Post your snow leopard flaws (The Snow Leopard bug report)

[idunn]

Sleep

After upgrading to SL, this MacBook had both sleep and screen saver issues. As I recall, the only way to put it to sleep was close the lid (but don't hold me on that one). I do recall the screen saver issue quite clearly, and it would not function at all, manually or automatically. And this not a third party screen saver, but Apple's own. Both these problems vanished only when I did a clean install of SL.

One other thing about doing a clean install of SL. Some of these comments seem to suggest not returning data from Time Capsule after a clean install, but just how is that going to work? I have no system disc for most of the applications I have, if they ever had one to begin with. Also, there is no way I'm going to forsake such media as movies I've previously purchased from iTunes. So how exactly is one not going to return old data after a clean install?

AND, I'd like to point out that a good deal of the problems I've experienced have not been with some flaky third party software, but Apple's own. Either that or the whole computer wigging out.

 

[HLdan]

After upgrading to SL, this MacBook had both sleep and screen saver issues. As I recall, the only way to put it to sleep was close the lid (but don't hold me on that one). I do recall the screen saver issue quite clearly, and it would not function at all, manually or automatically. And this not a third party screen saver, but Apple's own. Both these problems vanished only when I did a clean install of SL.

One other thing about doing a clean install of SL. Some of these comments seem to suggest not returning data from Time Capsule after a clean install, but just how is that going to work? I have no system disc for most of the applications I have, if they ever had one to begin with. Also, there is no way I'm going to forsake such media as movies I've previously purchased from iTunes. So how exactly is one not going to return old data after a clean install?

AND, I'd like to point out that a good deal of the problems I've experienced have not been with some flaky third party software, but Apple's own. Either that or the whole computer wigging out.

Why don't you have the system discs? If they didn't come with one you can easily download the software from the developer's webpage, just input your serial keys granted to you at the time of purchase.
A "clean install" (provided that you used Disk Utility and erased and formatted the hard drive) is only clean when you manually install your apps. Dumping everything from a TM backup does nothing but put your drama back onto a clean system, henceforth it's not much better than doing an archive and install or the upgrade.
Restoring from a TM backup can lay files that may corrupt your new install of SL.
You'll need to provide more info proving that your 3rd party apps are not the cause of the problems, but rather Apple's.

 

[idunn]

No way

Well, to begin with, in principle neither myself or anyone else should have to concern ourselves with IT or clean installs. If Apple feels it is warranted, then they should clearly say so in advance, with clear instructions on how to proceed. And I did do a clean install via Disk Utility, as clean as it gets.

I've long since given up downloading flaky third party software, that I have has proven stable before. In most cases it was downloaded, so never a disc to begin with, and I'm not sure the difference between downloading same again or simply transferring from Time Capsule. And, as mentioned, I'm sure not going to re-purchase and download all these iTunes movies again. I didn't just grab everything off TC, but selectively, and its very purpose seems to be exactly that.

Moreover, while fully accepting that certain third party software might not make such a transition successfully, I wouldn't expect it to cause system wide problems, especially if not open or even used. AND I damn well do expect Apple's own software to work properly, that which is installed from a clean install from SL. Not to mention this entire computer wigging out whenever it feels like it.

If memory serves, there are always issues with such a transition, which should be expected. But I do not ever recall such serious and immediate problems, and that includes when the OS fundamentally changed a while back, and basically all software had to be upgraded or discarded. To blame all these many reported maladies (which are as real as can be on this end) on operator error strikes me as the height of arrogance I would expect only from someone such as Microsoft. No one at Apple I've discussed this with has such an attitude, only they just don't really pay attention.

Perhaps the greater Apple universe is perfectly content with SL, in which case I stand corrected. But not my experience, obviously not of at least a few others, and I don't think we've done anything wrong.

 

[Eidorian]

Why don't you have the system discs? If they didn't come with one you can easily download the software from the developer's webpage, just input your serial keys granted to you at the time of purchase.
A "clean install" (provided that you used Disk Utility and erased and formatted the hard drive) is only clean when you manually install your apps. Dumping everything from a TM backup does nothing but put your drama back onto a clean system, henceforth it's not much better than doing an archive and install or the upgrade.
Restoring from a TM backup can lay files that may corrupt your new install of SL.
You'll need to provide more info proving that your 3rd party apps are not the cause of the problems, but rather Apple's.

We went over this in another thread. User space is a thread and Migration Assistant is a broken program written by Apple?

The next culprit is probably going to be user haxies, the libraries, or dare I say it frameworks from the upgrade process which is now an Archive & Install. Apple wrote a poor installer then?

You can migrate without carrying over any applications. The only option I've seen around here lately is to just let go of 4-6 years worth of files because they'll somehow break Snow Leopard.

 

[craig1410]

I'm using Apple Mac since 1993 so would say I know may way around. Each machines is different configured some are clean installs, some are update and there is no novelty software running on any of them. I certainly repaired permission zapped the PRAM etc. but fact is SL from my experience is not very stable for a system which is not supposed to crash and just had a 12 month "improvement" overhaul.

Sounds like you do indeed know your way around - I hope you weren't offended by me asking.

As for the improvement overhaul, speaking as a software developer I would say that there is more to Snow Leopard than just a year of stability improvements because many of the changes introduced are pretty major in terms of architecture and design. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that your statement is incorrect because this is the marketing message which Apple have been sending out you are quite correct. I just think that Apple are perhaps understating the magnitude of the changes under the hood. It will take a bit of time for Snow Leopard to settle down but I expect 10.6.3 to be as stable or more stable than 10.5.8. I don't expect to have to wait until 10.6.8. Luckily I am happy with 10.6.2 myself.

Of course, again speaking as a software developer, it is difficult to explain to a typical customer how you have spent a whole year or more tweaking stuff under the hood with very little to show for it on the surface and it will be another year or two before we start to see the real benefits of many of the things which Snow Leopard introduced (GCD, Open CL etc).

I have a number of customer projects which I would dearly love to rewrite because they have perhaps grown out of shape over the years or because they could benefit from more modern software design methodologies and/or platforms. My own company has done nothing wrong with such projects but getting a customer to pay for a rewrite to correct what they might view as design shortcomings is not easy and my own company isn't going to do it for free. However, at some stage you need to recognise that pruning and reshaping goes with the territory and is in the best interests of all concerned in the longer run.

I hope you find some solutions to your issues soon and don't have to step backwards to Leopard.

Craig.

 

[idunn]

Oink!

I was looking forward to Snow Leopard because my understanding that it wouldn't be mostly flash or new amusements, but a serious attempt to address any shortcomings in the Mac OS. So imagine my dismay when in practice it proves exactly the opposite. No flash, but lots of problems.

I'll mention my regrettable experience with TextEdit yet again, indeed because it is such a minor program, so simple, worked fine before, and now such a headache . . . and also because it is Apple's own software.

Maybe Apple will finally get this right with 10.6.3, but why didn't they just wait and tease us a bit longer until all the bugs were really ironed out? I would have been perfectly content to wait for a proper 10.6.0. Are we nothing but guinea pigs?

 

[Amdahl]

Maybe Apple will finally get this right with 10.6.3, but why didn't they just wait and tease us a bit longer until all the bugs were really ironed out? I would have been perfectly content to wait for a proper 10.6.0.

Since Apple doesn't do a real beta test (excepting those Secret Snow Leopard Beta Testers, like HLDan and theSpaz), you can always expect that 10.6 would have problems early in release. You've got to learn that 10.x.4 is the earliest to dive in, if you can help it.

Are we nothing but guinea pigs?

Think of it more as being in the 'control group.'

 

[craig1410]

I'll mention my regrettable experience with TextEdit yet again, indeed because it is such a minor program, so simple, worked fine before, and now such a headache . . . and also because it is Apple's own software.

What are the issues you are having with TextEdit? I use it regularly in Leopard and Snow Leopard (and indeed Tiger) and have never had any issues whatsoever.

Just curious because, as you say, it is such a simple little program.

Craig.

 

[Simplicated]

Minor issue:

When a dialog is being called from an application and I coincidentally zoomed my screen in or out (using ^Scroll), the shadow of the dialog fails to load.

 

[craig1410]

Minor issue:

When a dialog is being called from an application and I coincidentally zoomed my screen in or out (using ^Scroll), the shadow of the dialog fails to load.

I just tried reproducing that one and couldn't I'm afraid.

I tried in Safari and TextEdit (which what I think you were using) and I tried zooming in and out and moving windows around, switching focus between windows etc but the shadow remained intact in all cases.

Sorry...

Edit: Ahh, scratch my last, I can now reproduce the issue! I re-read your test case a bit more carefully and tried zooming _as_ the dialogue was opening and after a few attempts I was able to reproduce the issue. I suppose that would be a tricky one for Apple engineers to pick up in testing. Have you reported it to Apple's feedback webpage?

 

[dukeee]

Sounds like you do indeed know your way around - I hope you weren't offended by me asking.

As for the improvement overhaul, speaking as a software developer I would say that there is more to Snow Leopard than just a year of stability improvements because many of the changes introduced are pretty major in terms of architecture and design. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that your statement is incorrect because this is the marketing message which Apple have been sending out you are quite correct. I just think that Apple are perhaps understating the magnitude of the changes under the hood. It will take a bit of time for Snow Leopard to settle down but I expect 10.6.3 to be as stable or more stable than 10.5.8. I don't expect to have to wait until 10.6.8. Luckily I am happy with 10.6.2 myself.

Yes, I see where you are coming from and it's certainly correct I just would have wished Apple would have done what they said they'll do. OS X needs a lot of fine tuning like a finder overhaul or making the system what is should be (the most stable system available) but unfortunately Apple now would need another year to make SL that what is supposed to be a stable operating system.

 

[jamesr19]

problem displaying dnss when add custom ones (won't display the first one as it gets written over so is just left blank)

 

[idunn]

TextEdit

"What are the issues you are having with TextEdit? I use it regularly in Leopard and Snow Leopard (and indeed Tiger) and have never had any issues whatsoever."

I'll quote myself from a previous post, pg. 22:

"...writing something via TextEdit. And finding, as it has ever since SL, that inexplicably entire paragraphs vanish at a keystroke, necessitating an 'Undo Typing,' or it would refuse to type a character at all, or highlight areas above or below, or the curser suddenly migrate and one find they are over typing something else. Not to mention typing only to find TextEdit has suddenly vanished behind another window, pulling it forward again only to have it happen over and over. In other words either a minor annoyance, or a near terminal problem."

If this makes no sense, I entirely agree. And of course at the moment all is working fine. So I'm not sure if the observed (experienced) problems have to do specifically with TextEdit or this MacBook choosing to wig out when I was using it. I'm fairly certain I've experienced the cursor suddenly jumping elsewhere (to find myself then over typing text elsewhere) in TextEdit; I can swear to it having happened more than a few times when typing email directly in a browser. As for why???

 

[Jookbox]

I bought snow leopard on day one and I still haven't figured out my airport problems. I've tried another clean install and I still have the intermittent connection issue. Crap is so annoying.

 

[dyn]

Most of my problems have been with Safari, and other OSX functionality such as Save As in all programs.

Safari seems to be problematic for a lot of users with whatever OS X version they have been using. It's been that way for Tiger, Leopard and now Snow Leopard. Especially the new things in Safari 4 like the Top Sites seem to be causing lot's of problems for people. That and the lack of other features made me switch to Firefox.

I just reinstalled Snow Leopard last night. Formatted the drive and all, but still experiencing a lot of beach balls lasting 20 seconds or longer on simple things such as "Save as PDF" or "Save As." At this time, I really don't have any 3rd Party software, or any software tweaks in place. Just the basics like Firefox and Virtual Box, but neither running at the time of the problems.

All those things are related to the hard disk, have you checked if it's still ok?

I don't know if this fixed my battery notification problem that embarrassed me during class, as I have yet to drain my battery.

I haven't seen that change with 10.6.2. It still says I need to replace my better and when I look again it says everything is ok. It is way too flaky. I'm not liking the colour issues still present after 10.6.2 either because 10.6.2 had some fixes in this area. Just see what we can do and report it.

I'm starting to think something may be wrong with my laptop. I noticed that my Windows Experience index for my hard drive went down to 5.8, when it was at 6.0. Hopefully there's nothing wrong, but I have everything backed up just in case.

I'd check the hard drive straight away. Everything you mention as a problem seems to be disk related. That might point at a hard disk failure (or just a flaky SATA driver in OS X). Having backups is always a good idea!

 

[FrenzyBanana]

I bought snow leopard on day one and I still haven't figured out my airport problems. I've tried another clean install and I still have the intermittent connection issue. Crap is so annoying.

i have the same problem

 

[dyn]

i have the same problem

Make sure the router and/or access point(s) have up to date firmware versions. If they have try playing around with the beacon time. I've had intermittent wifi connections 6 months ago and solved it by playing around with that. I found out about it because the log on the Mac was filled with beacon time out errors (another hint: check your logs for information like this when you have a disconnect). It now appears that I have to get another AP around here somewhere as the reception in the kitchen is not that good (which is the reason why the MacBook with 10.6.2 has intermittent wifi, it's reproducible with every wifi-enabled device).

 

[rparks]

Here is my problem. When I try to copy files from my HD or a thumbdrive to another thumbdrive I get this message: The operation can’t be completed because an item with the name _____ already exists. I believe this is a snow leopard problem because:

1. It does not happen on the PC
2. It never happened with Leopard.
I have tried all possible fixes and workarounds and they do not work.

Only thing I noticed is that I can copy files from thumb to my HD, but not back.

 

[idunn]

Check your battery

I do not know if this has anything to do with Snow Leopard or not, but it might. Others have previously mentioned battery issues, such as not charging the same with SL, and I wouldn't really know as I customarily keep this MacBook plugged in all the time. But tonight I noticed the lithium battery was bulging.

As in it was quite noticeable that it wasn't sitting flush with the bottom of the case, acts like it wants to pop out, and when looked at exhibits a certain curvature top and bottom. I checked with someone else with a MacBook similar to this, and they report a perfectly flat battery.

Although noticing this distinct bulge only tonight, what I have been noticing for some time, perhaps coincidentally since installing SL, was the (space bar) button adjacent to the trackpad acting very sensitive, at times a result as if I had no more than breathed on it or thought to touch it. Some other strange things as well, related or not. The battery of this laptop is located directly below the trackpad.

Subsequently, I am presently using this MacBook sans battery, and the battery resides in the fireplace - just in case. I have an appointment soon with Apple, and ever so curious to see what they might say.

If a MacBook or laptop, you might just look.

 

[tkermit]

I do not know if this has anything to do with Snow Leopard or not, but [...] tonight I noticed the lithium battery was bulging. [...]what I have been noticing for some time, perhaps coincidentally since installing SL, was the (space bar) button adjacent to the trackpad acting very sensitive, at times a result as if I had no more than breathed on it or thought to touch it. [...]

This almost certainly has nothing to do with Snow Leopard, and I am not quite sure why you would have thought it did ?!

 

[Nick G]

I too had sleep problems but these manifested themselves as the computer almost immediately waking up after sleep. Similarly, if I shut the computer down, it would restart by itself seconds later.

It was eventually found that the System Configuration folder in Macintosh>Library>Preferences had become corrupted. Deleting this folder, shutting down and restarting cured it. According to the advice given it is a Snow Leopard bug.

Details here:

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2146316&tstart=0

 

[echochamber]

I got a macbook pro that had SL installed about 2 months ago. I've mostly had freezing issues when the screen saver is active and it doesn't like to wake from sleep mode. Another prob are the beachballs of death when using networked drives. Folders on networked drives are read reeeeeeally slow. Safari is pretty much worthless and moves at the speed of dial up. These probs are all via a wired network connection.

 

[idunn]

Bulging battery

Per the previously mentioned battery issue, I of course do not know the cause. Why I thought SL might have something to do with it, in no more than the OS controlling how a battery operates, and others here having spoken of certain related issues, such as less useful charge, etc.

Regardless, it might be prudent to glance at the back of one's laptop.

 

[tkermit]

Correlation does not imply causation

Per the previously mentioned battery issue, I of course do not know the cause. Why I thought SL might have something to do with it, in no more than the OS controlling how a battery operates, and others here having spoken of certain related issues, such as less useful charge, etc.

Regardless, it might be prudent to glance at the back of one's laptop.

Although your intentions are probably good, I just think this is not the right place for bringing up your issue. There should at least be somewhat reasonable evidence that the OS is to blame before bringing up a (hardware) problem in a Snow Leopard bug report thread.

Battery charging in Apple's portable computers is controlled by the System Management Controller as well as by chips inside of the battery itself. Your battery bulging is more than likely due to an actual hardware defect, and the current operating system running on the computer would be the last place I'd look at to find a reason for it.

You certainly have a valid complaint, it's just in the wrong spot…

 

[01jamcon]

Was holding off on buying snow leopard for a while now, finally took the plunge and installed today, issues so far are:

In iPhoto in a smart album I created, labeled "Favourites", I'm unable to move between photos in full screen without the computer freezing completely and I have to turn it off by holding the power button, can't even get the force quit window to show. This doesn't seem to happen in any other albums or in all photos mode.

Using my Logitech mx 620 mouse and the latest update of the Logitech control centre software, I'm unable to set the two thumbuttons to the "all windows" or "show desktop" expose functions, despite being able to set the buttons to other functions such as clicking.

This is all a bit disappointing seeing as it's already on 10.6.2 and its meant to be a polishing to leopard, not a major overhaul. Already booked a genius bar appointment for these issues. Any help from you guys though would be greatly appreciated.