Filed under: Software, Snow Leopard
My Snow Leopard casualties: what's not working in 10.6
Overall, I'm very happy with Snow Leopard, and loving all of the little refinements I keep stumbling upon. However, I want to mention a few pitfalls I ran into with my upgrade, on the off chance that anyone has a similar setup and might benefit from some advance warning, or any of the fixes I've found.
Safari & Input Managers
There were a few things we knew to expect (and maybe dread), mostly having to do with 32-bit vs 64-bit processing and compatibility. Input Managers were known casualties. Two of the major victims for me were my 1Password and Evernote plugins in Safari. In 64-bit mode, at least at first, they didn't show up at all. See the Switcher's Blog for updates on 1Password and Snow Leopard. The current 3.0 beta of 1Password is working for me in 64-bit, I just have some keyboard shortcut issues to work out. Hopefully the Evernote blog will start offering more updates soon.
In the meantime, there's a partial fix: if you select the application (Safari) in your Applications folder, go to the File menu and hold down the Option key while selecting Get Info, you'll get the Inspector panel (also accessible with a simple Command-Option-I). For applications which have 64-bit capabilities (such as Mail and Safari), you'll see a checkbox to force them to load in 32-bit mode. That gets Evernote working for me, so I'll run it in 32-bit until things get straightened out. I'll be keeping an eye on the Glims blog, as well.
Update: There's a press release & a blog post from Agile this morning that reiterate the company's compatibility stance for 1Password v2: it should work fine on Snow Leopard in all browsers except Safari, and will work with Safari launched in 32-bit mode. Version 3 will be fully supported with Safari in both 32 and 64-bit configurations.
Mail.app plugins
I try not to load down Mail with a bunch of plugins, but there are a few I rely on daily. The two I'm missing most are WideMail and MailTags. The MailTags site indicates a compatibility release in September, and full compatibility (and new version) by the end of the year. That's going to be a long wait for me, but fortunately MailActOn has been updated and is working fine. In the meantime, WideMail users are losing not just their widescreen mail-reading functionality, but also their Subject column, which makes Mail pretty worthless. Dane Harnett, the developer, has posted the fix for the issue on his blog. It involves manually editing the preference file (plist) for Mail, but it's not terribly difficult. I'm hoping for more news on WideMail/Snow Leopard compatibility soon!
Custom Apache configuration
I won't go into a lot of detail on this one, as I'm still figuring out a few things. In short, my custom Apache/MySQL/PHP installation was broken after the upgrade. My custom build of PHP5 is hosed; I'm fairly certain it's another 32/64-bit issue. However, it looks like I'm going to be just fine running the stock version of PHP now. Snow Leopard includes PHP 5.3, and it's compiled with some of the important libraries that Leopard's PHP 5.2.x setup was lacking. It looks like I just need to step back and let Snow Leopard do its thing now. After removing the remnants of my entropy install, and reconfiguring MySQL (not included in Snow Leopard), I have a working dev setup for the time being. I'm noticing several missing symlinks in /usr/local, but they're easy fixes.
Scripting Additions
Scripting Additions, AppleScript's addons (osax) are running into major problems. Guess why? Yep, most of them don't run in 64-bit. Even if you've never installed any yourself, you probably have some from third-party applications (Adobe being a big culprit in my Console logs). This one isn't a big deal; it's more irritating than harmful as I weed through log messages and trash osax files. I don't think the errors cause a big CPU hit, but they'll trigger every time any application runs AppleScript. For now, I've moved everything except for Speed Download (which isn't causing errors) out of /Library/ScriptingAdditions. Check your system.log in Console.app to see if you've got some osax baggage to drop.
MindManager 7 for Mac
This one's killing me ... MindManager is completely unusable in Snow Leopard, and they're not promising a fix until September 15th. I know there are long lists of incompatible apps, but if I'd known for certain I'd be breaking this one, I may have made alternate plans. Wait, who am I kidding? I drove an hour to pick up Snow Leopard on release day because I was told my Family Pack shipment would be a few days late. I've learned to live with my eternal thirst for the cutting edge, so I'll work in MindMeister until I get MindManager back (nothing against NovaMind, iMindMap, XMind, FreeMind or any of the other great mind mapping apps out there, I'm just used to MindManager and MindMeister). I have to say, MindManager for Mac is overdue for an update anyway -- I've been thinking for a while that Mindjet has been doing a lot for their Windows customers, while Mac customers are sitting on a quickly aging (2 years since a major update?) version. The upcoming NovaMind 5 could quite possibly take over Mindjet's place in my heart, if they don't watch out.
Services
System Services are the best and worst part of Snow Leopard for me, at least at the moment. I'm a total geek for custom Services, and I was running about 20 of my own creations up until the 28th ... when my entire collection was pretty well wiped out by the upgrade. I'll rave about the amazing new Services setup in a separate post, but I'll mourn the death of my old Services for right now. The power-up that the Services got is more than worth this temporary trauma, though, and I'm sure it won't be long before I'm looking back at this and laughing. I mean, you can build custom services right in Automator now, much to the detriment of my social life.
Rapid response!
Honestly, the above has been the worst of it for me, and in the end it's been a great upgrade. My Applications folder is quickly coming up to speed, as well. A lot of apps broke on the 28th. In some cases, developers who thought they had achieved full Snow Leopard compatibility were bitten by late changes they let slip by. The fixes, though, are coming quickly, especially from the small-shop and indie developers. Thankfully, the vast majority of the software I depend on has been rapidly updated and last-minute fixes are out. Watching the MacUpdate and i use this feeds over the last few days has been a trip; programs I didn't even know were still being developed were up and ready with Snow Leopard-compatible builds.
Stay tuned, I'll be back soon with a cheery update on my favorite bits of Snow Leopard.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 7)
Just Cause said 7:51AM on 8-31-2009
Entourage 2004 and 2008 Exchange setup breaks under Snow Leopard using built-in Cisco VPN, may be an issue with the VPN or Entourage but either way it doesn't connect with the server (where as Mail does)
Reply
Xavier said 9:18AM on 8-31-2009
Just Cause try the following for the Exchange Server Settings:
Exchange Server: myexchangeserver.mydomain.com/exchange/emailaddress@mydomain.com
Example: itowa.tuaw.com/exchange/poster@tuaw.com
There has been an issue with Exchange 2007 when connecting to Entourage 2004/2008.
Let me know if this has helped you.
~Xavier
Wilbur said 7:48AM on 8-31-2009
The major thing that Snow Leopard broke for me is a Java issue. I have some applications that depend on Java 1.4.2 to work. Under OS X 10.5, I would use Java Preferences when needed to turn this on.
Snow Leopard took this away. The only Java version installed is Java SE 6.
Reply
bszaronos said 11:07AM on 8-31-2009
If you happen to figure out how to install or use other versions of java, can you please shoot me an email. I use access control systems that require 1.42 version of java. I have tried downloading older versions of java, but can not install them.
Thanks
Brian
Ted Wise said 1:00PM on 9-02-2009
Look here for how to install Java 1.4 and Java 1.5.
http://wiki.oneswarm.org/index.php/OS_X_10.6_Snow_Leopard
Wilbur said 2:19PM on 9-02-2009
I saw that, and tried it. i got Java 1.4.2 to appear in the Java Preferences pane, but I was unable to get Safari to use Java 1.4.2, even though I reordered the Java versions so that Java 1.4.2 was at the top. Safari kept using Java 1.6 as its Java environment.
Wilbur said 8:37PM on 9-02-2009
Tonight I figured out how to get Java 1.4.2 working with Safari under Snow Leopard.
1. Install Java 1.4.2 as outlined in the link above: http://wiki.oneswarm.org/index.php/OS_X_10.6_Snow_Leopard
2. Make sure that Java 1.4.2 is the first 32-bit application in the list. Under Java Preferences, my list reads:
Java SE 6 64-bit
J2SE 1.4.2 32-bit
Java SE 6 32-bit
3. Open Safari in 32-bit mode via the Get Info window for Safari. This is where I was getting screwed up. It finally occurred to me that Java 1.4.2 is a 32-bit application, but if Safari was opening in 64-bit mode, it wouldn't use the 32-bit Java apps.
Once I opened Safari in 32-bit mode, Safari was able to use Java 1.4.2.
Magicpony said 9:08AM on 8-31-2009
I'm getting vertical banding in the transition from Top Sites to a web page in Safari 4. Not a biggie but....
http://web.me.com/magicpony/safari4snowleopardbug/screenshot.html
Reply
Erick said 9:29AM on 8-31-2009
You should try to get more icons in your dash.... ;)
lfomartins said 8:02AM on 8-31-2009
Custom contextual menus and some QuickLook plugins are also broken. All my contextual menus are gone, one of my favorite QuickLook plugin to view Folders doesn't work anymore.
Reply
SIP said 10:05AM on 8-31-2009
Contextual menu items as we knew them don't exist in 10.6 and won't even work in 32-bit.
The Services function is being expanded and has replaced CMs.
Henry Williams said 12:30PM on 8-31-2009
Is it just me, or does anyone else find it rather silly that Mail.app can't do native wide screen mail? How can they sell themselves as a professional mail application when it can't even do that.
Reply
Mike said 8:16AM on 8-31-2009
But they don't sell it as a professional mail application. Mail.app is free and consumer-level much like iCal and Address Book.
Kelmon said 8:24AM on 8-31-2009
I've never understood why, with all Apple's products coming in a widescreen format, Mail has never been updated to display email in a widescreen format like Outlook. It makes so much sense and yet we have to rely on hacks to achieve it.
Robert said 8:30AM on 8-31-2009
Widemail works fine and, at a tiny 1.2MB, doesn't carry much overhead.
http://www.daneharnett.com/widemail/
Henry Williams said 12:30PM on 8-31-2009
Widemail doesn't work though, it gets blocked automatically when Mail runs. I shouldn't have to install a plug-in for basically functionality though, should I?
Kevin said 12:51PM on 8-31-2009
You'll install the plugin, or you'll use some other mail client, or you'll do without the feature you call "basic functionality".
You don't HAVE to do anything, so I don't see the problem.
TheIcemanCometh said 8:07AM on 8-31-2009
My only "casualty" so far has been that I had to reinstall the drivers/software for my Lexmark wireless printer. Even though Snow Leopard said it had newer drivers, they didn't work. Reinstalling the originals works fine. Parallels works fine.
Reply
Rachel said 8:08AM on 8-31-2009
Second the Java issue. Slightly worse for me as I discovered after upgrading both my macs that there's no Java 1.4 any more, and I have to regularly *build* software for deployment on a 1.4 system that *can't* be upgraded...
-source 1.4 -target 1.4 and a lot of hacking around; and if it doesn't work I have to work in Linux from now on...
Reply
vandil said 9:36AM on 8-31-2009
This is exactly why upgrades must be carefully planned on production systems.
Never perform an OS or software application upgrade to a new version on a computer critical for your workflow/production. (Or at least nt without a bootable, verified-working clone to roll back to.)