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.
Hey, that my honey you got pictured on your box!!!
Article aside, the irony here is that most users report an average of about 17 gigs freed up by the Snow Leopard install. Really that chick ought to be so tiny and frail as to be clinging to life.
All the lip service Apple gave/gives MS about Vista and they pull crap like this?
I don’t recall Vista eating user accounts.
Yeah, but at least Macs don’t get viruses and crash all the time.
#4 – It’s coming.
Greg sez, “Yeah, but at least Macs don’t get viruses and crash all the time.”
My wife now has to get a new Macbook because her current old now shuts down at random intervals (because of a power-connector/battery problem.
Meanwhile, my 4-year-old HP laptop is still running fine, and has always been faster than hers.
Her previous Macbook, too, had to be trashed after 30 months or so because of the not-uncommon problem of the Mac hard drive meltdown.
Meanwhile, both of the cases of these Macbooks were coming apart at the seams after about 6 months of use.
Macbook hardware is absolute crap, designed for about a year’s use.
#4. Greg “Yeah, but at least Macs don’t get viruses and crash all the time.”
Yes they do crash , plus IT CAN DESTROY ALL YOUR DATA!!!!!!!!!
Aplologist.
Apparently macs dont need viruses to destroy all your data. Truly a technological advancement.
it seems macs come data destroying code built right into the os..
now that is efficiency!
What’s the problem? Steve must have have just decided you needed a clean install so get over it. You know it’s for your own good.
Seriously buy, beg or borrow an external hard drive and back up. There is no way of knowing when your hard drive or OS is going to trash your data but you do know that it’s just a matter of time until the hardware or software trashes your data.
Rule number two is wait a while and let the other guy find out about things like this first.
If you did a Snow Leopard upgrade disable the guest account. If you never enabled it then your fine.
Racism, ageism, and now, fatism.
deowll writes, “What’s the problem? Steve must have have just decided you needed a clean install so get over it. You know it’s for your own good.”
Hah! thank you! This sums up the Apple experience for me perfectly. “You want to do *what*?” says the Mac. “No, look: that’s not something you should want to do. What you’re desiring to do right now is not something that people in the know desire to do. Do you understand now? Good boy, well done.”
Faxon writes, “Racism, ageism, and now, fatism.”
You’re right. Racism doesn’t exist, and should probably be trivialized.
#6 Wretchedguru,
“Macbook hardware is absolute crap, designed for about a year’s use.”
That’s something people working at marketing call “planned obsolescence.” So it’s not a bug but a feature.
Apple should have used Microsoft’s “Danger” system to backup the data.
When I upgraded my Macbook Pro from Tiger to Leopard, it wiped out everything… wouldn’t even boot. I took it to the Apple Genius bar. They kept it for 3 days, and told me I needed a new HDD. They claimed that the fact that it died during an upgrade was coincidental.
They further insulted my intelligence by claiming that is was impossible for their OS upgrade to screw things up so bad. Therefore, it must be the hardware.
I called BS. I made them install a new HDD, install a clean Leopard on it, and give me back my old HDD unmolested.
I installed the old HDD into an external USB sled, and was able to recover all my data off of it. Then I turned it into a TimeMachine backup drive and it has yet to fail.
After that experience, I have no interest in upgrading to SL and going through that crap again.
#4 I haven’t had a virus or crash on my Windows machines for years. That’s because I take care of my systems.
Two days ago, iTunes offered me an update to my iPod Touch and wiped out the entire thing.
Apple doesn’t need viruses, they’ll wipe-out your stuff on their own.
The same thing happened to me. Go to the Apple site… there’s an easy way to recover your data.
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!
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.
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.
I’d buy it just for the babe on the cover!
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!
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!
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
I guess this explains all the angry people in Whole Foods and REI today…
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.
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.
“I must have left eventually….I’m not still there.”
Hah! I like that