Odd Mountain Lion Crashing Bug Brings Down Nearly Any App

[Preclaro_tipo]

Hopefully this helps someone.

[blackburn]

Let's hope that Apple servers ain't running Mac OS X or else Apple is going to crash with the crash logs

[jpetticrew]

Originally Posted by ConCat

That means it's probably a bug in a proprietary Apple layer. I don't believe Terminal uses Apple tech for its text rendering (besides the usual Quartz layer for drawing...).

Huh. I did not know that. Thank for the info ConCat!

[GaiaAero]

3 "/"s. Half Life 3 Confirmed

[EmpyreanUK]

You're typing it wrong.

[smirking]

Mountain Lion = Vista 2012

This might have something to do with the strange kernel panics I'm getting when downloading really big updates in the App store. I had to get a new verson of XCode last week. I made several attempts, but it always results in a spontaneous reboot somewhere in the middle of the process... sometimes only after most of the download has completed.

Arrrrgghhh! I hate Mountain Lion.

[gnasher729]

Originally Posted by ConCat

Well, truly malicious malware might be able to use this to cause your apps to repetitively crash. Especially given how trivial it is to automate text entry on a Mac using simple AppleScript commands.

Oh come on. If malicious malware can enter text on your machine using AppleScript commands, then your machine is already owned by some hacker, and crashing applications are the least of your worries.

Originally Posted by ConCat

That means it's probably a bug in a proprietary Apple layer. I don't believe Terminal uses Apple tech for its text rendering (besides the usual Quartz layer for drawing...).

The exact reason for the bug is clearly visible in the crash report in the article. Some code does a safety check that what is supposed to be a file url starts with "file://" - and it doesn't.

Originally Posted by smirking

This might have something to do with the strange kernel panics I'm getting when downloading really big updates in the App store.

Nothing to do with this whatsoever. Since you were downloading Xcode, you should read up on what happens when an NSException isn't caught. Hint: It doesn't create a kernel panic.

[ConCat]

Originally Posted by smirking

Mountain Lion = Vista 2012

This might have something to do with the strange kernel panics I'm getting when downloading really big updates in the App store. I had to get a new verson of XCode last week. I made several attempts, but it always results in a spontaneous reboot somewhere in the middle of the process... sometimes only after most of the download has completed.

Arrrrgghhh! I hate Mountain Lion.

I don't think that's related to this.

[daneoni]

Yup i can verify this. Hilariously bad.

[f0rdness]

Originally Posted by roadbloc

Heh. Wonder if it effects any other versions of OS X.

Doing it in Safari on Snow Leopard just causes it to minimise the window... **edit** and brings up finder with the root of the HDD, odd never new that one before.

However:

iChat

[iMacFarlane]

Wow, amazing bug. So big brother is watching, logging, analyzing. You could just be in the middle of typ

[ConCat]

Originally Posted by gnasher729

Oh come on. If malicious malware can enter text on your machine using AppleScript commands, then your machine is already owned by some hacker, and crashing applications are the least of your worries.

Your machine doesn't have to be "owned" by a hacker to automate AppleScript commands. Care to download a piece of software from me as an example? (I jest)

[dumoon]

Note to self... Do not type File:///. Oh wait....never have and never will.

[ctcampbell]

Slow news day?

[the8thark]

Originally Posted by Thunderhawks

Exactly, haven't typed 'File://' into anything for 60 years until this post and probably won't have too until I die.

Definitely worried....................NOT!!!

I have to agree. I haven't typed that in anything for a very long time. Sure this is a bad bug. But it's not going to hassle the average user. As they simply don't do this.

[sgt-spam]

So I tested this by iMessaging myself the text from iPhone.
iMessage on Mac crashed right away, and then crashed again when I clicked re-open.

Again, and again, and again, and again. Deleting the texts from iPhone doesn't stop the crashing on Mac.

[Jack Delgado]

I'm going to go ahead and guess that this will affect 0.00001% of all humans on this earth. Just my guess though.

[RedCroissant]

Originally Posted by jpetticrew

Didn't crash my terminal.

And you're running Mountain Lion?

[Menopause]

Help me understand this but WHY exactly would anyone want to do this? I surf the internet, study, play games and do pretty much everything else on my Mac but type File://....

*squeaaak*!

EDIT: Okay I take my words back.

[ConCat]

Originally Posted by RedCroissant

And you're running Mountain Lion?

It doesn't crash Terminal. Terminal doesn't use the same NSTextView or NSTextField that every other app uses for text entry. It's likely the bug is somewhere in Apple proprietary code.

With that in mind, go into Terminal's settings (which does have a few NSTextViews) and you can crash the app.

[Preclaro_tipo]

Originally Posted by sgt-spam

So I tested this by iMessaging myself the text from iPhone.
iMessage on Mac crashed right away, and then crashed again when I clicked re-open.

Again, and again, and again, and again. Deleting the texts from iPhone doesn't stop the crashing on Mac.

Thank you, now I won't be conducting this test!

[AnonMac50]

I crashed a friend's Messages app by sending File:/// to him using my iPad a few days ago.

[Jessica Lares]

LOL, only in the OS X world would people be excited over a bug that crashes everything. On anything else, people would be furious and be demanding for an update.

And no, it doesn't work in Terminal.

[gnasher729]

Originally Posted by ConCat

Your machine doesn't have to be "owned" by a hacker to automate AppleScript commands. Care to download a piece of software from me as an example? (I jest)

If I download malicious software from you (also known as a "Trojan") that can send AppleScript to type text into an app to crash it, then the same software can very easily send AppleScript to the Finder to delete all my documents, or send AppleScript to Mail to mail my documents to some server, and so on. One thing it can do is to send a "Quit" command to each running application via AppleScript. The insecure operation is downloading untrusted software.

Originally Posted by Jessica Lares

LOL, only in the OS X world would people be excited over a bug that crashes everything. On anything else, people would be furious and be demanding for an update.

"Doctor, doctor, it hurts when I stab my eye with a spoon".
"Don't do it then. ".

This hasn't crashed any Mac except those who read the article and had to try it out.

[bbeagle]

Originally Posted by blackburn

Let's hope that Apple servers ain't running Mac OS X or else Apple is going to crash with the crash logs

Exactly how would this crash an Apple server? Apple servers don't use a GUI to interact with the outside world, therefore no NSTextField. Noobs love to speak without knowing anything.