"Is that your dog?"

Classic.

...bit louder and a little bit worse. OK, I don't have time to post the full, extended Apple Mail blues. But...

There's only one thing left to do...
command, option, escape.

7 months. Apple Mail crashes 10 times a day on me. It freezes up about 1/3 the time I try to send a message with no subject or even close a blank message that had no subject without sending. An Apple Genius told me they get a bunch of people every day with the same problems. He just logs them and sends them to the bug base.

Oh, and I'd also like to add that there are a bunch of apps that work reliably on 10.4 that crash all over the place on 10.5. One happens to one that I'm the lead developer for. Small firm, release times coinciding with school years. So Apple dropping the ball on Leopard last spring and releasing it in October with crashing issues that affected our product have been a big support burden this spring.

Glass houses, Apple.

It never fails. Every time there is a story like this somebody drags out their tech support woes as if it's proof of Apple's hypocrisy.

It's not. It's usually nothing more than proof of the users' technical house keeping inadequacies.

Here's some advice: If you're going to claim to be a "lead developer" you owe it to yourself and your customers to get certified as an Apple help desk professional so you can properly trouble shoot; don't constantly sleep or shut down your machines if you're not going to manually perform maintenance routines; don't depend on the geniuses for all your nagging problems — they may be exceptionally smart but they aren't going to be able to identify and fix every single problem that is presented to them; do a format and clean install if you really need to fix continual crashes that you can't seem to fix any other way, make sure your third-party software is updated, and avoid installing older software without first checking for compatibility issues.

Ms. Guest. You are a [expletive deleted by Internet Police] imbecile. I can tell you exactly where in the core frameworks, the crashing problems in our app under Mac OS X 10.5 exist, and I didn't need to become certified as a help desk pro. Bug reports with simple, reproducible examples have been filed with Apple.

The Mail crashes affect every one of our organization's Macs. They are a continual PITA. The app crashes with the current release of our app are affecting more customers. My best advice to them right now is not to upgrade to Mac OS X 10.5. We have tight release targets and really could not afford a mid-year diversion to test and release an upgrade only for Mac OS X 10.5 and which worked around terrible Apple bugs that seem to plague its own products.

I am not one to get on a high horse about bugs. Complex software has bugs. Fixing them can be costly. Ongoing maintenance is an economic balancing act for most profit-seeking ventures. That applies to Vista, Mac OS X, and even one of our company's apps. For Apple to say it is exempt from that reality for some unstated reason when it is not is the worst kind of commercial hypocrisy, defensible only by ignorant fangirls such as Ms. Guest.

And she completely misses my point about the Geniuses. They are a front line that sees customers having these problems. At least my Genius guy had observed that this Mail thing is flagrant and common. He had reported the same problem many times in the past months. And Ms. Guest calls him stupid and incapable of recognizing a pattern. Unbelievable. I see why she didn't sign in. She has shamed herself, her family, her friends, her junior high school, her home town, and her local MENSA chapter with her ignorant rant.

OOOO big bad name-callin' Bosco used the phrase "core frameworks" and knows how to file a bug report! He must be really smart, and yet he uses "Mail" for his "organization", offers advice on upgrades to his customers without apparently having the qualifications to do so, and throws around insults like a professional wrestler in an effort to make himself too more knowledgeable than he really is.

You need to calm down Bosco. Get some education, look in the mirror occasionally, and stop pretending you know more than you really do.

Quote

Bosco wrote:
7 months. Apple Mail crashes 10 times a day on me.

Nice anecdote, Bosco.

I've been using Mail since it was first released. It has never crashed. Not once. Go figure.

Quote

Oh, and I'd also like to add that there are a bunch of apps that work reliably on 10.4 that crash all over the place on 10.5.

I'm sure there are. It's easy to ignore developer guidelines and APIs or just plain screw up. Writing good software is hard.

Apparently, an important part of the certification is feeling really good about the combination of your 95 IQ and the certificate hanging on your wall. If that makes you qualified to say that everyone who runs into problems with Mac OS X 10.5 is technically inept, then we all know what the certificate is worth.

Oh, another part of the certification part is being an apologist for Apple even when they do something lame, like claim themselves exempt from software bugs in their advertising. I bet your parents are proud. Did you get a graduation cake and gift certificate for the bowling ally when you received your certificate? Is it framed next to your GED, or on top of it?

Quote

Guest wrote:
I've been using Mail since it was first released. It has never crashed. Not once. Go figure.

Here is your reproducible bug. Do this 20 times.

1. New message.
2. Type some text in the message body, leaving subject blank.
3. Close the window.

It will hang eventually hang in the sheet, requiring you to command-option-escape. Sending messages with no subject does the same thing, but last time I brought this up, I was the problem for ever sending a message with no subject to my best friend who sends same to me (from a "bug ridden" Vista machine) 50 times a day. What an evil prick I am for not setting the subject on quick, personal missives!

If you're still apologizing for Apple and blaming the user, you're lame. The Macintosh way, for those of you new to the Mac universe is to not blame the user, to not require that they reinstall everything, to not require that they have a help desk professional certification.

Oh, and if you're the same guest who is a certified Apple help desk professional and you think that your personal testimonial about Apple Mail never crashing is some kind of proof (or even evidence) of general stability of the product, we all know what your certificate is worth, e.g. zero. You cannot prove that software as complex as Mail is bug free. When you can reproduce a problem reliably, you can prove that a problem exists. A decent college level computer science education would teach you that at some point. I'm surprised that the certified help desk program doesn't teach this, although the logic may be a little advanced for the people such certification is targeted at.

Quote

Bosco wrote:


Here is your reproducible bug. Do this 20 times.

1. New message.
2. Type some text in the message body, leaving subject blank.
3. Close the window.

Works just fine for me Bosco. Probably only crashes on your system.

Maybe you need one of those $15 an hour guys to do your job for you, since they apparently know more about how manage a system than you do, despite all your bluster and pomp and lame, two-bit presumptuous insults. You clearly are a fool.

Bosco:

Trying to reproduce the problem. When you say "close the window", do you mean as in cmd-w (or clicking the red dot)? Do you save to draft or discard?

(seriously trying to reproduce what you are seeing).

And no problem. I used cmd-W and did not save as draft. I did not fill in a recipient, just did a cmd-n, pressed tab again and again until I was in the bod of the message, I typed "Bosco" (without the quotes and then pressed enter. Then cmd-w, clicked "Don't Save" and started again.

I got bored at 30 times....

Quote

Bosco wrote:

Quote

Guest wrote:
I've been using Mail since it was first released. It has never crashed. Not once. Go figure.

Here is your reproducible bug. Do this 20 times.

1. New message.
2. Type some text in the message body, leaving subject blank.
3. Close the window.

It will hang eventually hang in the sheet, requiring you to command-option-escape.

No problems here, Bosco.

Perhaps if you'd spend more time troubleshooting instead of insulting other posters, you might determine the cause of the issue on your systems.

@Intruder... It shouldn't matter how you close the window. The problem is that when the "save changes" sheet comes up, mail will not accept any mouse click input and must be force quit. Same with sending a message with no subject. The "do you really want to do this" sheet pops up and can't be clicked and won't take keyboard shortcuts, then Mail has to be force quit. I won't even get into whether there ought to be a "don't show this again" checkbox. Yes, I really want to do this, every freaking time. We see this on 2 MacBook Pros and an iMac regularly every day. Guest suggested that if I knew what I was doing, I wouldn't put my MBP to sleep. Dumbass. That's why I have a MBP. To be able to put it to sleep and take it with me. I cannot believe that anyone thinks that's a serious solution to anything, don't put it to sleep.

Oh, and here's another great bug for you... I bought a Time Capsule and didn't have one of Guest's $15 trained monkey friends set it up for me. The first backup worked fine. But now, every backup fails and I don't have time to dig into it. I'm not whining about bugs. They happen, and as a software developer I totally understand. I stick with Leopard because Spaces is a huge productivity boost. But to go advertise that Vista is bug ridden and by implication Leopard isn't. It's lame. And it's double lame that if you point that out, some anonymous dork questions your chops for managing your system.

To those who don't like my bile. Scroll up to see what started it, Ms. Guest's first comment. Always blame the Mac user for crashes in Apple apps, because we all know that Apple apps never crash. And if they do and you're not an Apple certified Help Desk Professional, well, you get what's coming to you. That's the attitude that non-technical people hate about techies. It's why techies work in closets where they can be hidden from customers. That's the prevalent attitude among techies that makes me embarrassed to offer informed advice in mixed crowds. Please do us all a favor and keep it out of the Mac world.

Bosco,

Not sure what is going on with Mail. I did as you suggested 15 times (I assume you weren't implying that it takes 20 attempts).

I created a message
put in an address in the To: field
skipped over the subject
input text (random) into the message
clicked on the red dot
clicked "don't save"

Also tried using cmd-w to close the window.

No issues.

So, something odd is happening for you, but I cannot recreate it on a MBP (Penryn) with 10.5.2.

FWIW.

Quote

Bosco wrote:
Oh, and here's another great bug for you...

"Another?" Sorry, Bosco--you haven't established any bug yet.

But what kind of install did you perform Bosco? If you performed an upgrade install over 10.4 - then it is highly possible that you do experience quite a few issues. Have you installed the 10.5.2 patch yet?

The tone of your first post sounded like whining, which is why some folks jumped all over you. IF you would like some troubleshooting help, try posting OS version type. Machine type.

I am currently running TM in a NON-SUPPORTED mode, and it works fine for both my wife and I. We both use Mail.app extensively sending close to 50 or so emails a day and have never had it crash.

I tried your open - bla bla close no save test for 20 times with no crash.

iMac 24" 3Gig RAM 10.5.2.

I, too, write software code and Xcode is fantastic. Never crashes on me.

Lastly, some of the apps have that 'ran great' in 10.4 have been updated to perform better in Leopard. That is smoke for saying that some apps which ran find in 10.4, may no longer do so in 10.5. I have only found a few that don't run at all. But Office does, RealBasic does, BBEdit does to name a few. And those apps offer free updates to leapard.

Good luck!

Quote

Guest wrote:
"Another?" Sorry, Bosco--you haven't established any bug yet.

Yeah, I'm making this up dork. For at least the 5th time this afternoon:

Process: Mail [18457]
Path: /Applications/Mail.app/Contents/MacOS/Mail
Identifier: com.apple.mail
Version: 3.2 (919)
Build Info: Mail-9190000~3
Code Type: X86 (Native)
Parent Process: launchd [75]

Date/Time: 2008-05-21 15:52:49.041 -0700
OS Version: Mac OS X 10.5.2 (9C7010)
Report Version: 6

Exception Type: EXC_BAD_ACCESS (SIGBUS)
Exception Codes: KERN_PROTECTION_FAILURE at 0x0000000000000021
Crashed Thread: 0

Thread 0 Crashed:
0 libobjc.A.dylib 0x95b6d6e8 objc_msgSend + 24
1 com.apple.AppKit 0x953c8bed -[NSFocusStack popTopView] + 125
2 com.apple.AppKit 0x953c89d1 -[NSView unlockFocus] + 117
3 com.apple.AppKit 0x9545591a -[NSView _displayRectIgnoringOpacity:isVisibleRect:rectIsVisibleRectForView:] + 4095
4 com.apple.AppKit 0x95395f09 -[NSView displayIfNeeded] + 933
5 com.apple.AppKit 0x95395ab9 -[NSWindow displayIfNeeded] + 189
6 com.apple.AppKit 0x953958e0 _handleWindowNeedsDisplay + 436
7 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x908189c2 __CFRunLoopDoObservers + 466
8 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x90819d25 CFRunLoopRunSpecific + 853
9 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x9081ad18 CFRunLoopRunInMode + 88
10 com.apple.HIToolbox 0x9309d6a0 RunCurrentEventLoopInMode + 283
11 com.apple.HIToolbox 0x9309d3f2 ReceiveNextEventCommon + 175
12 com.apple.HIToolbox 0x9309d32d BlockUntilNextEventMatchingListInMode + 106
13 com.apple.AppKit 0x953937d9 _DPSNextEvent + 657
14 com.apple.AppKit 0x9539308e -[NSApplication nextEventMatchingMask:untilDate:inMode:dequeue:] + 128
15 com.apple.AppKit 0x9538c0c5 -[NSApplication run] + 795
16 com.apple.AppKit 0x9535930a NSApplicationMain + 574
17 com.apple.mail 0x000fa206 0x1000 + 1020422

Quote

Bosco wrote:

Quote

Guest wrote:
"Another?" Sorry, Bosco--you haven't established any bug yet.

Yeah, I'm making this up dork. For at least the 5th time this afternoon:

I don't think any of us doubts that Mail is crashing on your systems.

The problem is that no one here has been able to reproduce your "bug." I must therefore conclude that you're not the center of the universe after all...

Go troubleshoot your systems and stop blaming someone else for your problems.

Your response to every post here has been combative and insulting. The original post was for a new advertisement. Your posts have all been whining drivel proving your utter ignorance for the machines which you are responsible for. There have been multiple attempts to help you out and reproduce your problem, people actually tried to help you and you still pissed and moaned. Look I know your job is hard and you probably cry when you watch Dancing With the Stars, you should just quit your job and blame Apple for for your loss. You know you can report bugs to Apple yourself? Please stop wasting the Apple Geniuses time, its people like you that make my grandma wait forever for an Ipod reset.

Guest, Bite me. I didn't come here asking for help. I came here because I'm annoyed at this particular kind of Apple commercial because every software developer is going to have bugs these days. Every one. It is an inescapable feature of large software. Apple has a few in Leopard (which it holds out in its quality innuendo against Vista) which cause me day to day annoyance. That's what I was pointing out. Then everyone had to chime in with insinuations that I'm incompetent or whatever because I don't have this certificate. That is just plain stupid, it's fanboy defense. Yeah, I know that's what most of you are here and I don't even know why I share things like this that totally annoy me.

And FWIW, the Apple genius I know... I have his biz card. I can call when I like so long as I don't overuse the privilege, and he takes my calls or calls me back. He has my biz card and calls me occasionally for information or insight on certain things. I make a point of having lunch with him and a few other Apple store guys occasionally. I don't get in front of your grandmother and her iPod at the Genius Bar.

Sorry that everyone here missed the point. A larger point is that if you dare criticize Apple here, the peanut gallery comes out to blame you. I'd love to be around when one of your Moms or sisters gets raped. I can just imagine how helpful and understanding some of you would be.

I think the larger point is posting an assumption that everyone has the same bug as you and then launching into multi-paragraph, name-calling screeds when you're contradicted.

For the record, I also haven't had any problem with Mail, including the sequence listed above, on my two Macs or others I work on/maintain. The plural of anecdote is not fact, but in this case your issue really does appear to be localized. Possibly still an Apple bug but somehow related to your network rather than Mail? Who knows. We certainly won't since you seem to not want to take any advice and instead would rather pout about your hurt feelings and tout your qualifications as well as those of your Apple Genius friends and the special attention you get from them, despite that your problem has yet to be fixed.

Good luck with all that.

Oh, and, by the way, you really reinforced your classiness by equating this all to rape. Nice one.

"Guest" and Bosco, you really need to step away from your computers and spend a little time outside or maybe with a boyfriend/girlfriend. Seriously, the crisis in Mynamar is a big deal not Mail or Apple at all so my gosh stop with the anuerysms already. Can you two possibly be anymore the lonely, socially inept, geek stereotype?

BTW, I'm Dean. I forgot my password. Sorry. I spend too much time outside and away from comment boards.

I would say your issue, Bosco, is probably some unsupported third party add-on installed on your system, since not a single person who's tried has been able to reproduce it. Add me to that list - just tried on a brand-new 24" imac, a dual G5 powermac, and a core duo macbook, and was unable to reproduce the "common bug" you've been spouting off about. Douchebag.

Maybe I'm stupid or something, but why would you want to compose 20 e-mails in a row with no subject?

Lots of Mail.app crashes are attributed to the preference .plist becoming corrupt. Also I've seen problems with smart mailboxes and smart groups causing issues. As well as mail plug-ins. Finally, one person reported that with Growl installed, their Mail.app crashed occasionally.

I'd post all threads of the crash log in the Apple support forums and see what the collective thinks. I searched for "KERN_PROTECTION_FAILURE" in the Leopard Mail and Address Book sub-forum and I didn't see any crashes associated with NSFocusStack.

But seeing a call to _displayRectIgnoringOpacity makes me think there might be a display driver bug. I know that the top call is objc_msgSend for NSFocusStack, but maybe that's just where it is at the time.

Are all crash logs the same?

First, I do not question either that Mail is crashing for you nor that you are expert with Macs. What follows may be too simplistic, but I've been very active on an elist helping folks resolve problems with their Mac and have been surprised at the number of experienced users who don't always do these elimination steps. (Some hark back to the days of figuring out extension conflicts in OS 7-9.)

You can create a new admin user, log in as that user, and see if you can repeat the problem. (Leave that user pristine, except for creating one email account.) If it does not repeat, then there is some issue with your user. (I have been surprised at how many Mac users, including "power" users, never try this.) If it does repeat, then try starting in Safe Mode (again, as a pristine user) and see if it happens.

Another approach would be to temporarily remove all startup items in your user, then add them back, one at a time. (If you mouse over the startup items, you should see the path, so you can find it later, as some may be buried inside application packages.) I would hope that you haven't installed anything for "all users," though some applications seem to do that by default.

I've found it useful to remove anything from the Input Manager folders in my User and root Libraries. (I had one from eCamm that caused problems with some other applications.) You could also disable/remove any "haxies" and quit any background applications (e.g., CopyPaste, Default Folder, PopChar, font managers, TextSoap).

If you use a non-Apple keyboard or pointing device, try the original Apple hardware and disable any drivers, helpers, Preference Panes and background applications. (For example, I have a Macally keyboard and Kensington trackball, both of which have background applications running.)

As I wrote, I don't doubt that Mail is crashing for you, but it would be a good idea to positively eliminate all non-OS, non-Mail factors before blaming it on Apple. Have you checked on MacFixit to see if there are others with the same or similar problems?

If I recall (I don't feel like going back and reading the whole thread), Bosco said that it is more than one computer that is displaying this issue. So, it may be something that they all have installed (3rd party), or something to do with their mail server.

When there is a "Thread 0" crash, notice it is at the Obj-C dynamic library. There is something intercepting the msgSend, probably in the background. Usually, there is a sloppy kext causing issues, but there can be several other causes.

The odds are the problem isn't libobjc, for obvious reasons: nothing would work for anybody.

There is something on the systems, installed on every machine, causing the issue -- but not likely an Apple lib, in this case.

The notion that Apple is any more of less bug-free might be academic. My seven years with a single "panic" (caused by cheap memory) is not normal, nor is crashing more than once a week normal.

I happen to like 10.5. Works well for me. I was glad they fixed some UI issues, but other than that (and .Mac slow speed), I'm good.

wow this is genius!!!!!!!!!!!who thought this up?
great melody...

did mac write this spot?

nice country feel

we play it alot in nashville