At least when I brought the issue up at our weekly model RR club meeting they decided to buy the ESU program and a power booster for our program track. Any suggestions??
Thank you for all this work to help us deal with these complications.
Steve Rippeteau