Snow Leopard not yet ready for use

I find it strange that you are having so many problems. Are they happening on all machines or just one? I've installed Snow Leopard in three Macs since Friday and have not had a crash on any of them at any time, of any app or the system itself. None. And I would say I've likely been on a Mac, though not the same one, pretty much constantly since picking up SL on Friday.

The only possible solution I can think of would be to reinstall SL. It's supposed to do an archive and install when you do that an A&I can solve all kinds of problems.

But I'm very curious as to whether or not this is widespread over several Macs or isolated to just one. If only one then I would say a hiccup happened during the install, if widespread then I would say you have some third party app installed on all the machines that is in conflict with SL.

Kevin

It's just one of three that's having major problems one other lesser problems. So you may well be right. However of the three it's the two MacBooks that are having the crashes. These are nearly identical Macs however the one that's crashing a lot is the most heavily used - basically constant use around 18 hours a day. The only one not to have crashed is a 1 week old iMac.

All software on all of the Macs was absolutely up to date prior to the SL upgrade.

Have you created a new user account and tested the applications there? The programs I use day to day (and all the programs you've mentioned are among them) are solid on my computer. At present I'm not using many plug-ins with Safari, Mail, or iPhoto - that might be part of your problem.

I haven't created a new user, and I will do that. However I don't understand how that will help me as I need access to all the material that is in the existing users!

I have zero plug-ins in any of the software causing difficulties. Other, that is, than plug ins that the SL installer might have installed.

Message was edited by: Pelorus1

Pelorus1 wrote:
I haven't created a new user, and I will do that. However I don't understand how that will help me as I need access to all the material that is in the existing users!

It's a standard troubleshooting step: if the program(s) with which you're having trouble are reinstalled and/or reused in the new, fresh account and work fine, you can be certain the problem is not a general one, but rather is something specific to your old account.

Eric thanks for that. I have created and tested in a new account and the scenarios I have tested so far have not generated the crashes that they do in my normal account.

What is the next step here? Please don't tell me to move my old account data and apps to the new account. I don't think I could face that 😉

What is the next step here? Please don't tell me to move my old account data and apps to the new account. I don't think I could face that

As Eric and I said, we now know your problem is in your account somewhere - where is the hard part. The problem might be in your login items - a utility that is launched at login. It could be that an important file or folder has the wrong permissions. It might even be those pesky plists.

At the very least I'd check out a plist or two of the offending programs. I'd also check input managers and plug-ins. If worse comes to worse you can always move your data folders to the new account (you'll have to change ownership of course).

OK well I installed the whole shebang again. That appears to have improved things - some of the things that were crashing before, don't appear to be now.

I think it will take 24 hours or so to get a real picture. Thanks for all the help so far and I will update after I've spent a bit more time exploring to see if the issues really have gone away.

Hopefully that will have worked. Snow Leopard is supposed to do an Archive and Install when you reinstall it and sometimes it is much quicker and easier to do that rather than spend hours trying to track down the real cause of the problems.

Kevin

Hi, I just want to join in and ask if anyone did a clean install of SL and tried to install Photohsop CS4 on it. I'm using a late 2006 macbook and when i opened the setup app for Photoshop CS4 i see it apper on the dock but then it just quits.

I just spoke with the tech reps at VMware Fusion, and they specifically told me that it would be a month or more before they were compatible with Snow Leopard. My Mac is less than one year old, as is my version of VMware Fusion.

VMWare Fusion 2.0.5 is working fine here for my Windows XP Pro VM after the SL upgrade. No tweaks, nothing required, it just works as it did in Leopard. I don't force boot into the 64bit kernel and haven't tried to.

Hi, thanks for your help and tips about a new thread. I've actually managed to get it working now, think the problem was either (or both) that I left the virtual machine suspended when I installed SL, and also because despite installing the new 2.0.5 vmware SL was still managing to run the older version (despite uninstalling and deleting files from trash) until I restarted over night. or some other reason. who knows. but it seems to be running the new vmware now and has restarted the vm in safe mode, so I'm happy. thank for your help.

Having the virtual appliance suspended when you update/upgrade is definitely a bad idea 🙂 as I found out for myself some time ago. I *don't think* a program will run while in the trash. But I *do think* that helper applications inside the package will so that could have been the problem. At any rate I'm glad you solved your problem.

No Time Machine backups or .Mac backups?

Well as promised here's the feedback after the re-install of SL:

The crashes of Safari seem to have stopped;

The crashes of iPhoto seem to have stopped;

What remains is:

Unprovoked crash of iCal and the crash report said basically - this is a bug!!

SL brought to its knees by leaving VMWare Fusion running but not in use. The application slowly kept grabbing more and more cycles until finally everything ws responding very, very slowly. Taking a long time to shut down Fusion solved the problem.

The Flash plugin in Safari crashed but left Safari standing.

Other than that it is more stable and responsive after the re-install but still not perfect. But hey what/who is?