Is Apple going to fix OS X 10.7 Lion?

Alf Megson wrote:

I note that as of this moment there are 14005 threads about Lion - just over two weeks since its release, compared with 83617 for Snow Leopard which has been out for over two years. Admittedly, many threads concern the novel ways which Lion is installed, but even so, I mean come on! 16.75% of the threads in 2.273% of the time?

With each new Apple product, the hype grows exponentially. As more and more people use Macs, you are going to have more and more reports of problems. I can assure you that the vast majority of valid Lion threads are the same problems that people reported with each new version. The rest are just rants.

I just want to list the problems I have had

I would be better to address each problem individually. I will try my best, but there is a lot to work through here. 🙂

Slow startup, three minutes plus. The only way I have managed to reduce this my ten seconds was to turn off automatic login so that I didn't have to type my password.

Startup and Login are two entirely different things. You have a 10 second startup. There is something going on with your user account that is likely causing your problems. Look in your Login Items first. You might try creating a new account to see how it performs. Sometimes, your old account is just really screwed up and you end up migrating all your old problems into the new system.

Can't use any applications for up to ten minutes after startup - constant SBBoD.

Slow finder, frequent SBBoD when opening windows - windows are empty for up to thirty seconds.

Slo-o-o-ow scrolling. Just occasionally but s-o-o-o annoying.

MacBook Pro gets very hot. I have had to buy a gizmo for it to sit on to allow more air to flow under it. It was never this hot under Snow Leopard.

Run Activity Monitor and see what is going on. Show All processes. Something is taking all of your CPU.

So, are Apple going to fix it?

Unfortunately, nothing you have described is typical Lion behaviour. I think a new account will fix all of your problems. You might even want to create a new admin account, log in to that, and delete your old account altogether. Then, create a new account with that old user name and manually copy only your documents from backup. That should run much, much better.

I suggest having a look in the Console to see if there are any messages which keep repeating or indicating a process that constantly keeps crashing and respawning, this would be difficult to spot with Activity Monitor.

Slow start up and frequent SBBoD can indicate hardware (usually a hard drive) that is in the early stages of failure. Make sure all your important documents are backed up, if this is the case a complete failure could happen suddenly and without warning.

I suggest running a surface scan using a utility such as TechTool or Drive Genius if you have them. Apple's built in Disk Utility may pick up or indicate errors related to volume corruption. Disk Utility does not do surface scans so it will not pick up bad blocks on the disk.

I have heard a few reports of Lion not installing properly when a windows partition is present. It may have something to do with the recovery partition that is created during the Lion installation.

I misunderstood what you were saying. So what does Activity monitor report? What about Console.app?

> I guess I can assume that OS X 10.7 Lion is responsible for the impending failure of my one year old HD, is it?

Not directly responsible. Hard drives die. Software can't cause hardware to fail. This is why one

MUST

have a backup plan. See my backup FAQ*:

http://www.macmaps.com/backup.html

If you don't have a backup plan, only you can be responsible for your data loss.

>BTW, the SMART status of my HD is OK. Prior to installing Lion the first time I ran TTP and iDefrag.

SMART doesn't cover all diagnostics a hard drive can be told. Techtool Pro doesn't either. Some only are available to hardware vendors. iDefrag is not recommended unless your data is backed up, because a simple power loss during its use can cause data loss, and only use it if you have lots of 20MB files you can't just archive away and want to keep in its own sequential data area of the hard disk.

>I've done my bit. Now, just as in 2001, it's over to Apple.

Welcome to viruses, spyware, compatibility issues, and hard disk failures all at the same time. Hard disk failures, and compatibility issues are all you really have to worry about with Apple. Double the trouble as far as I consider. I suggest reading my upgrade FAQ* before giving up on Apple:

http://www.macmaps.com/upgradefaq.html

I might add Dell sold my parents a machine with a hard drive that was Dead On Arrival. It can happen to anyone, any company. One year for hard drive life while not something that always happens, is not uncommon.

So, as none of the startup slowness, SBBoD occurred three weeks ago, I guess I can assume that OS X 10.7 Lion is responsible for the impending failure of my one year old HD, is it?

Not necessarily Lion but the process of installing Lion may have surfaced an issue which you were unaware of.

I also forgot to mention that SBBoDs often conclude with a software crash. I don't fancy having utilites crashing midway through a repair.

As the Console app logs crash reports it would be extremely helpful to post a crash report as it may indicate exactly what is happening during that beachballing period.

I also said that I was no longer looking for technical support from here. I am simply asking if Apple are going to fix the problems.

No one knows what bugs have been logged with Apple and which of those they consider high priority. You may want to log a few bug reports through bugreport.apple.com you will then be able to see the status of the bugs you report and if Apple require further information/clarification they will ask for it.

>Welcome to viruses etc.. don't have a clue what you are talking about, sorry...

You said "it's over Apple", suggesting you wanted to move away from Apple. That's why I said "Welcome to viruses." Moving away from Apple is the surest way to move away from a nice secure computer ecosystem. Now I won't fault you for not desiring to upgrade, but blaming Apple for things which are not its fault, and assuming Apple will fix certain things when only you have experienced them, and a few select other people, and not everyone running Lion is experiencing these issues, is the surest way to lead yourself to disappointment about Apple's products. Now I'm glad to hear you have a backup system, but let's not get carried away by Apple's supposed bugginess. We are here to discuss and troubleshoot why individuals get into certain tedious issues. We aren't here to rant about anything.

>Is Apple going to fix OS X 10.7 Lion?

Is a bit like asking, will Apple come to my doorstep and make my machine run like a Ferrari? This is a user to user forum, so no one can know if or when or how Apple is going to change its operating system in the future. The best you can hope to do is isolate your present system issues. Let's stop asking questions for which no one has an answer. That's a waste of time.

Alf Megson wrote:

Is Apple going to fix OS X 10.7 Lion?

This is a question for Apple rather than the user community.

Try http://www.apple.com/feedback/macosx.html

My iMac was losing its wifi status; as I said before, I found it pretty easy to go into System Pref-->Network--> unlock, change from "unplugged cable" to wifi, and rejoin my own network. It still disconnected me, but not as often, once I clicked the lock again. But last time I went further intot he "Advanced" button, and made some changes that I would have to approve any network changes; my hope is it will at least notify me it has lost its sense to use wifi, or maybe, since it has been 24 hours, now, without a drop, it's a keeper.

Either way, It's not a big problem anymore, but I would appreciate a download patch to fix this unsettling instability.

Either way, It's not a big problem anymore, but I would appreciate a download patch to fix this unsettling instability.

Well, then you might want to tell Apple about it as us users aren't going to write a "patch" for you.

WiFi issues are as old as WiFi itself. Unfortunately it is like trying to tune a radio each time there is an update. And when you aren't using Apple devices, you have to check the non-Apple devices for updates too, to ensure everyone is in sync. Sometimes all you can do is dump all your WiFi preferred networks, and create a new setting. And if Keychain is asking questions, respond you want to ALWAYS connect with the keychain. Ever since Apple introduced Keychain, I've never been able to get it to permanently establish any connection except with the Always option.