Does MagicJack work with Lion? Should I wait to upgrade since I use MagicJack?

Sorry, if you were offended by my post as no offense was intended. MagicJack has a problem running on Mac OS X 10.7 (Lion). If it works fine on some machines running Lion that is wonderful. If it also regularly fails on some machines it makes the problem a tough nut to crack, and that may be why a solution to the problem hasn't been found yet.

I've started saving the crash information when magicJack dies. I am getting close to being able to duplicate the conditions that cause the crashes. I have my MacMini connected to my TV which has a couple HDMI ports. I used to pick up the phone to see if it was working or not, but recently I have been using the TV remote to display the MacMini monitor output. (Incidentally, I have the MacMini set up to never sleep, never start the screen saver, never put the disk and monitor to sleep.) What I have seen dor the last 5 crashes over two days is that the timestamp in the crash information is precisely the time I switched the TV to display input from the MacMini.

So apparently the Mac get an interrupt and then somehow the magicJack software gets involved unexpectedly and crashes. I've had crashes at other times as well, but it is possible they occurred at the time I picked up the phone to check for a dial tone as that it how I used to monitor the state of the magicJack.

What is the make and model of your USB hub that you had success with? If a hub is what is needed, it says the power from the computer is not sufficient for the Magicjack, and possibly the Energy Saver is being triggered by something.

Brody,

You aren't going to believe this but all I use is a powered 8 port - the cheapest one that I could buy (about $8) and it doesn't even have a brand name on it. Nonetheless, I keep the magicjack plugged directly into the computer.

No offense taken. I suggest that you do what I did because it worked for me.

Submit every crashlog.

Get on magicJack's support chat and stay with them until you are satisfied that you have a solution.

That's it.

I did note on thing though. It seems that my iMac's USB ports get confused every now and then as noted when my Kensington mouse would just stop working. Unplugging and replugging the mouse clears the problem but on one occasion a restart was required to get the mouse back.

P.S. magicJack is still up and running on my machine perfectly.

My macMini uses my TV as a monitor. (The TV has two HDMI inputs.) As an experiment I disconnected the HDMI cable from the macMini and I haven't the magicJack software has not crashed for the past 24 hours -- a record. I had previously noticed that the magicJack software crashed about the time I switched the TV to use it as a macMini monitor, so that's why I decided to try disconnecting the TV.

It appears that magicJack is seeing an interrupt generated by activity on the HDMI channel. Without knowing the code I can only make guesses, but magicJack shouldn't die in this case.

Now the challenge will be to get to the right support person to look at this new information I have gathered.

Paul--

I believe you are on to something here. I too have my Mac Mini connected to the TV via HDMI, and I can agree anecdotally with your experience.

Please add a post to this message thread if you get someone at MagicJack who is willing/able to listen on this.

However, separate from getting someone to listen, the real challenge is to get the folks at MagicJack to develop a solution.

I'm convinced that it is the HDMI connection to my TV (which I use as a monitor) that is crashing the magicJack. Today I spent a couple hours bouncing from tech to tech and I went full circle: Level 1 to Level 2 to Level 3 and back to Level 1. I assume I got back to a Level 1 support person because he didn't know how to do anything except restart the magicJack software. (He then proclaimed that the problem was solved! To which I quickly pointed out that the issue with the magicJack crashes had not been addressed and the problem was most certainly NOT solved.) I had spent enough time on this for the day and I had to end the session. Yes, it's going to be well nigh impossible to get them to address and fix my problem. I'm going to look at Google Talk and adding minutes to my cell phone plan and just junk the magicJack pretty soon.

Incidentally, I did get an admission that the magicJack has issues when used on Lion.

just tested mine. 10.7.1 on macbook pro. after the automatic update, works like a charm.

It works in most cases. I found that connecting the 2nd HDMI port on my TV to the HDMI port on my macMini would cause the magicJack to crash several times a day. I've done enough testing to be 100% convinced that this is an issue and it is fully duplicatable.

Hello all,

I am still pretty new to Mac's and I am also trying to install the magic jack but nothing I do works. Can anyone help, with simple steps on how to get this done. I am running Snow Leapord 10.6.8, I have a IMac and Macbook Air but want to use magic jack on my IMac.

Please help this has driven me to want to shoot my phone and their tech support *****. They want to remote with my Mac but that's not happening. Apple Care is hands off on this one too.

Thanks,

Marc

Marcson, can you describe the problem you're having? I have a MacBook Pro with Lion so maybe your issue is with using MJ on Snow Leopard. All I did was download the Mac MJ software and install it. The only problem I have had is the one I've described on this thread. (It still exists and I don't expect it to ever get fixed.)

Hello Paul,

Thanks for getting back to my problem. When I plug the Magic Jack MJ) into my USB port (I've tired all four of them) I get the Icon on the upper right of my screen like for hardware and I also get the Icon with the MJ "Welcome, Double Click the MJ To Start Magic Jack". When I do that I get and error message "Cannot install Magic Jack, Down Load in Prgress". I go to the MJ tech support, they send me the updated and upgraded download and I keep getting the same error.

They wanted to remote into my IMAC but I did not want to that. When going through my Firewall is off and what they wanted me to do in "Disk Utility" did not seem to what they thought it should be. Now I have spent about three full hours on this and am about to give up. But I came here first because you filks are always helpful.

Thanks for your time.

Mark

I'm not sure I can help, but you can try this: Remove your magicJack. In Terminal (in the Applications/Utilities) go to the home directory and delete ".magicJack". (Because it's name begins with a period you won't see this file in the normal file display of Mac OS X.) Then empty the Trash. Maybe this totally gets rid of anything related to the magicJack. (I'm not certain but that's what I would try, anyway.) Then plug in the magicJack again and see if you can download software and start up properly. Other than that I can't suggest anything.