Leopard Upgraders Getting "Blue Screen of Death"

Z80xxc! writes "Some Mac users upgrading to Apple's new Leopard operating system are encountering long delays on reboot — an experience they liken to the Windows 'Blue Screen of Death.' While some of those upgrading were able to access their computer after waiting for as long as several hours, others were forced to do a complete reinstall. Some suspect that a framework called 'Application Enhancer' by Unsanity LLC may be causing the problem, but there has been no official word from Apple at this point."

jesus h christ

[deathtopaulw]

people are so fucking stupid
"oh no this 3rd party application which adds dubious and useless enhancements to my system is causing my computer to not work upon upgrading to a completely new version!"
bust out the slashdot article I guess

Re:Right...

[Anonymous Coward]

Except that when it's windows, the comments are more along the lines of "the OS shouldn't let stuff like this happen! M$ is TOTALLY at fault here!!!1!1!!1!1"

Application Enhancer is trouble

[Stormwatch]

I had used Application Enhancer for a while, but Photoshop became very crash-prone; a friend reported Safari crashes after installing it. I wouldn't suggest it to anyone.

Also, rule of thumb: 100% clean installs are always the safe way to go. Back up your stuff, wipe the HD, then restore as needed.

Re:Right...

[trifish]

Yep, and it would be tagged as "defectivebydesign" and "haha". You know, MS is a near-monopoly so their products do deserve a good deal of good old unfair bashing...

Re:When posting replies to this article

[astrosmash]

Just remember, if windows got taken down by a third party app, not only would you be screaming and shouting about bill gates and phalluses, but also you would be baying for the blood of anyone who dare use windows.

No I wouldn't, James. Who are you talking about? Care to provide an example?

Neither Slashdot readers, Apple users, nor Microsoft users operate as a collective unit. Just because User B says something that contradicts User A, it does not make either a "hippo"-crite.

Re:Application Enhancer is trouble

[m2943]

Also, rule of thumb: 100% clean installs are always the safe way to go. Back up your stuff, wipe the HD, then restore as needed.

Unfortunately, it then takes many hours to reinstall all the little utilities and applications and settings one has come to depend on.

Re:Archive and install

[Anonymous Coward]

I use (3) because my home directory is on a different disk to my boot disk, and I did that on purpose so I could do nice clean installs. (2) works well too though.

But don't you have to then reinstall all of your apps? That's like Win98 logic.

Re:When posting replies to this article

[nine-times]

Just remember, if windows got taken down by a third party app, not only would you be screaming and shouting...

Not under circumstances like this, we wouldn't. Some of Unsanity's programs are pretty invasive little things that fuck around with the OS in ways that Apple doesn't support. From their site:

What exactly is Application Enhancer? It is a combination of a Framework and a system daemon. Application Enhancer performs its task by loading plugins (Application Enhancer modules) containing executable code into the running applications. Once loaded, the APE module performs the needed modifications (such as redefining the minimize window action, or customizing the standard Apple menu) on the launched application memory space, never touching any files on disk, utilizing set of functions defined in the Application Enhancer framework.

So yeah, if you have even a vague understanding of what this product does, it shouldn't be any surprise that it could cause problems if you threw it on a new/unknown version of the operating system. This isn't just a "3rd party application". It's not like if Windows crashed when you installed Firefox (which Microsoft would get criticized for), but more like if Windows crashed when you tried to use an obscure and invasive 3rd party WindowsXP hack on Windows Vista (which Microsoft would not get criticized for).

And it's not even clear that OSX itself crashed (as in a kernel panic). For as few details are available, it could just be that Finder or the installer crashed, which wouldn't be surprising if APE is screwing around with those applications' memory space.

Deceptive summary

[edwardpickman]

I was worried when I first saw it until I found that it was a 3rd party app causing the issue. The summary would lead me to believe it was a defect in Leopard. It would be nice to mention it's a 3rd party issue and not Apple's fault in the summary.

APE is *not* a kernel mod.

[argent]

But if it is APE then well then that's kinda understandable its the singlemost invasive kernel mod of all.

APE is not a kernel mod. It runs entirely in user mode.

come on, Apple, move into the 21st century

[m2943]

Too bad Apple doesn't talk up safe booting more so people will know it is there.

Too bad Apple doesn't do the user-friendly thing, which is to offer users "safe mode" when the previous boot failed. That's what both Linux and Windows do, and it's the right thing to do (well, even better would be detecting and disabling broken extensions, but I guess that's too hard for any of them).

Re:Archive and install

[Hijacked Public]

Like most problems of society, drug use is not likely the cause of the above errant moderation.

I get mod points quite often and I've fucked up applying them a few times. Each time it was related to the fact that the current UI for moderating is drop down menu (which is just fine) that applies whatever moderation is selected immediately upon being clicked (no fine). This would be halfway fine if there were some means to un-mod a post, or at least re-mod it, but there is not.If my mouse pointer is off slightly when I click an item in the list I'll have applied the wrong moderation and can do nothing about it.

This is obviously dumb. I don't want to be bothered like I'm using Windows, but some things involving user selections on a computer need either a confirmation step that is distinct from the selection or have a Back button.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:When posting replies to this article

[RJBuild1088]

This also brings up a good point: Who is ultimately responsible? As far as I can see, Apple and Microsoft are responsible for creating a stable platform that can support and run third party applications. Third party developers are responsible for creating applications that work with what they are given, and don't do anything to screw with it. Say you're doing some home improvement on your roof. You rent a ladder from a company, but it doesn't quite reach your roof. You sit it upon a chair to make it reach, resulting in your fall and injury. Who's responsible here? Apple shouldn't be blamed here, just as Microsoft shouldn't be blamed for third party app failures. If on the other hand, the ladder broke as you were climbing it, they would be to blame. It's all a matter of knowing what you can do to an OS, and who ultimately causes the failure.

Re:Archive and install

[fbartho]

For 80-90% of Applications, "Install" = drag and drop a folder into your main applications folder (and its not even neccessarily required, just convenient to have the app icon with all the others) for the remaining applications, they are either extremely large (maybe it needs to install system daemons or services for all applications to use), or are installing many more than just one application at a time (assuming it's just not poorly coded). These applications usually come bundled in a diskimage (.dmg) which is essentially a zip file that the OS can do some interesting things with. Inside that they either let you drag the application bundles to your application folder (the drag and drop mentioned above), or they have a small installer, that has the ability to verify services are up to required minimums in addition to copying several files at once. Adobe CS3 has an installer app for this reason, it ends up installing several applications at once, as well as verifying many other things, and providing common resources.

I just have a download partition where I keep everything I get off the web, to reinstall all my apps, assuming totally clean reinstall, it takes about 15 minutes, I run down the list clicking the dmg of each program I want, then I have one window on my applications folder, and cascade down through the windows for the contents of each dmg, drag my apps over, and close each window 1 by 1, finally unmount. 5 minutes for that, and the remaining 10 minutes for CS3 :P

Re:come on, Apple, move into the 21st century

[Anonymous Coward]

You are smoking some fine crack friend. When the _fuck_ is booting Windows automatically into safe mode user friendly?

Never. It's an unholy fucking nightmare, and non-IT-admin types should NEVER, EVER be dumped to into safe mode in Windows. Spend some time doing tech support for Windows users and you'll know what I'm talking about.

NOTHING in Windows' boot menu should be automatic, it ALL leads to certain doom.

Re:When posting replies to this article

[NMerriam]

you don't need to look hard to see what comments get moderated up on this site. Groupthink is strong here, whether you notice it or not.

I've noticed that is the latest groupthink to make the rounds. it's a statement about as useful as "i know I'll get modded down for this..." which inevitably gets modded up.

There are a lot of people on slashdot (and I guess in the world in general) who seem to enjoy being the victim of some massive conspiracy, rather than perhaps recognizing that when lots of people disagree with them it really is just a lot of people thinking they're wrong.

Re:Application Enhancer is trouble

[commodoresloat]

I have a few Mac games .... Stop bullshitting.

sounds like you're the one bullshitting ;)

Re:still Apple's fault

[NMerriam]

The fact that on OS X, utilities like APE have to do this is indicative of bad underlying software design.

no, it's reflective of the fact that Apple doesn't provide any APIs for accomplishing those tasks. It's no different than patching explorer.exe while it's running so that the File menu suddenly does something completely different -- basically guaranteed to cause problems with something, because you're not supposed to do it and no programmer expects it to happen. But I'm sure the code that MS programmers work on is reasonably modular and accepting of changes to the File menu without breaking anything else.

Re:Funny

[mattgreen]

And it is still a terrible idea. You can make very few safe assumptions about the target process. You don't know the state of the heap, so you have to use your own heap for that thread. You don't know the base address for DLLs, so you have to use only kernel32.dll functions (and that is luck that it always loads at the same base address for every process).

But the absolute worst part about CreateRemoteThread() isn't the fact that it does what it says. It is the simple fact that you need to actually inject your thread function into the target process. That is, you need to copy the assembly necessary to run your thread into the target process. WriteProcessMemory() is an API call that will get you flagged as malware by a lot of AV utilities, but is necessary to use CreateRemoteThread().

Re:Boot verbosely

[kithrup]

No, verbose boot just causes the graphics to be delayed until loginwindow is run. It does not affect "safe boot" in any way.

One of the first things I do on setting up a new Mac is to change the boot-args nvram variable to be verbose. Not only is it informative if there's a problem, but I find the scrolling text messages to be comforting in their obscurity.

Unsanity's software aren't just apps.

[argent]

Unsanity warns you that they are making deep modifications to the user interface and patching applications dynamically when they are loaded. They are not "just apps", they are not even like Parallels which does come with a kernel extension... because it runs as a regular application otherwise. Not to mention that Apple considers Parallels a key player, but has a definite problem with Unsanity.

I'm not saying that people who are having this problem are morons, but I don't think they should be so quick to blame Apple for this... unless you're suggesting that Apple actively broke APE or something?

Car analogy

[ToasterMonkey]

My car 'just works'

Even with regular maintenance, I still get unexpected interruptions of service now and then.

Nothing technically 'just works' all the time if you want to bitch and moan about all the corner cases where it can break, but there are things designed to work with very little fuss, for a reasonably long time.

Point is, 'just works' doesn't have anything to do with occasional bugs, but describes how something was designed/is intended to happen, and the reliability to work as intended. That's where Mac OS X, and my car wins the title. For the most part, they work very simply, as intended.

Re:APE is *not* a kernel mod.

[cyber-dragon.net]

Except Windows where the OS, GUI and Web Browser are all the same thing :)

Re:I hate monopolies!

[ChrisMP1]

Apple's not a monopoly. If you have all Apple products, that's your choice. You can use an Apple computer with Linux or Windows (though I don't see why), a Logitech mouse and keyboard, a Dell monitor, a Linksys router, GMail, an RCA mp3 player, and purchase music elsewhere. You use Apple by choice, and they don't have a very large market share in much other than the iPod/iTunes area. Though I can't see why anyone would use an Apple monitor; you can get the same monitor for 1/3 of the price from a different company...

OTOH, you'd be hard pressed to find a computer in a business (other than Apple's stores) or the home of an Aunt Tillie that doesn't have Microsoft Windows.

Re:Mod parent up

[pebs]

If things go wrong sometimes, then I would say that "it just works" isn't all that true. I don't use Apple stuff, but I still have a pretty good impression of their integration/user experience work.

I just started getting into Apple stuff with the release of the G4 Mac Mini. I then subsequently got a Mac Pro to replace my main machine which was running Linux. I decided to give OS X a fair chance to see if really was better than Linux.

In my experience "it just works" is far from accurate. It's definitely a slick environment and worth using, but comes with enough issues that it doesn't live up to the hype. But I guess its a mistake to listen to the hype (Apple's products fell far short of my expectations due to hype).

The problem, as with any commercial vendor, is that you are often stuck waiting for the company to fix things. For example, iLife apps crash. They crash a *LOT*. What can you possibly do other than wait for them to fix the bugs? OS X itself is usually pretty solid. Occasional something just won't work right. Sometimes I actually have to REBOOT to fix things. This is just not what I expect from an OS based on UNIX. I suspect (partially from experience) that they just haven't gotten it together after the Intel switch.

Apple's products have just as many problems as any other OS vendor. They may be different problems, but don't believe anyone who says they don't exist. And Apple is a company that is constantly changing things (OS9 -> OSX, PowerPC -> Intel, frequent OS updates), so you can't possibly expect stability from them. Having control over the hardware apparently still isn't enough to achieve this.

Re:The problem IS caused by Application Enhancer

[anagama]

Maybe the only reason people would install a "hacky" piece of software is because Apple makes it so dang hard to customize your personal workspace. People are different, not homogenous.

Note to the apple modders -- I have a bunch of apple hardware, and not a bit windows stuff -- I'm speaking from experience, not as a troll.

Re:Archive and install

[Lonewolf666]

On Windows it can get somewhat more complicated, because

1) the registry entries may be spread over various sections of the registry. Offhand, I can recall
-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE
-HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software
-HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT (have fun searching through that)

2) fishing out the DLLS may require an extra tool like Dependency Walker (URL:http://www.dependencywalker.com/). Easy enough if you know such a tool, but it may be somewhat beyond a newbie.