Odd Mountain Lion Crashing Bug Brings Down Nearly Any App

[andiwm2003]

Hahahaha this is now my favorite way to force quit an App

File://

[Dubstructor]

I just sent this as a message on iPhone to someone I know and it ended up crashing the Messages desktop app. I didn't even think of the Desktop ver since I'm still stuck in using Adium and I hardly touch the desktop Messages app.



If you RECEIVE a message with "File:-///" (I don't want to crash Safari, LOL!) the way to fix it is to go to ~User/Library/Messages/Archive and you will see a list of date stamp directories. Find the date it was sent and in that dir you will see "(Name) on (Date) at (Time)" files that are chat transcript logs. Nuke it an relaunch Messages. That will prevent Messages from re-reading the log file on launch and it won't crash.

You'll lose the log of the message that contained the crash causer, but you should be fine otherwise.

(I'm not totally sure about that tho...I had to clean it up from my side. There may be more steps involved.)

--------------

If you are the SENDER...oh boy, this is gonna be fun for you.

You have to nuke the 3 chat.db files in ~User/Library/Messages/
You may also have to kill the imagent process in order to allow you to nuke the files (In use errors when trying to delete)

The drawback - you lose the log of every message you ever sent. I can confirm this worked for me.

EDIT: If you're a Time Machine user you can also roll back the entire ~User/Library/Messages/ directory to a time just before you were sent the message. You can safely find the time on an iOS device.

[jimjiminyjim]

If this calibre of crash is a fast spreading rumour, OS X is in good shape indeed. It only brings down an app, not the whole system, and only doing something most users never will.

[AnalyzeThis]

Originally Posted by AidenShaw

Actually, it is down to $445....

It closed @$442.32. Keep up a good work Apple!

[andiwm2003]

So if I recieve a mail that contains this stupid file:-// in the header then it will crash my mail?

Also what happens when I log in to my mac and type file:-// instead of my password? I don't dare to try.....

Anyway for me it crashes already after the second dash. I don't need the third at least in Safari. Autofill?

[vladster]

Originally Posted by Fresh Pie

Ugh. I just tried to contact an Apple representative about this, and as soon as I described the problem, they hung up on me. This bug goes deep, man.

You mean, their support line crashes when you say File:/// ?

[ElTorro]

Originally Posted by jimjiminyjim

If this calibre of crash is a fast spreading rumour, OS X is in good shape indeed. It only brings down an app, not the whole system, and only doing something most users never will.

Nothing is ever a bug when it comes to precious Apple. It's always the user's fault. Holding it wrong, typing it wrong, scratching it wrong. When are you guys will finally think for yourselves?

[SlCKB0Y]

Originally Posted by gnasher729

But importantly, because the effect of the bug is to stop the application from running, it is not something that can be exploited for malware.

Are you claiming that that a crashing application cannot be exploited for malware ever or just in this situation?

[Bubba Satori]

Originally Posted by jimjiminyjim

If this calibre of crash is a fast spreading rumour, OS X is in good shape indeed.
It only brings down an app, not the whole system, and only doing something most users never will.

The funny thing about rationalization is it's polar opposition to rationality.
I want to thank all those who have provided some hilarious examples today.

Some of my other favorite gut busters.

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!!!

Originally Posted by ctcampbell

Slow news day?

Originally Posted by 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.

Originally Posted by gnasher729

"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.

This one should get a belly laugh from those watching the $700 to $440 haircut.

Originally Posted by dearfriendx

Yeah, this is SO utterly embarrassing. Most of the world is required to type 'file:/*' into most apps these days.
Their stock is going to plummet

[Dubstructor]

I found that this problem doesn't exist on Snow Leopard or Lion so I typed it into IRC and it crashed my client app on Mountain Lion. Also when I try to relaunch IRC it tries to read the old log file and crashes again. HAHAHAH

Doesn't seem to work with Twitter tho

[MythicFrost]

Ha I just crashed spotlight. This is an amusing bug.

[igorleandro]

Open Text Edit
Type File:///, crash
Crash Reporter comes up
Typed that I typed File:/// and Crash Reporter crashes

Damn!!!

----------

By the way, to type the above message I had to do it in Terminal and copy / paste into the browser, cuz otherwise, not even this post I would have managed to do.

This is a serious freaking bug!

[voyagerd]

Originally Posted by Peace

If you have iCloud synching go to either the iPad or the iPhone and delete the message with the error. Then it should propagate to the Mac and the message with the error will be gone.

I thought that too, but they didn't have iMessage with that address on their iPhone.

[Peace]

Originally Posted by igorleandro

Open Text Edit
Type File:///, crash
Crash Reporter comes up
Typed that I typed File:/// and Crash Reporter crashes

Damn!!!

----------

By the way, to type the above message I had to do it in Terminal and copy / paste into the browser, cuz otherwise, not even this post I would have managed to do.

This is a serious freaking bug!

If those characters were actually used in OSX I would agree but who types that and for what reason ?

[marzer]

Originally Posted by Fresh Pie

Ugh. I just tried to contact an Apple representative about this, and as soon as I described the problem, they hung up on me. This bug goes deep, man.

Do people think this is just a coincidence? IMF President Strauss-Kahn getting framed for sexual assault and now this? Wake up!

[coolspot18]

Originally Posted by jimjiminyjim

If this calibre of crash is a fast spreading rumour, OS X is in good shape indeed. It only brings down an app, not the whole system, and only doing something most users never will.

This sort of bug should not even exist in an operating system past beta. I don't think Windows has even had anything this trivial.

Lately it seem Windows 7/8 is more stable than OSX...

[Battlefield Fan]

Originally Posted by bbeagle

I should have learned long ago not to defend Apple on these clearly anti-Apple message boards. *sigh*

Jaja take a break from the Internet please.

[M2M]

Sending File:/// via iMessage or email to a machine with ML may lead to crashing the Mail Program or Chat window. Some kind of hacker may exploit this.

So no this is not an easy "just don't type it and you are safe" thing.

[mrsir2009]

Considering it’s such an odd bug, I wonder if it was an inside job?

[bengst]

Originally Posted by azentropy

Not a bug, it is a feature!

no, it's emoticon! ://

[Puevlo]

I have found a way to exploit this bug to gain complete control over a remote Mac running Mountain Lion. This is serious enough that I would suggest people running 10.8 to avoid the Internet until this is resolved.

[Tech198]

lol

holy molly, it works

It actually works

Welcome Mac's to starting to be exploited.....


*Thank goodness it's only Apple's apps...* ... At least, you can use Firefox or Chrome for the meantime anyway..... If you use itunes (90%) well.... we're already hosed :/

[KnightWRX]

Originally Posted by Tech198

Welcome Mac's to starting to be exploited.....

Since this is not a null pointer exception or a buffer overflow type exception, it could be hard to exploit for anything except a DoS type attack (like people are already doing against Messages for kicks and giggles).

And Mac's starting to be exploited ? Macs have been exploited for years, didn't we just have a ton of crap with MacDefender and others just last year ? Selective memory at its finest right there...

Originally Posted by Tech198

*Thank goodness it's only Apple's apps...* ... At least, you can use Firefox or Chrome for the meantime anyway..... If you use itunes (90%) well.... we're already hosed :/

It's not just Apple apps, it's any app that uses NSTextField and other input entry from AppKit that happen to call the system spellchecker/datadetectors. That's a lot more than just Apple apps.

[OnceYouGoMac]

It's not a bug, it's a known problem I laughed my head off when I read about it earlier.

[gnasher729]

Originally Posted by SlCKB0Y

Are you claiming that that a crashing application cannot be exploited for malware ever or just in this situation?

Once it's crashed, it's crashed, and it is impossible to do any harm. In this particular situation, the bug that is there will _always_ crash the application, so it cannot be exploited. In other cases, if a hacker finds a way to crash an app, he or she can then try to find a way to make the app do things the hacker wants it to do instead of crashing. There may be a way to do this, or there may not.

Originally Posted by coolspot18

This sort of bug should not even exist in an operating system past beta. I don't think Windows has even had anything this trivial.

And that's total nonsense. This is a bug that is very, very hard to detect. Mountain Lion has been shipping for many months without anyone complaining. It is entirely possible that the same kind of problem exists on Windows, except nobody found it.