How often do programs crash?

[blSwagger]

I got my first Mac, a late 2008 MBP, last week. For the past couple days, most of my programs keep crashing. For example, when I opened iTunes last night, it crashed 4 times in a row, so I reinstalled it and it seemed to work fine. This morning I got a message that the mac software updater crashed (I had left it on over night).

Why are my programs crashing more often than on Windows? What can I do?

 

[pcorrado]

that is odd, i switched from Windows 2.5 years ago and have had my computer crash (programs) maybe 4 times - actually, all of them were Microsoft programs (entourage and word). Something may have gone wrong with an installation somewhere - try this:

1. boot from your OS X restore cd by holding option down while turning your computer on.

2. Click through the screens until a utilities bar appears at the top of the screen (maybe 3 screens in) and select disk utility.

3. Select your hard drive from within disk utility (on the left) on the right side should be a first aid panel.

4. From within the first aid panel first click check disk or verify disk (its phrased something like this) - this will take a few minutes. If the check turns up something bad - repair disk by clicking on repair disk.

5. After you check and/or repair your disk click on repair permissions - this will also take a few minutes.

6. After all this is finished, exit out of the OS X install disk and boot back to your hard drive and test things out.

 

[themoonisdown09]

I maybe have programs crash a couple times a year... not that often.

 

[ryannazaretian]

I had a lot of trouble with programs crashing right before I sent my laptop off to be replaced. Safari was the worst. I tried to reset Safari, but it did not help. Microsoft Messenger would hang when shutting down all the time. iTunes would crash regularly. This was right after I sent it in to be replaced, and the OS had only been installed for a few weeks, so I'm leaning toward another hardware fault because nothing should have killed OSX in just a few weeks.

I got the replacement for many reasons though, not just because of program crashes. My trackpad would go out all the time. Last weekend it went out for thirty minutes, and a restart, SMC reset, and NVRAM reset would not fix it, and this was right after getting the machine back for the second time for this to happen. Also, in the last repair, my iSight was replaced, and my fans. In September my hard drive died, and my logic board. At this time my trackpad was also having a lot of issues. So last week I decided to call Apple and they are getting it replaced.

 

[Viper2005]

I've had one kernel panic while playing World of Warcraft on my late 08 MBP (in OSX).
Also, VLC media player crashes often when seeking in MKV files.. on all macs 😛

Other than that, crashes are very very rare in OSX.

 

[alphaod]

My iTunes has been crashing a lot too of recent.

 

[Eidorian]

VLC has always seemed to hate MKV files in OS X. It's a lot less prone to crashing in 0.9.x though.

Mail loves hanging when closing but that might be more related to a connectivity issue upon closing.

I don't think I've ever had iTunes crash.

 

[blSwagger]

Like I may have said in my original post, I re-installed iTunes and manually did a mac software update. I also ran disk utility a couple times to repair permissions (any suggestions on this?). Since then (it's been a few days), I haven't had a single program crash! 😀