Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Just downgraded back to Leopard, and loving it so far...

Ivan P

Ivan P

macrumors 68030
Original poster
Jan 17, 2008
2,692
4
Home
I was one of those people that initially had no real qualms about Snow Leopard, but lately the bugs have started to really show themselves. I've found booting in 32-bit mode has seen sluggish performance at best, booting into 64-bit was the only time I ever felt any performance increase; the flaw being that many apps I use (namely VMWare Fusion) cannot run in 64-bit mode (other apps, like Adium and aMSN, refused to log me into any of my IM accounts while in 64-bit also). I've also had terrible problems with sleeping and waking my MBP that no amount of reinstalls would fix - in the end I kind of snapped last night when the display locked up before switching itself off, the computer wouldn't sleep at all, and after a force shutdown it rebooted itself around 3 or 4 times during the initial bootup process before it would load anything. Switching from the 9400 to the 9600 would randomly give me the blue screen and would refuse to log me back into my account, also prompting a force shutdown.

So I backed up all of my data and decided not to reinstall Snow Leopard again, but to downgrade to 10.5.6, which was definitely the most stable version of OS X that I've used on my MBP. So far, not a single problem. I missed the old Expose greatly, so it's great getting that back again, I've noticed boot times to be way faster then 10.6 (even after restoring all of my data), and I've had absolutely no cases of lockups or problems switching between GPUs.

I know 10.6.2 should be coming soon, but IMO 'soon' isn't really good enough, I definitely think that Apple should have held off a couple months instead of trying to beat Microsoft in the OS race (which is what I honestly think was the case). Snow Leopard is great value for its price I guess, but I feel that the final updates to Leopard cement it as a much more reliable OS (at this time I'd honestly even rank Tiger as being a better solution) - to me, 10.6 still feels like more of an incomplete beta. Time will tell if I upgrade again in the near future.

Oh man, now I feel like how TheSpaz feels in regards to 3.0 on the iPhone 3G :p
 
Hopefully 10.6.2 will be enough but Apple has really broken my workflow under Snow Leopard. Moving from Tiger was hard enough but Snow Leopard is the deal breaker.
 
I moved to SL on both my MBP and my MP. I did the regular install (i.e. didn't wipe disc and install fresh) on both.

Now, I have had no issues on the MBP and have seen nice performance increases, mostly when opening encrypted disc image files and shutting down and booting up.

BUT . . . the Mac Pro was definitely a different story. My wife mostly uses the MP for Photoshop stuff, and there were daily little bugs that would annoy her. One day there was more than just one. That day the icon previews in Bridge were all pixelated for no apparent reason. A restart solved this. But then none of the documents opened in preview would show anything. Just a blank window! A restart solved that. But then the OS lost the Wacom Intuos4 tablet! Just wasn't there. A restart solved that. Then multiply selected items in Bridge would not all open with the "open with . . ." command (into PS). This is usually broken, although it sometimes works. She told me that every day there is stuff like that.

NO GOOD.

So, I swapped in the image of the OS I made just before updating to SL, then used CCC to update the user account on that disc to the current state, and thus reverted totally back to OS 10.5.8.

Since that time, NOT ONE oddity or bug has bothered the MP.

Eventually I'll put it back to SL. Maybe like when it gets to 10.6.4 or something. And I'll do a clean install from the box set. But for now, it's Leopard for us on the MP.
 
10.6.2 better fix the majority of issues. I've had my desktop go funny a few times: I can't type anything or switch applications but the keyboard still works (well I can press CMD+Space and it'll highlight Spotlight but not bring the drop down box). I can't Force Quit Finder because when I bring up the Force Quit Applications dialog no applications are listed. I can't load up Macintosh HD either. I'm guessing it is a bug in Finder.

Only thing I can do is a force shutdown which means anything I was in the middle of doing I lose.

Another annoying bug is Finder will crash when skipping through videos in Cover Flow/require a Force Quit.

Coming from the most stable OS X ever (Leopard 10.5.8) to Snow Leopard, I feel my blood pressure boiling with crashes and annoying bugs.

Snow Leopard will mature and be the most stable OS X release, but it took Leopard a year to get properly sorted out. We still had AirPort bugs up till 10.5.3!

10.6.2 better fix the majority of these irritating bugs and crashes..
 
It doesn't make sense that clean installs are not working for some people. Every new Mac has a clean install of Snow Leopard, and those don't seem to be causing problems. And yet people with the exact models on sale right now are having problems with their Snow Leopard installs. At what point do you start experiencing problems? Immediately after getting Snow Leopard up and running, before installing any third party programs? Or is it after programs start getting installed? What extra hardware is plugged in?

My Snow Leopard experience has been quite good so far, and my MBP is the early 2008 version. I did make a clone of Leopard before doing the upgrade, just in case, but I haven't needed it. My current version mini also upgraded to Snow Leopard with no issues. Something's just not making sense here...
 
Keleko said:
Something's just not making sense here...
Click to expand...

It will start making a lot of sense once you go beyond using only a web browser
and iTunes. It's not only that most third party applications are having compatibility or stability issues on Snow Leopard, even Apple's own software products are having problems with the new OS. A very common phenomenon, for example, are apps that worked well on Leopard, but crash immediately after being launched on Snow Leopard. For example CyberDuck, OmniGraffle Pro, iCalamus and Montage behaved like this before their makers shipped what you could call "Snow Leopard compatibility updates".

The good news is that most third parties are pushing Snow Leopard compatible updates quickly to their customers. The bad news is that some companies want money for those updates - making it once again expensive to be an Apple user.
 
Winni said:
IApple's own software products are having problems with the new OS.
Click to expand...

This. I've found using iWork 09 on Snow Leopard to be almost unbearable. It would beachball on me just trying to load a blank template in Pages. Haven't had anything like that in Leopard, ever.
 
I knew about Cyberduck and waited for it to get updated before I tried using that particular program. There were bugs with Quickbooks 2009, too, which have now been patched. iWork '09 performs exactly the same for me in Snow Leopard as it did in Leopard. There was also a recent update to Logitech Control Center for Snow Leopard, and that now works fine for me.

One the positive side, Handbrake 64 bit with vlc 64 bit (using developer builds) is definitely faster than the 32 bit "release" version when ripping a DVD, so that's a definite improvement going to Snow Leopard for me.

I've only had one real problem with the Snow Leopard update, and that is my kids' old Creative Zen mp3 players no longer mount properly when connected. The beachball spins for a couple of minutes and then the OS complains they weren't ejected properly. They used to mount fine in Leopard. I have a feeling they may never work right again, but then they are quite old. It is probably time for replacements anyway. :)

The problems reported here seem to be problems with the OS itself, though. Many of the bugs reported are with OS and included programs, such as Safari crashes (doesn't for me), Expose and other slowdowns, none of which I've experienced. So I'm trying to figure out what is different between me and those with problems, and that may be helpful to those with problems.
 
I am also moving down to Leopard for the time being.

There's just a few small issues (application compatibility, workflow) that doesn't work in Snow Leopard right now. I'm hoping new updates would fix it but I'm not gonna wait until Apple releases them and have work stacking by the boat load.

However, SL would be left on my dad's iMac since he found no difference whatsoever cause all he does is watch videos/movies and surf on eBay.
 
Kilamite said:
Given the point in this thread.. though it'd be obvious? Downgrade to Leopard until Snow Leopard reaches a mature state.
Click to expand...

The "obvious" thing to me would have been to IMMEDIATELY roll-back to my latest Leopard install if I were soooooooo sure that SL was the cause of all those irritating bugs and crashes (which I sincerely doubt, but whatever...).
 
sputacus said:
The "obvious" thing to me would have been to IMMEDIATELY roll-back to my latest Leopard install if I were soooooooo sure that SL was the cause of all those irritating bugs and crashes (which I sincerely doubt, but whatever...).
Click to expand...

At this point it's pretty clear that many of the bugs and glitches are due to SL. And, don't get me wrong! I love many things about SL and I still have it installed on my MBP. But . . . if 10.6.2 doesn't fix the damn preview bugginess, I will downgrade back to 10.5.8 for a while even on my MBP. As for the Mac Pro that my wife uses, it will be quite some time before I kick that back up to SL. Probably not until Fall 2010. Small performance increases are insignificant if you can't reliably open multiple selections into finder or photoshop, and if weirdness happens on a near daily basis--like some icons going all pixelated for no reason. Not acceptable.

Understandable? Yes. A deal-breaker? No. I am still excited and happy about Snow Leopard, but the bugs and stability issues really have to get ironed out first.
 
Just after upgrading to SL, my printer needed new ink cartridges. I kinda expected SL would use more ink, but magenta & cyan at the same time, c'mon Apple!! I'm downgrading to Leopard :rolleyes: :D
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back