Stupid things in OSX 10.2
| SYMPTOMS | POSSIBLE CAUSE | POSSIBLE SOLUTION |
| OSX 10.2 "Jaguar" is REALLY REALLY SUCKING slow. Yes on a 1GHz powerbook while I'm used to an OS8.6 on 266MHz!!! Menus that dont respond, folders that open but are not being put into focus, missed keyboard strokes (especially the space bar), keystrokes lagging behind, window drags where the grab fails, etc etc. | The system may be too busy with stupid animations as window hiding and zooming the task bar. I never asked for those gadgets and gladly would get rid of them... It is also a culminating impression from many of the above problems. I recently worked for a short while on OS8.6 again, and I was amazed, it felt about FOUR TIMES faster while its CPU is 4 times slower! | Try to upgrade to 10.3 "Panther". The 10.3 Finder is a lot more responsive. |
| Scrolling or key strokes don't happen promptly. For instance, Netscape doesn't scroll although the mouse button was pressed on the arrow icon; or word doesn't do anything although you typed a new word. | Seems to be a problem with MacOSX caching the keyboard/mouse events? | Drag the mouse a little. This seems to flush the buffers... |
| Machine crashes when coming out of sleep. There seems to be a little noise (from the speakers?), and you hear things turning off if you keep the power button pressed long enough, so part of the machine is running. However the display stays black. The machine may go back to sleep if you close the display again, but it seems impossible to get it out of sleep properly. | This happens on my machine when I open the display while the computer is in 'half sleep'. This what I call half sleep is not an official name. Half sleep occurs directly after something is changed with the wiring to the machine while the machine is in sleep mode, for instance the USB or power cable is (un)plugged. You can hear sounds as if the machine comes out of sleep: the speaker clicks, the CD drive makes a click, the hard disc spins up and after a few seconds the power led stops flashing. If the display is kept closed during the half-sleep, the machine will return properly into full sleep after 10 to 20 seconds. But if the display is opened during half sleep the machine crashes. | Avoid opening the display when the machine is in 'half sleep'. Open the display before connecting cables. If the machine is crashed, as far as I know the only way out is to press the power button until the machine goes off (10 seconds or so), and then turning it on for reboot. |
| OSX locks up/stalls/freezes at random moments. This lasts for some 10 seconds, then everything continues working. Sometimes the machine runs 20 minutes without such lockup, sometimes suddenly twice in a minute. Quicktime suddenly stops playing. Windows can't be dragged anymore. | I suspect memory swapping to be at the root of these issues. | Some applications are heavily allocating and de-allocating memory all the time, especially Quicktime while playing. Not running these seems to help. Upgrading to OSX 10.3 seems to solve this. |
| X locks up when it comes out of sleep and can't find a remote appletalk server. Sometimes this is called the 'spinning pizza of death'. | No time-out on appletalk in the system??? | Always unmount remote disks before going to sleep. If you forgot it, wait 5 minutes or so, or reboot. Dont try to log out or quit apps, this will just hang on the pending disk mount... This problem is still in OSX 10.2.6 and 10.2.8 but seems more or less solved on 10.3 (see next problem below) |
| How to use the machine with the build-in LCD display off? | Put the machine in sleep, close the display. Attach external display. Toggle the power cable connector (pull it out and/or push it in) to wake up the machine with display still closed. Wait for the external display to come on. Now you can open the display to use the keyboard, mouse etc, but the display will stay off. | |
| Touching the 17 inch powerbook gives a pricky feeling. This gives tiring and tense muscles in the arms and I think this may cause RSI if you're not aware of this. | Apparently there is electric power on the housing. | Unplug the power supply when working directly on the laptop, or use a separate (plastic) keyboard and mouse. |
| The finder grid that icons are placed on changes, all icons are nicely arranged but the new (file/folder)icon you want to add is out of the existing grid | The grid seems to be connected to the top leftmost icon. If you put a new icon above or left of the previously topleft icon, the grid changes position but most icons do NOT move with the new grid, only newly placed icons are snapped to the new grid. | Don't put something left or above the topleftmost icon (Sometimes it's not you but OSX that does that). Move icons to another place if they accidentally get beyond topleftmost. |
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When a copy is done in the finder, a requester appears 'An older item named "..." with extension "..." already exists in this location. Do you want to replace it with the newer one you are moving'. However the buttons are grayed out, effectively disabling overwrite of the old file. | I haven't seen this happened with a freshly started finder. Apparently something in the finder crashes after some time, after which this occurs. | Restart the finder (command-option-escape). For a single file, throw away the old file before trying to move the new file there as a workaround. |
| PGP 8.0 asks to locate the keyrings. The 'create' button does not work and there seem to be no keyrings available anywhere. | Seems a stupid bug... | Copy an old keyring, for instance the PGP Private Keys and the PGP Public Keys, from an older version of PGP. Rename them to PGP Private Keyring.skr and PGP Public Keyring.pkr (note the difference of extension) and move them to a directory \Documents\PGP. In my case I have a disk named Documents and it showed that it worked only when the PGP directory is located there... |
| PGP gives an error "Warning. The file could not be encrypted". | The file may be in a path containing non-standard characters. For instance ¥. These characters are legal in the finder, but apparently PGP fails on such paths. | Encrypt in another location or change the non-standard characters. |
| PGP mangles files during decryption. | If a folder with multiple PGP files is selected for decryption, it seems file contents are being mixed up. | Instead of selecting the folder, select all files in the folder for decryption (cumbersome if multiple levels of folders are to be decrypted...) |
| "Save as PDF" from Word X results in low quality downsampled bitmaps (about 72dpi I guess) in the resulting PDF file. | Save as PDF apparently uses the preview picture instead of the high-quality original vector image. | Don't use save as PDF, but save as postscript (see the tip on that below) and use Distiller to convert the postscript file to PDF. |
| After selecting 'print' to print a word X document, having set the printing options and pressing 'print', the same requester appears again. Nothing is printed yet, and when the print button is pressed again word crashes. | Don't know, maybe OSX passes the same print menu item selection twice to word before it can react? Word seems to crash if it tries to open the same output file twice. | Always save before attempting to print! If you get at the second save dialog, choose another name than the first time. |
| Printing from Word X crashes on Illustrator EPS picture. When printing to the printer the page with the EPS picture doesn't come out at all. When converted with Distiller and viewed with Acrobat, the picture comes is there but nothing after the picture. Distiller stops conversion right after the picture. | There seem to be commands in Illustrator 9 and Illustrator 10 EPS files that confuse the postscript interpretation. | Save the EPS file compatible for Illustrator 8 or lower for insertion in Word X. (of course keep the original illustrator file) |
| Word downsamples bitmaps when printing to a postscript file. The amount of downsampling varies per picture, and seems to occur only on part of the images in the document. Other images, particularly drawings and desktop snapshots, have very bad interpolated pixels, using pixel duplication... | Word seems to be using the DPI setting of the original image, instead of scaling the original properly. For example if you have a 1200x1200 picture at 10DPI and you scale it to 1x1inch, you will get a 10x10 pixel image ... Upscaling apparently is using stupid pixel duplication.... | Don't use the Word image scale options. Scale images in Photoshop. |
| Word converts embedded vector images to 72dpi bitmaps when printing to pdf or postscript file. | No idea | Re-save the EPS pictures from Illustrator using Illustrator 8 compatibility and check the preview issue below. Word X apparently does NOT support postscript, you must convert them to EPS. |
| Word does not show the EPS preview of an EPS saved in Illustrator, instead it shows a text block "This EPS picture was not saved with a Preview" (part of the text usually falls out of the box). When printed the EPS picture comes out properly. | Word can not handle transparent previews. | Select the "Opaque" preview option when saving as EPS from Illustrator. This option only comes when TIFF is selected, and sometimes not even then (...) |
| Distiller runs twice or more times. The pdf file is created and immediately destroyed, after which distiller starts again. | no idea. Restarting Distiller sometimes works but often not... | Press the 'pause' button while distiller is saving the pdf file. It will actually halt after save is complete. Copy the pdf file and quit distiller. Distiller will remove the original but not the copy you made. |
| Text in Illustrator EPS pictures is changed when printed from word X. Each newline character appears as a square (a block with the size of a letter). The font type is different, and the kerning and placement is wrong. Part of the text may run out of the picture's bounding box and is clipped during import in Word. | Seems to be a missing-font problem, causing another font being used (usually courier). | Include the fonts when saving as EPS from Illustrator. |
| Page sizes are wrong when an illustrator file is imported into Acrobat. Old page sizes are used in Acrobat, not matching the current settings of the illustrator document. | Maybe Illustrator contains separate page sizes for PDF and Illustrator format, and it seems not to update the PDF page size when saving over an old file. | Save from Illustrator as a new file, and copy the new file over the old file using the finder. |
| Adobe Cooltype does not refresh new text that came into view after scrolling, or updates only part of the new text. The rest of the text is displayed with the normal font smooth algorithm. | It seems that Acrobat makes a wrong estimate on which text has become visible. On some files it works OK, on others it fails. | Force a refresh after scrolling, for instance by pressing the zoom-in and zoom-out button each 1 time. |
| Burned disk is not bootable, while the original was... | The disk is compressed or not written as cd/dvd master or the original disk is not bootable. |
Assuming the original is bootable: Convert the image to a dvd/cd master image (gives you a cdr image). Deselect 'optimize data before burn' and 'skip free partitions during burn' in the preferences/burning menu. Select burn and there uncheck the 'Allow additional burns'. |
| For a change, not a technical problem but a documentation problem: how to burn multi-session CD's in OSX? Do you need 3rd party software? | Bad MacOS documentation. If you search for 'multi session' in Mac Help (from the menu bar) the only info "About CD-R disks" is "You can burn a CD-R disk once. Once files are written, they cannot be changed or deleted". This is misleading, you can burn a CD-R disk multiple times, but not at the same sectors. This documentation suggests that it is not possible to burn multisession disks. |
You can use the standard Disk Copy tool (in utilities directory) to make multisession CD's.
Create an image for the next session using the Disk Copy tool.
Then select 'Burn' from the file menu. After selecting
the image to burn, select 'Allow additional burns' and do the burn. That's all! |
| Can't burn multi-session DVD's, although the 'allow additional burns' button was selected when the first section was burned. | The button seems to be ignored when burning DVD's. Probably OSX or the drive dont support multisession DVD's. | No solution. |
| Netscape doesn't fetch mail. | You clicked on 'cancel' when an internet connect dialog appeared some time ago. Netscape doesn't attempt to reconnect after you selected cancel once. | Change location before fetching mail. Quit and restart Netscape after you selected cancel. I haven't noticed this problem since OS10.2.6. |
| You try to send an email with attachment, with Netscape 7.02. You get "Sending of message failed. Please verify that your Mail & Newsgroup account settings are correct and try again" | This version of Netscape can not handle long paths in attachments. | Copy file to be attached to the desktop, and attach this copy instead. |
| Netscape 7.02 can't find names although it is in one of the adress books. | It seems Netscape7 can't properly handle multiple address books. |
Merge the address books as follows: Export all address books as .ldi files. This is a plain text format. Check the number of addresses in each address book (info bar at bottom of the address book window). Use a text editor to combine the .ldi files in one new large alladdresses.ldi file. Import the alladdresses.ldi file. Quit Netscape. Go to your home directory and go to Library/Mozilla/Profiles/default/064ttnhk.slt/ Here should be the files history.mab and abook.mab and one or more impab-*.mab. Remove those (keep them somewhere in case something goes wrong). Keep only the latest impab.mab (the imported addresses from alladdresses.ldi) and rename that to abook.mab. Restart netscape to check you have all addresses. |
| Netscape 7.02 location bar does not respond to enter. But bookmarks and hotkey buttons still work. | Bug in Netscape | Quit Netscape Go to your home directory and go to Library/Mozilla/Profiles/default/064ttnhk.slt/ Remove the history.dat and localstore.rdf file. Restart Netscape. |
| There are strange, non-existent addresses in the Netscape 7.02 address book. | Netscape collects addresses automatically... | Turn off the automatic email collection in the preferences/mail&newsgroups/addressing menu. Throw away (by hand...) the wrong addresses. |
| Modem hangs on 'Disconnecting' | Unfortunately this happens frequently and I dont have any idea what happens here... | Unplug the modem connector from the laptop. I haven't seen this problem anymore since I upgraded to OSX 10.2.6. |
| "Internet Connect. Please enter your password" is popping up unexpectedly. You are not attempting to access any net address | Again no idea. This one is especially annoying as it gives the impression that some underwater program is trying to transmit bytes without your permission | No solution.... Not seen since I run OSX 10.2.6. |
| Word X complains that the Visual Basic Editor could not be opened durings startup | Visual Basic was not installed (good idea I would say). | No solution.... |
| When copying a folder with the finder to a remote (appletalk) disk you get "Sorry, the operation could not be completed because an unexpected error occured (Error code -50)." | No idea | Make an empty folder on the destination disk with the name of the source folder. Open the source folder, select all items and drag them onto the newly created empty folder on the destination disk. |
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A script saved as 'run-only' won't run. Clicking on it gives "Could not read the file because the script is not editable (it was saved as run-only). The icon of the 'run-only' script is wrong too, it's the standard script icon and not the 3D-script icon typical for run-only scripts. | You saved as 'run-only' instead of 'application'. (No idea what 'run-only' does.) | Use 'save as' and select 'application' in the script editor. |
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When clicking on an applescript saved as 'application' you get Press RUN to run this script, or Quit to quit. | You saved the script without the 'never show startup screen' tickbox checked. | Select "never show start-up screen" when saving as application. |
| A notification or requester window appeared but all buttons are disabled except the minimize and maximize button. | It seems some applications (eg, empty trash 'application') don't detect focus switches properly and fail to enable the buttons if the user switched to another application during creation of the window. | For some actions, especially 'empty trash', wait at least until the items to be deleted have been counted before switching to another application. |
| A CD/DVD can't be read- a red minus sign appears next to the icon | The CD has been burned with root-only access rights. | Switch to root mode and go into the CD. Or burn another CD with the access rights set up properly. |
| iDVD stopped burning somewhere in the middle of the DVD. | The system went to sleep mode because Apple does not consider DVD burning as a system activity.... | Disable the 'put the computer to sleep mode' in the energy saver preferences. |
| Mathematica doesn't open a .nb file. Not when you drop the file on the mathematica program icon. It doesn't show up when asking 'open' or 'import' from file menu. If you ask 'open special' it does not appear until you set 'list all file types'. But then, the .nb file appears as a folder, and if you click on it nothing happens. | Don't know | Open the .nb file with textedit, and copy-and-paste all text via the clipboard to Mathematica. Mathematica will recognise the format and propose to convert it to Mathematica. |
| Powerpoint mangles the layout on the paper print. | Dont know. it seems to go wrong while powerpoint converts the slide for the printer, as 'save as pdf' from the printer setup panel gives exactly the same layout errors. | Use Powerpoint 98 for printing, or print on a PC. |