My Top 6 OS X Pre Mavericks Bug Fixes

I can't wait until the autumn when OS X Mavericks arrives (hopefully!). From what I've seen and read so far, the highlights for me are :

• Proper multi-display handling (why so long?)
• Searchable tags in Finder (again why so long?)
• Improved notification support (especially across devices)
• iCloud Keychain (with reservations)

But before we get too excited about these 'innovations' (let's face it these aren't genuine innovations, they are integrated improvements which in many cases are already available through 3rd party software (e.g. Tags, 1Password), I hope Apple have gone through the support logs, bug reports and forums, although the latter may be a misguided hope) to find out what still needs fixing after multiple incarnations of OS X.

I have six areas I've singled out for attention. They aren't real show stoppers but they are annoying because of their longevity, and the fact that they do appear to affect thousands of users. So here are my top six bugbears (in no significant order)

iTunes / iMatch

I love iMatch. My music library alone has over 27,000 songs in it, which is clearly impossible to keep on anything other than a Mac with a 250Gb drive, and certainly not on any iOS devices. Even my 160Gb iPod classic has already gone overdrawn (unless you listen to nothing but 3 minute pop songs the estimate of 40,000 songs in your pocket is a clear overestimate). But my  number one bug with iMatch is the way that play counts get screwed up everytime iMatch weaves its magic. Last played dates remain intact but play counts are re-zeroed. This seems to happen pretty much at random - I can't see any patterns. Sometimes 100 songs are affected, sometimes it's as many as 17,000. But many of my smartlists use play counts and I have to rely on Doug's Apple Scripts for iTunes to fix the problem to make these smart lists work properly. OK, it's not mission critical, but as a former programmer I can't believe this is anything more than a five minute fix.

Another issue I have with iTunes is that I'd like to see the same viewing options in the Home Sharing that I have in the dedicated library support, specifically regarding playlists. I think this is an omission rather than a bug, but I'd like to see my home share playlists as something more than a plain list.

Final iTunes gripe is the amount of time it takes to check the integrity of the iTunes library after a crash or improper exit. Please find a way to speed this up - it can take 10 minutes or so on a really large library, and I want to listen to my music now!

Mac App Store

I've documented the problem with the Mac App Store in a previous post, but this bug is still lurking and it would appear to be due to Apple linking the internal store data to the user's spotlight index. So, when the spotlight index gets corrupted, for whatever reason, the Mac App Store can't work out which apps are installed, which need updating or which new apps should be installed. If Apple used a separate index for the Mac App Store app rather than relying on spotlight I would expect this bug to disappear. Again, this situation can usually be resolved by rebuilding the spotlight index, but this can take hours, and the user shouldn't have to understand how this works in order to be able to update their apps.

Time Machine

There are a few issues that regularly occur with Time Machine backups but I'm guessing this is not an easy problem to fix. Nevertheless, I would argue that anything to do with backing up your system can be classed as mission critical and as such I would urge Apple to look closely at some of the more common problems. My two favourites ("?"!!) are "Time Machine Disk cannot be found" and "Sparse.bundle already in use".

In both cases, for me at least, rebooting the Time Capsule (or sometimes the modem/router) will almost always fix the problem, but takes down the system at the same time since the TC device is my wireless router.

Integrity of Time Machine backups is paramount and while the backup and restore system usually works perfectly, there are enough glitches for me not to have complete confidence that my systems are 100% safe without taking additional steps like regularly cloning disks.

Networking

There's a well reported issue with network access being lost when a Mac goes to sleep. Apparently Apple are aware of some significant problems in this space and the last couple of 10.8.x betas have asked developers to look out for changes in this area. It seems a shame that Apple have included the 'power nap' feature in Mountain Lion but many people can't take advantage of it since they have no network once the machine is asleep. Maybe this will be fixed in the forthcoming 10.8.5 release - fingers and ethernet cables crossed! At present I'm getting round the problem by using a 3rd party app called Sleepless but this comes with a potential overheating health warning (especially in this hot weather!).

AirPlay

I've also documented AirPlay problems on this blog in the past. AirPlay is one of those funny things - it either works or it doesn't, and if it doesn't, it just seems a matter of starting everything again. Some improved diagnostics would be really helpful (unlike Error -1500 …) if nothing else.

Safari

This is a relatively new issue that I've noticed where sometimes Safari just partially freezes. The menu works, scrolling works, selecting tabs works but noe of the controls on a page work. Buttons can't be pressed, input fields can't be filled. This only appears to be on certain sites - I have most problems with the Amazon login page. The only fix I have to date is to restart Safari.


As I've indicated, none of these problems is without a work around, and none are that critical (exception possibly being Time Machine). But they do cause interruptions, they force me to spend time fixing them when I could be doing something more productive - and overall they detract from the whole Apple OS X experience, where stuff just works!

Any specific bugs you'd like to see fixed before Mavericks? Drop me a note via the comments or @allygill on Twitter so we can compare notes.

Enjoy the summer!

Mac App Store – The Good, The Bad and the Inexcusable

The Good


I really liked the concept of the Mac App Store (MAS) from the day that Steve Jobs announced it. A first port of call to go to when you’re looking for that special bit of software without having to wade through endless Google searches which don’t quite get you to where you want to be.

I liked the idea that everything in the MAS would be available (it's really frustrating to find out about a cool piece of software only to find out that you can't get it anymore) and reasonably current (e.g. still supported), that upgrades would be fairly automatic, and that I’d be able to see what other people thought before I committed to buying.

I don’t think I ever saw it as the only solution. I still keep my subscriptions to MacZot and MacUpdate Promos and look forward to what they have to offer in my inbox every morning. And I still value the reports and reviews in the commercial press and on social networks like Twitter.

The first time I used the store (I think it was to get the free MAS version of TextWrangler) I was really pleased with the automated installation, and I still like the way that the process works for new installations.

The Bad


Having purchased dozens of Apps from the iTunes App Store, I knew that I would have to be a lot more careful in the MAS, with its higher prices. So far, so good – my prudence has paid off, and I’ve not spent a fortune. But it’s still a potential heffalump trap. One button purchases are just that bit too easy.

I was disappointed that it isn’t possible for the MAS to recognize all existing registered software and have it managed like purchased software. Maybe that is on the cards in the future, but I’m not going to hold my breath. And I’m certainly not going to repurchase software just to have it available through the store.

I’m also disappointed that upgrades force you to close the application in all cases I’ve seen so far. In App purchase often do this automatically but all my MAS software refuses to load until I exit the application. Not a big deal, but it does detract from the process and is a small step backwards.

My other major gripe is the pricing policy on certain Apple applications – specifically Aperture. Having just purchased the version 3.0 upgrade from Apple I was horrified to find the full retail version on the MAS at a fraction of the total price I had paid, having been a user from version 1.0. “C’est la guerre”, I guess.

The Inexcusable


Regulars will know that I run a 2008 iMac back at Apple Harvest base camp, and a 2007 MBP while I’m out on the road. Both systems are always up to date in terms of OS versions, and much of the software is common across both machines.

So it came as a big surprise that MAS behaves differently on each system. Everything is fine on the MBP – existing software is recognized, and updates work exactly as expected.

On the iMac nothing is quite as it should be. Whilst the installed software base appears to be correct and when appropriate indicates updates are available, the update pane says that all apps are up to date. Attempting to install an update from the purchased list generates the now infamous message :-

"You have updates available for other accounts
Sign in to (null) to update applications for that account"

After months of using the App Store I have finally resolved the problem more by luck than anything else. It appears that the issue is Spotlight related. I had a sneaking suspicion that this was the case, and this was reaffirmed with a problem I had with the Alfred utility which failed to locate any applications after I had performed a cache reset. Rebuilding the spotlight index failed to help matters, but a search through the Apple technical forums held the key.
Simply entering the terminal command :-

arch -i386 mdimport /Applications

appeared to resolve the problem and MAS now works as expected on the iMac. Other folks have indicated that this fix works for them also. This also fixed my problem with Alfred, and unless I'm mistaken, my Spotlight searches also appear to be more accurate.

Given that this appears to be a very common occurrence according to various blogs and forums, I find it inexcusable that Apple have not posted a fix themselves. Most of the work arounds I have seen involve deleting the apps that need updating and then reinstalling them from scratch. Hardly an efficient mechanism, and one that can also cause additional problems given the fact that deleting software on the Mac doesn't necessarily get rid of everything, and files left knocking around may cause unexpected side effects of their own.

Conclusion


I still think the Mac App Store is a "good thing", but it's going to take some more work from Apple in terms of implementation. There are too many rough edges and bugs to make it 100% reliable, and the facility to update apps already in process is a must. I also really want to see a standardised mechanism for converting existing paid for software into MAS managed apps. Given the number of people already using the MAS it is clearly filling a consumer need, but you should be aware of its limitations and remember that it is very easy to get carried away and end up buying a load of stuff you don't really need, simply because it is so easy to do so!

PS - There will be more info about Alfred in a future post!