500x_Mason_Ice

Apple has admitted that its latest operating system Snow Leopard harbours a bug that can accidentally delete data belonging to the computer’s owner.

The problem occurs when some users who upgraded to the Snow Leopard – which was released at the end of August – log into a “guest” account on their machines. When they log back in under their own name, all of the files in their home directory – such as documents, music and videos – have been deleted. One of the customer reports in the Apple discussion forum, “I had the guest account enabled on my MBP – I accidentally clicked on that when I went to log in. It took a few minutes to log in then after I had logged out of that account and back into mine my enter home directory had been wiped. All of doc, musics, etc gone.

Another user raises two issues with the Snow Leopard — Home folder lost – user account restored to default. He states: I installed SL last weekend, no major problems but many annoying bugs. This morning when I woke up the computer had hung – screen saver was frozen. I held down the power key to shutdown. Turned the computer back on, clicked on my user account icon, and it was like I’d just picked up a new computer… my home folder had been replaced with a “straight out of the box” home folder. Standard desktop, standard dock, nothing in my documents folder, standard library. My entire home folder is gone.

The partition where my home folder lives is now virtually empty. I used stellar pheonix to try to recover the files from my home folder, but it did not find them as lost not as deleted files. It gave me the option of recovering about 40GB of deleted files, but they were legitimately deleted files.

Nice! Although I do have little sympathy for people who would apply a major upgrade without a backup.




  1. Larry the Cable dude says:

    This is just a marketing tool to sell that stupid “Time Machine”. I love it when they came out with that piece of shit. Like they invented backup or something then put a futuristic name on it…..

    LOL!

  2. McCullough says:

    BigBoyBC- “Two days ago, iTunes offered me an update to my iPod Touch and wiped out the entire thing.”

    That has happened to me twice…after PAYING for the upgrade it wiped out everything in my library. Took me days to get everything back the way I like it.

    Oh no, Apples don’t crash. No more “upgrades” for me thanks.

  3. pedro says:

    #20 Yes, it’s called dump mac

  4. sargasso says:

    I am using SL on my main production computer, and there are real issues. Some .flv files (Flash Video), when played from the desktop, totally blank the 24″ screen, requiring a hardware reset from the mains switch. I miss Appletalk, which traversed many campus gateways and routers and which was remarkably simple to use for everything from printing to file sharing. And now this, arbitrary deletion of accounts. Can’t wait for 10.6.2.

  5. pedro says:

    #24 For what, to see what it messes up? Definitively, macfans are masochists

  6. The Monster's Lawyer says:

    I’d buy it just for the babe on the cover!

  7. jescott418 says:

    They are having some network issues. I did a clean install on two Mac’s with Snow Leopard and Safari crawls at times like its on a slow dial up.
    I have two Vista machines machines on the same network having no problems. “It just does not work” should be Apple’s new slogan. They must have hired all the idiots from Microsoft. Because I am having less problems with Vista!

  8. Caleb says:

    HAHAHA

    “Apparently macs dont need viruses to destroy all your data. Truly a technological advancement.”

    #8 im a mac user but this comment had me in stitches!

    I havent had any issues with the update which is strange because i always have bad luck! Guess it comes down to backing up your data!

  9. DocMurdock says:

    All computers have some level of problems. Macs are nice, PCs are nice. Both have different feature sets. Is one better than the other…depends on who you ask, but generally speaking Macs have a better uptime potential than PCs do, due to the shear number of potential virus infections/malware out there. Always had that issue, no getting around it.

    Macs are not flawless by any means and they do have their idiosyncrasies, but…all in all they are a better machine, and much more solid than others. The once in a while hard drive issue, or heat issue are no different than any computer out there.

    But to claim that an HP laptop is faster than a Macbook, when even HP admitted that their laptops are slower than the Macbook is just ludicrous.

    My current Mac Mini runs Windows 2.5 times faster than my previous windows machine running the same version of windows and the PC had a faster processor. But the bus speed of the Mini 1067MHZ is faster than my other computer. Always something different getting in the way.

    Just use your computer and quit griping. Either that or go back to a pad and paper will ya.

    Love,

    Mike

  10. pedro says:

    Come to think of it, I think this is a new Time Machine feature. It brings back your mac to a time when you didn’t have any files on it.

  11. JohnQPubic says:

    I guess this explains all the angry people in Whole Foods and REI today…

  12. Wretched Gnu says:

    DocMurdock pronounces: “But to claim that an HP laptop is faster than a Macbook, when even HP admitted that their laptops are slower than the Macbook is just ludicrous.”

    Wow — you know this despite not having a clue about which year’s Macbook I was talking about nor which HP. Nicely done!

    “Macs are not flawless by any means and they do have their idiosyncrasies, but…all in all they are a better machine, and much more solid than others.”

    Well, this is certainly true if watching a colorful spinning wheel is better than programs actually executing, or if hardware and casing material that literally falls apart is your definition of “solid” — then, yes, you have a point.

  13. qb says:

    I am very surprised to see pedro adding anti-Mac comments. Didn’t see it coming at all.

    Oh, and someone please tell DocMurdock to stop acting like an adult.

  14. pedro says:

    #33 You know you liked ‘em

  15. Alfred1 says:

    Except for her being blond, she looks suspiciously like the lady I picked up at closing time in Houston, Tx.

    We were going leave on my water cooled Suzuki 750, but when I took off, the bike flipped over, front wheelee…

    As I lay there, drunk, she lumbered up, and kicked me repeatedly…saying “Asshole!”

    And then waddled back into the bar.

    I must have left eventually….I’m not still there.

  16. Wretched Gnu says:

    “I must have left eventually….I’m not still there.”

    Hah! I like that

  17. Mr. Fusion says:

    #33, qb,

    Ya, that really surprised me too. Wow, pedro being anti-mac. Who’d a thunk it?

  18. Uncle Patso says:

    Is this Major Fail Week? I think I’ll crawl into bed and just stay at home until it’s over…

    (What next?)



Bad Behavior has blocked 26104 access attempts in the last 7 days.