App crashes in OS X

[CubaTBird]

How often do you guys' apps crash in os X? like show an error that the proggy unexpectly quit.

 

[Blue Velvet]

Depends on the app.

One program on my machine that is 100% reliably flaky is Illustrator 10.
And Quark 6.1, less so.

But most of time, solid.

Why? Are you having lots of problems at the mo?

 

[PlaceofDis]

like Blue Velvet said, it depends on the app

if it becomes a consistant problem with one app, try repairing permissions and deleting the prefs for that app, it usually does the trick for me

 

[RacerX]

Well, I guess throwing up the numbers (dates and times) would be the best way to talk about the reliability of my system and it's apps.

Uptime: 11:17PM up 137 days, 23:17, 3 users, load averages: 0.74, 0.35, 0.26

Crash logs (last crashes):

• Acrobat 5.0.5 - 2003-10-03 02:03:35
• Adobe GoLive 6.0.1 - 2004-08-01 07:22:49
• Adobe LiveMotion 2.0 - 2004-03-14 08:57:37
• Adobe Photoshop 7.0 - 2003-08-26 16:42:37
• AppleWorks 6 - 2003-03-06 23:03:16
• Create - 2004-04-14 23:16:28
• Curator - 2003-05-15 09:03:47
• Mail - 2004-07-16 19:16:08
• PStill - 2004-05-12 09:39:33
• RBrowserLite - 2003-05-01 02:08:10
• TimeEqualsMoney - 2003-02-09 16:43:02

and OmniWeb crashes every so often, but as it has a crash reporter, I don't have a log for it.

Make of it what you will, I'm happy.

 

[andysmith]

The only thing I can remember crashing recently was Adium. (and the official MSN client, but I don't use that any more)

Had a problem with the Help viewer quitting last night, but I trashed the prefs and it fixed it.

 

[5300cs]

Uptime: 11:17PM up 137 days, 23:17, 3 users, load averages: 0.74, 0.35, 0.26

Jesus, 137 days. I can never get any of my non-Linux machines to stay up that long. My record with OS X was 64 days with my 17" PB but it was asleep most of the time

Something ALWAYS happens that makes me reboot

 

[jxyama]

Uptime: 11:17PM up 137 days, 23:17, 3 users, load averages: 0.74, 0.35, 0.26

so you haven't applied any of the security updates..?

 

[russed]

i will probably on average get a crash say every two weeks. the most common of those being in word. typical microsoft!

 

[johnnyjibbs]

I almost never get system crashes and I only reboot during updates.

iPhoto managed to freeze on me this morning for some strange reason, but nothing ever crashes - Word v.X very occassionally, iDVD 4 when burning slideshow DVDs (PLEASE FIX THIS APPLE!!!).

I noticed a lot of app crashes under 10.3.1 (like in Safari especially) but they have gone away now.

 

[RacerX]

so you haven't applied any of the security updates..?

I'm running 10.2 (on a Wallstreet with a G4 upgrade) behind a firewall... and while it is nice that we get security updates, to date I have never seen an actual exploit.

The last time I restarted was to take this system to see a client (I don't have a working battery and the battery bay has a second hard drive in it while the CD bay has a CDRW drive in it). The next time I happen to shut down I'll consider patches and updates for things.

Until Mac OS X becomes a bigger target (or a target at all), the risk is beyond minimal that I would have any issues. So applying things that have a good chance of breaking my system to guard against things that have almost no chance of effecting my system is really low priority for me.

What are the odds that I would be the first to get attacked? As a consultant who keep 70 systems updated and watches the Mac community for anything that might effect one of my clients, I'd most likely read about an exploit before I actually see one in action. I update my client's systems (updated a 10.3 system this morning), but I get paid to keep their systems updated and to fix anything Apple's updates break (though I do give Apple's updates a few weeks in the wild to see how they effect the community's systems before I apply them on any of my client's systems... remember 10.2.8?).

Heck, I knew about Mac viruses for years (at least 8 years), but didn't see my first until last year (on a Mac OS 9 system).

Time will tell... right now, this is the most perfect, trouble free little system I've ever had. Even my apps seem to run happily along, rarely (in some cases never) crashing. Like I said, I'm happy.

 

[Westside guy]

Hopefully you've got sshd (remote access) off then - I have seen attempted exploits on OpenSSH installations. If you're running any daemons (services) at all, then you really should be patching regularly. You don't think Mac is much of a target, but certainly Linux and BSD are - and Mac shares a lot of the underlying code with them (OpenSSH, Samba, CUPS, etc.). A firewall won't make much difference if the attack comes in on a port that's intentionally left open.

BTW I'm glad you haven't seen any attacks. But I must say it bothers me that so many Mac users have this attitude of "I'm not running Windows, so I'm not worried". Unpatched Linux boxes get owned; unpatched BSD boxes get owned (occasionally!). It's only a matter of time until hackers start paying attention to OS X as well.

Okay, if someone wants to buy a soapbox I'll sell this one cheap.

 

[RacerX]

I never said that this was the course of action everyone should follow, and like I said, I spend much of my time watching for this type of stuff... because someone else pays me to.

Unpatched Linux boxes get owned; unpatched BSD boxes get owned (occasionally!).

That is an odd choice of words... owned. Wouldn't just be easier to use plain english rather than slang to make your point? I mean, it isn't like we're in high school here...

 

[Westside guy]

That is an odd choice of words... owned. Wouldn't just be easier to use plain english rather than slang to make your point? I mean, it isn't like we're in high school here...

No, given that I'm 44 I've left high school far behind. But in any case, it wasn't an odd choice of words at all. That is the term many *nix sysadmins use, probably even more than "rooted" - although I imagine that'd have set of your "slang alarm" as well. What "plain English" phrase would you have preferred?

FYI a kiddie wouldn't be caught dead saying "owned". They'd likely have used either "0wn3d" or "pwn3d", or perhaps (let's see if I get this right) "h4><0r3d".

 

[RacerX]

But in any case, it wasn't an odd choice of words at all. That is the term many *nix sysadmins use, probably even more than "rooted" - although I imagine that'd have set of your "slang alarm" as well. What "plain English" phrase would you have preferred?

Well, having worked with Unix systems for more than 15 years (I have three SGIs and two Suns here) and as most of my friends have as much if not more experience than I, I highly doubt that it is the standard phrase used to describe a hacked system these days.

The places I've seen it most used is by script-kiddies (mainly on the PC side of things) and gamers, and you're right they also use other interesting versions... You wouldn't want to be thought of as one of them, right?

May be this is a Linux phrase, though I know fewer Linux people, that still strikes me as out of place. And it undercuts your experience on these things. I would think that an old school term like hacked would work, it has been used enough that the general public has a pretty good feel for it.

 

[jwoltman]

The places I've seen it most used is by script-kiddies (mainly on the PC side of things) and gamers, and you're right they also use other interesting versions... You wouldn't want to be thought of as one of them, right?

Why would he not want to be thought of as a gamer?

 

[Westside guy]

Well, having worked with Unix systems for more than 15 years (I have three SGIs and two Suns here) and as most of my friends have as much if not more experience than I, I highly doubt that it is the standard phrase used to describe a hacked system these days.

Oh well, we'll have to just disagree on this; especially since it's rather trivial. Your co-workers don't use the term, while mine do. Could be more of a Linux-ism, since the majority of our servers are Linux - but we've got a few dozen Solaris boxes as well, not to mention (gasp) a couple HP-UX boxes (No Xserves yet, unfortunately; although we do have a Red Hat box driving an Xserve RAID). Some of my co-workers are in their early 20s, but one is even older than I am (gasp again).

Of course most of the time a box gets owned/rooted/hacked/compromised around here it's one of the Windows boxes, so it might be thought of as a more disparaging term - who knows?

 

[Mechcozmo]

I can't remember the last app crash I had. Thank Apple for that!

My uptime has never broken a week on my PowerBook. That is because at school I often shut it down between classes. My iMac is at, however...18 days. Going until Tiger comes out.

 

[CubaTBird]

call this irony, but

i just did a reinstall of os x with the 10.3.5 updater listed in software update and safari just randomely crashed like within 5 min of actually using the computer, i repaired permissions and it said something about "group is 0, should be 80" what does that mean? lol, just wondering~!