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Snow Leopard Bug Responsible for Loss of User Data Gaining Notice

Where are the Apple fanbois? I'm curious to know what they are going to say this time... Vista might have been a mess, but nobody lost their data...
Let's see... Maybe they tell us taht is good because Apple let us free some space in our HD... Or, wait, encourage us to get new friends or listen to new music by deleting all our previous pictures and music... Or just wants you to find a new way of doing your work, by deleting all that you have previously done...
Apple: always working for you!.
 
If this turns out to be true, this is a major hole in Apple's OS X story. I mean--losing all your data!?!? MS could have a field day turning the tables on Apple's "it just works" line (note that I'm NOT saying that MS "just works" either though).

I've been dismissing a lot of the SL bug complaints as rare cases to be expected in any release, but this one is making me seriously pause to think what other problems can be lurking under the covers. Believe me, I don't like saying this--I've been a big Apple fan since the Apple II.

I'll bet Steve is furious. Maybe someone needs to be fired for this one.
 
Hmm, seems it was a good thing then that I did a fresh-install of Snow Leopard, as I used to have the guest account enabled under Leopard.
 
Oshawapilot said:
Don't get me wrong, it's a serious bug and it's potentially a PITA for anyone who encounters it, but really...in an era of <$100 1TB external hard drives and the utter simplicity of Time Machine, the amount of pity I feel for people who don't backup anymore is dropping exponentially by the month.
Click to expand...

Justifying Apple already... Nice. How about the time to put back your files? how about you are on the road and you don't have your HD with you? How about you are working and lose inmediately all your info (and some customers)?
 
Oshawapilot said:
Don't get me wrong, it's a serious bug and it's potentially a PITA for anyone who encounters it, but really...in an era of <$100 1TB external hard drives and the utter simplicity of Time Machine, the amount of pity I feel for people who don't backup anymore is dropping exponentially by the month.
Click to expand...

Assuming, of course, there are no major bugs in Time Machine too..
 
files are still there

I had this problem however:

The files were still in /Users,
recovery was not too difficult.

1) su in terminal
2) mv username username.old
3) create account username
4) mv username username.new
5) mv usermane.old username
6) chown -R username username

But I did panic before seeing the solution
 
SimonTheSoundMa said:
Or you could just be a Sidekick user and enjoy Microsoft/Danger loosing all your data.

Just think if Apple lost data to do with .Mac/MobileMe.
Click to expand...

It depends on the perspective.

I figure that Microsoft product users would say that losing your user folder data on your OS is definitely worse than losing the data in your MobileMe account.

Stop being apologetic, it's a bug, hey, it happens.

But let's not act like MacRumors wouldn't be flooding with Windows bashing if the same thing happened to PC's running Windows 7.

Anyway, this didn't happen to me. Let's just hope Apple sorts this one out quickly because, let's face it, it's a major screw up.
 
Morky said:
Always perform a clean install.
Click to expand...

Of course, if you install an OS FOLLOWING MANUFACTURERS INSTRUCTIONS which did not include a CLEAN INSTALL option (but pretty much you had to do it yourself with disc utility) AND this install corrupts your computer and you lose all your data, IT'S YOUR FAULT.
Amazing. Just amazing.
 
Oshawapilot said:
Don't get me wrong, it's a serious bug and it's potentially a PITA for anyone who encounters it, but really...in an era of <$100 1TB external hard drives and the utter simplicity of Time Machine, the amount of pity I feel for people who don't backup anymore is dropping exponentially by the month.
Click to expand...

Heck, you better have a backup on a DVD as well, what if the 1TB dies.... make that 3 dvd is different locations just to make sure. I can accept dataloss due to hardware failure or user stupidity, but and OS upgrade is piss weak.
 
whooleytoo said:
Assuming, of course, there are no major bugs in Time Machine too..
Click to expand...

Grasping at straws now? Yeah, the potential for the *latest* backups to be empty (assuming a backup completes after the data loss) is there, but unless you are using a tiny backup drive with only marginal room for a day or three of backups (instead of the weeks/months that is easy with Time Machine and a large backup drive) then there's nothing to worry about.
 
Bad Apple, bad! Hope they fix it soon because this is a serious issue and their image will be damaged if they don't
 
This Is A Security Bug In The Login Window

Find an account with no password (using the guest account results in data loss).

Now go to the login screen and click the account with no password, then quickly click on the account that HAS a password. Do this fast enough and you can login to your account without typing your password.

This leaves your keychain locked. But all your data is accessible in this way. If you logged in using the guest account, then upon logging out of your account, you may lose data in your home folder including your Documents.

Can't say why this showed up in Snow Leopard and 10.6.1. If this turns out to be as widespread as I have tested, then disable accounts without passwords until Apple can put out a patch. I have reported it to Apple because it works on several systems I have tested (including clean installations).
 
I don't know if this is related but I came home yesterday from the Movies turned on my MacBook Pro and got a black screen that on the top said "No Bootable Drive Found, insert disc to continue"

I was able to restart and hold the Options key down and then select the hard drive and get back into SL but now several of my apps freeze and crash every 30-90 seconds after opening them.....
 
And as usual, somebody attempts to spin an article about Mac OS X into a Windows vs Mac backstreet matchup. :rolleyes:
 
3D0G said:
If this turns out to be true, this is a major hole in Apple's OS X story. I mean--losing all your data!?!? MS could have a field day turning the tables on Apple's "it just works" line (note that I'm NOT saying that MS "just works" either though).

I've been dismissing a lot of the SL bug complaints as rare cases to be expected in any release, but this one is making me seriously pause to think what other problems can be lurking under the covers. Believe me, I don't like saying this--I've been a big Apple fan since the Apple II.

I'll bet Steve is furious. Maybe someone needs to be fired for this one.
Click to expand...

If this dataloss was due to a virus, M$ would have a field day.....
 
macintologist said:
I had a guest account in Leopard, I upgraded to Snow Leopard and now I just realized I can't access the Account settings in System Preferences! I wonder if this is related to this story.
Click to expand...

That happened to me last year when I upgraded to Leopard. I found a fix with Google that involved booting into some command line mode and changing the root password.
 
The problem, can easily be reproduced when a user logs into the 'guest' account, either on purpose or by accident, and when they log back out of the account and back into their normal one, they find that their account has been fully reset with all data wiped and lost
Click to expand...
I "upgraded" SL right on top of Leopard. One of my kids has been firing up the guest account regularly since Sep 1.

I guess my data is stubborn 'cause it's still there.
 
augustm said:
I had this problem however:

The files were still in /Users,
recovery was not too difficult.

1) su in terminal
2) mv username username.old
3) create account username
4) mv username username.new
5) mv usermane.old username
6) chown -R username username

But I did panic before seeing the solution
Click to expand...

That doesn't even make sense. That implies that all of your files as in your old user account, and you just renamed it, and then un-renamed it. The issue is that the files are DELETED, so they won't be in your user account.
 
Oshawapilot said:
Call me anal-retentive, but I keep offsite backups of my absolutely essential files, mainly my digital pictures and anything not stored on the cloud, which nowadays, is increasingly little. :)
Click to expand...

Nope that is smart. But your average user, will not be using time machine, so this sucks big time for them. And the technically handicapped will not even know what time machine is, and for them to loose their data, sucks big time.
 
Kahnyl said:
That happened to me last year when I upgraded to Leopard. I found a fix with Google that involved booting into some command line mode and changing the root password.
Click to expand...

Same here, I lost admin access on my only admin account on one of my machines. This was before I upgraded to SL so I don't think it's related to this issue persay, but I too had to enable the root account to resolve the issue.
 
SimonTheSoundMa said:
Or you could just be a Sidekick user and enjoy Microsoft/Danger loosing all your data.

Just think if Apple lost data to do with .Mac/MobileMe.
Click to expand...

Thank goodness for MS. Knowing that they have the same problems is such a comfort when the **** hits the fan. and of course it's worse cause their's stinks. :rolleyes:
 
Morky said:
Always perform a clean install.
Click to expand...

Good advice, when you can. But clean installs are notoriously time consuming to restore everything, especially if you have multiple user accounts.

Besides, this doesn't let Apple off the hook. This issue is serious, especially if it is as reproducible as this article makes it sound. My guess is that it's a little more complex than simply have a guest account and upgrade from Leopard to SL. But even still, total loss of data is just plain ridiculous.
 
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