Control a PC from a Mac over the Internet
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Most recent news first. |
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Apple posts more details, screen shots of Panther Server. June 26, 2003 -- Apple now has a new web page on Mac OS X Server 10.3 (Panther), which includes some screen shots. As we noted on Tuesday, the new server version will offer better support of Windows clients via SAMBA 3.0. The new page also lists better Active Directory integration and an improved virtual private network server. From the new page:
... Simpler integration with Active Directory lets Panther Server access user, group, and computer records stored in Microsoft's proprietary directory server without requiring modifications to Active Directory schema... The built-in VPN server in Panther Server supports Windows clients using PPTP and MS-CHAP authentication.
Another reader confirms VPC virtual memory tip. June 23, 2003 -- Another reader verified last week's reader tip that you can speed up Virtual PC 5 in Mac OS X by turning off virtual memory in Windows. Jim Pace told us:
Yeah, it seems to speed things up a bit. I'm running VPC on a 933 MHz G4 with 1024 MB of ram and 384 Mb ram set up in Windows 98 SE.
VPN Tracker 2.0.4 adds VPN connections to NETGEAR devices. June 26, 2003 -- Equinux has released VPN Tracker 2.0.4 (starts at US $90, free upgrade), an upgrade to its IPsec virtual private network client for Jaguar. It's major new feature is the ability to create secure connections to NETGEAR VPN firewalls. VPN Tracker 2.0.4 supports pre-shared key and RSA X.509 certificate user authentication for NETGEAR devices via a one-click preset.
Sybase adds reporting for Mac OS X. June 26, 2003 -- Sybase Inc. has announced that it is adding graphical reporting capabilities to Mac OS X platform, by integrating Quadbase Systems Inc.'s graphic reporting software with its Adaptive Server Enterprise database. Mac OS X users will be able to us EspressReport 3.0.2, a Java reporting tool. You can read about this development at eWeek.
More details on Jaguar bumping Windows off of SMB network. June 26, 2003 -- A dozen readers agree on the cause for the problem of PCs disappearing from an SMB network when Mac OS X Macs get on it. The consensus is that the problem has to do with the way Windows SMB browsing works, and occurs when the Mac "wins a master browser election." The problem can occur on different types of networks, with our without servers, and with any type of SMB server. Therefore, readers have sent us different takes on the fix.
We've posted 10 of these reader fixes on our Jaguar Reports page.
Another reader, B. Susala found a simpler problem with printer sharing:
Problem: OS X 10.2.6 (system kept up-to-date with Software Update) with SMB shares, single Mac in network, all the rest Win 98 SESituation: Trying different settings, activated without specific reason Printer Sharing - ups, all PCs gone from Network Neighborhood. Mac still connecting to them as usual.
Solution: Of course, deactivating Printer Sharing, but I am very very curious about a reason for this.
We assume the same master browser explaination applies to this situtation as well.
Special Report: Mac OS X 10.3 ("Panther") cross-platform enhancements. June 24, 2003 -- Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) in San Francisco yesterday, Steve Jobs gave the first demonstration of Mac OS X 10.3, code-named "Panther." (See also this press release.) Apple also released Developer Release 1 of Panther and of Mac OS X Server 10.3 yesterday.
Mac OS X 10.3 will ship by the end of the year for $129.
MacWindows was at WWDC noting cross-platform enhancements in the new operating system. We also spoke to Apple representatives about these improvements, including:
SMB enhancements
Apple told us that many of the Jaguar's limitations on Microsoft SMB file sharing networks will be addressed. However, we were told that Apple considers AFP to be the "primary protocol" for Mac OS X file sharing.
Bug fixes -- Apple told us that many of the SMB bugs in Jaguar (see our Jaguar Reports page) will be fixed in Panther.
Browsing in more than one subnet -- Jaguar can only see SMB servers on the local subnet. Panther will increase browsing for SMB servers to include multiple subnets.
SMB printing -- Panther will add printing via the SMB protocol.
Improved Active Directory integration
Apple said that Panther's integration with Microsoft's Active Directory would be improved over that of Jaguar, but would not go as far as Thursby's ADmitMac. Apple said that authentication and use of address books would not require alteration of the server's schema, but any type of management task would. Apple told us that ADmitMac would still offer a better support for the SMB file system.
X11 bundle
Panther will include X11 for Mac OS X, which is currently available as a separate download. X11 is a Unix windowing environment that lets users run thousands of Unix programs that have a graphical interface, including OpenOffice. X11 for Mac OS X is integrated with Quartz, so that that X11 windows can be mixed with Aqua windows. X11 for Mac OS X uses other OS X technology, including OpenGL.
VPN
Panther will include an IPv6 network stack, which includes the IPsec virtual private network protocol. The Network pane of System Preferences will have include an IPv6 item. IPsec can also be used with IPv4.
Other Cross-platform notes
iChat AV, which will add voice and video functions to Apple's chat client, will not be cross platform. Al Gore, now on the Apple Board of Directors.
NFS enhancements include "major performance improvements" and NFS file locking. NFS in Panther will know when a notebook computer is not connected to a network.
802.1 X authentication has been added.
Mac OS X Server 10.3
Although Steve Jobs did not mention it at his keynote, Apple yesterday announced that Panther Server (US $499 10 clients, US $999 unlimited) will ship at the end of the year. Among the improvements:
You can view Jobs' keynote as a QuickTime stream.
Apple to reveal Panther plans. June 23, 2003 -- Today in San Francisco, Steve Jobs will unveil Apple's plans for Panther, the next version of Mac OS X. Jobs will do this at his keynote speech for the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference, which goes on all week. Developers attending the conference will be give a preview copy of Panther.
We will bring you any cross-platform implications in tomorrow's news.
Suggestions for Jaguar bumping Windows off of SMB networks. June 23, 2003 -- A number of readers wrote to verify the problem we reported last week, that PCs disappear from an SMB network when Mac OS X Macs get on it.
Steve Talley has found a solution to the problem, which he believes is caused by Mac OS X becoming the "browse master" for the network:
This is in response to Doug Stringham's problems with OS X Macs causing PCs on the network to "disappear". I had this problem a few months back on my subnet. The PCs were able to ping each other and could access each other by typing "\\computername" in the "Run" box, but none of the PCs were visible to be browsed in "My Network Places / Network Neighborhood".The problem is that the OS X Macs use a default Samba configuration that can result in them becoming the browse masters for the local subnet. The OS X Macs don't seem to handle being the browse master correctly, and instead prevent the PCs on the local subnet from "seeing" each other.
The solution is to edit "/etc/smb.conf" and add the following lines under the [global] section:
> os level = 0
> lm announce = False
> preferred master = False
> local master = No
> domain master = False
My web page documentation includes explanations of what each line does.
Fred Brock thought the problem might be related to Visual FoxPro;
We've seen possibly related problem with a Visual FoxPro 3, cross-platform database application. With the data folder on either a Windows XP or OS 10.2.6 machine, the first user, if running a Windows version, can log in normally, but second finds the data locked or otherwise inaccessible. When the first user is a Windows version of the application, the OS X version can open the data but this immediately locks other users out.None of these issues arise if the data is on an OS 9 machine.
Robert Hebertson also had the problem:
I have also observed the disappearance of Windows 2000 machines from Network Neighborhood. I have a small mixed Mac & PC network consisting of two Max OS X Macs and five Win 2000 boxes including one Win 2000 Server.The only solution is to reboot to affected Win 2K PC.
Virtual PC 5.04 Speed tip confirmed. June 23, 2003 -- Al Pawlowski verified last week's reader tip that you can speed up Virtual PC 5 in Mac OS X by turning off virtual memory in Windows:
Turning off VM in Win 98 SE speeds my VPC up also. In OS X and VM off, it is just about as fast as when running OS 9. Turning VM off in OS 9 also seems to speed VPC up under OS 9 (not Classic), but not nearly as much as in OS X.I run a 700 MHz iMac with OS 9.2 and OS X v10.2.6. I only do OS X for testing now, but a Win 98 app that I run regularly runs fast enough with VM off to make me seriously think about switching to X full time; if it (X) supported my older USB Dock (for SCSI Zip and StyleWriter) and USB/IDE drive box (LS120 super drive), it would be a sure thing. OS X is nice, but it sure dropped a lot of legacy I/O support and its printing interface is much slower and harder to use than OS 9's Chooser.
If you've tried this on your computer, let us know it works for you, particularly if you're using VPC 6.
More on SFM in Windows Server 2003. June 23, 2003 --Igor Zagatsky, agrees with previous reader comments that Services for Macintosh in Windows Server 2003 is not improved over the version in 2002. Zagatsky agrees that Group Logic's ExtremeZ-IP is superior to SFM, but he doesn't like the price tag. (He works in a school.)
I got a chance to test Windows 2003 last week and was disappointed that there was no change in functionality or speed from the Win 2000 version as you reported. ExtremeZ-IP is in fact a much better product (as Michael Maday pointed out). But it's a rather expensive product, especially on top of purchasing Windows 2003.I wanted to suggest that you post contact info for Microsoft so we can encourage them to improve SFM. The info is in article 114491.
Hopefully they will listen. I personally suggested that they add AFP 3.1 support for much better OS X compatibility. AFP 3.1 supports long file names and automatic reconnection of file servers (among many other important features).
Troubleshooting tips for iPod for Windows. June 23, 2003 -- Apple has posted Knowledge Base article 61902, titled "iPod for Windows 2.0: Basic Troubleshooting and How to Avoid Issues." It includes a link to article 61903 for advanced troubleshooting. Article 61927 describes an installation problem that yields a 1607 error message in Windows.
Reader problem: Jaguar bump Windows off of SMB network. June 17, 2003 -- Doug Stringham has a problem on a peer-to-peer cross-platform SMB file sharing network. Whenever OS X Macs join the network, the PCs disappear:
We've been experiencing a problem with Windows 2000 (all running SP3) and OS X Jaguar (since it's inception). It's a rather strange and intermittent problem, but it's been showing up like crazy all this week. If there are Macs on the network that are running SMB file sharing, somehow they bump all the PC's on the network off of the network list for PC's. For example, you open up your Network Neighborhood and all you can see are the two SMB Macs, all of the Windows 2000 machines drop off of the network. If you reboot the PC's, they become visible again. One strange anomaly with this whole affair is that our Macs running SMB or DAVE can still see the PC's, only the PC's are unable to see the other PC's.
If you've seen this problem, please let us know.
Fix for empty folders on Mac OS X SMB. June 17, 2003 -- Thomas Hilgert has seen the problem with SMB folders appearing empty on networks with Active Directory, and has some advice:
The Empty Folder problem occurs on a DFS mounted Volumes. If you use something like smb://<servername>/<sharename> which is NOT a DFS share, everything is normal.If you switch to DFS and the above path is a dfs path the directory is empty. The reason for that is under Windows you will be directed to a SMB share which is configured in DFS.
So just switch to the real share and not the DFS share.
Reader tip: shut off Win VM to improve VPC speed. June 17, 2003 -- Joshua Braun found a way to increase performance for Windows 98 running in Virtual PC 5 on Mac OS X:
I have an interesting tip for Virtual PC (v5.0.4) and Windows 98 that seems to speed things up quite a bit for me on my PowerBook FireWire (G3 400 MHz). I got to thinking about the memory usage and how it seems silly to have two virtual memory systems going at once. When both Window's virtual memory system and the Mac OS X's virtual memory system are running they are using more resources than necessary--even fighting for them on my machine where I have only 396 Mb of RAM. I decided to try switching off the Windows virtual memory system and have noticed a significant improvement in Windows 98 SE.As far as Virtual PC settings--I have upped the allotted memory to just below where it indicates that there will not be enough resources left for the Mac OS. (In my case 228 Mb.)
I've only tried this on my own computer.
If you've tried this on your computer, let us know it works for you.
Windows 2000 SP4 will fix SFM problems. June 13, 2003 -- Ethan Allen reports that Microsoft will release Windows 2000 Server Service Pack 4 to manufacturing in about two weeks. The new service pack will fix at least two bugs in Services from Macintosh:
SFM in Windows 2003: little change from Win 2000. June 13, 2003 -- Ethan Allen of Microsoft answered our question from a few days ago about the difference between Services for Macintosh in Windows Server 2003 and in Windows 2000 Server:
To give you the short and easy answer, there is none. The only changes made to SFM for all Whistler releases (now called XP and 2003) were bug fixes (mostly minor ones at that) and taking out Print Services for Macintosh from XP. There may have been a few slightly large bugs fixed, but as I recall, there were very few blue screen show-stopper bugs in SFM to begin with, so the developer focused on other tasks he had....I can tell you that at least a couple of blue screen type crashes were fixed and a number of password and login related bugs were also fixed.
Reader Michael Maday came to a similar conclusion through some testing. His testing also found that Group Logic's ExtremeZ-IP was a better solution than SFM:
My informal testing included an iMac G3 with OS 9.2.2 and a PowerBook G4 1 GHz with OS X 10.2.5. I didn't see any speed differences whatsoever between testing SFM between Windows 2000 Server and Windows 2003 Server. I'd bet the farm that it is mostly the same code base. My thinking is that Microsoft has no real reason to rewrite the ASIP portion as OS X supports SMB connections. There's just no business reason for Microsoft to dump $$ into development if the target client base (OS X) can do the same thing using another (and MS's home-base) protocol.After much testing, I still feel the best solution is ExtremeZ-IP. Of all the AFP over IP solutions I've used, none has matched the uptimes and simplicity. Novell's solution is a wee-bit faster, but also brings complexities to the table that aren't needed. I've removed SFM from all my servers as it truly has no benefit for me-whether it's 3 users or 250 users on a single server, I'll stick with ExtremeZ-IP.
More on ASIP, Win2K SP3 and Office Document. June 13, 2003 -- Victor Roudenko is also seeing the problem with opening Office for Windows documents on AppleShare IP servers. Only his problem is not with Word files, but with Excel:
We too have run into this error, but so far it seems to only be with Excel files. Word and PowerPoint open correctly. The odd thing about it is we setup one test Win2K SP3 machine with both MS Office and OpenOffice installed on it. MS Excel still has issues, but the OpenOffice Spreadsheet app is able to open the files just fine.It appears that something MS changed in SP3 broke Excel. I don't know what other apps your readers may be having issues with, but Excel is the only problem we've encountered (so far) in our environment.
If you've seen this problem, please let us know .
AppleShare IP and Citrix problem. June 13, 2003 -- Danny Dun reports having the same problem as one reported on our Cross-platform AppleShare IP page, also with Service Pack 3 of Windows 2000:
I am responding to a post on your site re AppleShare IP 6.3.3 and Windows 2000.We are experiencing exactly the same issue. We have a Windows 2000 SP3 MetaFrame XP FR2 Citrix Server and another Windows 2000 server in remote admin mode. These servers are attempting to access an OMNIS database file located on an ASIP 6.3.3 share. I have inspected the raw network traffic (via Network Monitor) and have found the Windows box is sending two file locks (frame 192 and 194???) and is receiving an error on the second. Note only one close followed by the open command which is then rejected. You can see this in the capture below.
The application reports a locked file.
We also notice disappearing files and empty directories from time to time. The catch is, this all worked the day the application was installed and stopped working suddenly. I am currently
If you've seen this problem, please let us know.
(Note: we also have a page for reports on Windows clients with Mac OS X Server.)
Outlook 2001 over Cisco VPN Client. June 13, 2003 -- Chip Witt has the same problem reported our our Virtual Private Network Reports page.
I saw your post on www.macwindows.com/VPN.html regarding the difficulties using Outlook 2001 via the OS X Cisco VPN Client. I have a user working with the 3.7 version that is experiencing the same difficulties.
Some observations about SMB, file corruption, and performance. June 13, 2003 -- Dedrick Allen has some ideas about SMB and file corruption and performance:
For Quark we have around 20 Win2K servers here using AFP/IP and all of them have been modified with a TCP registry tweak that speeds up network access by being able to receive more data before verifying it (this should only be used on very good networks). We had to remove it from servers that users saved Quark documents on (using Quark 4.x and 3.x under OS 9 and below) because apparently it speeds the servers receive network traffic up so fast that Quark gets confused when saving files and it results in corrupted Quark documents.So, we had to remove the TCP/IP registry tweak and go back to the default settings that MS shipped 2KServer to use. This leads me to believe that SMB is so much faster than AFP/IP that Quark is having the same problem when talking via SMB.
Also Win2K is set to fine-tune these settings automatically and if it sees that it can handle a bigger receive window it will create one on its own and can cause the same Quark problems if it gets to big. Server admins should look up the following registry values on Microsoft's Knowledge base or find a program to let you tune them.
TCPWindowSize (This one is probably the main cause.)GlobalMaxTCPWindowSize
These values can be found under the following key:
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters]
Those having the Quark corruption may want to try adding these values and setting them to a hard coded value instead of letting Windows 2000 automatically tune them or using the default. If they already exist try removing them and restart the server and see if they still exibit the problem if so try hard coding them to a small value first then try stepping up until it causes Quark file corruption again then you will know the highest value you can use. But make sure you export the entire key to file so you will have a backup copy.
Knowledge Base URL's:
Windows 2000 Does Not Use Configured TCPWindowSize Registry Parameter When Accepting a Connection
WARNING - Only Windows Server admins that know how to use the registry should attempt this!
VaporSec 1.0 - a free IPsec solution for Mac OS X. June 12, 2003 -- Yesterday, AFP548.com released VaporSec 1.0, a free IPsec (virtual private networking) configuration utility for Mac OS X 10.2 and later. VaporSec adds a graphics interface to Jaguar's built-in IPsec client. It can connect to Check Point, SonicWall, Linksys, and Draytek routers and firewalls, among others, and has support for X.509 certificates.
Suggestions and observations on Quark file corruption. June 12, 2003 -- Several readers wrote about yesterday's report of Quark files getting corrupted when moved to Windows 2000 Server:
Scott Schubert
Jason had called me regarding this problem. I suspect that the problem is related to SMB and Windows. I run a mixed OS network and have had no corruption issues with SMB from a Linux server. I suggested to Jason that he set up FTP server on his Windows machine and use Fetch or a similar ftp client to move the files back and forth. Another possible work around is to set up an NFS mount point on his windows server and connect to that.
Steve Fair reports that the problem does not occur with Group Logic's ExtremeZ-IP running on the server:
We are a large printing company and we store thousands of Quark files on Win2K server, SP3 running ExtremeZ-IP 2.5 with no problems. I am currently running OS 10.2.6 in a production environment on a small number of Macs with none of the symptoms described by Jason.
Bryce had a problem caused by StuffIt:
We had corrupt Quark files if we would decompress them with Stuffit while the stuffed files were on the Win2K server. I upgraded to the latest Stuffit Expander on OS X 2.6. That fixed our Quark problem. We connect with AFP/IP.
Suggestions for when Outlook can't see Exchange 5.5 Server. June 12, 2003 -- A pair of readers sent additional suggestions for the problem of Outlook 2001 not seeing Exchange 5.5 Server. Kenneth Saxe offers a partial fix:
By implementing the "hosts file recommendation" from the microsoft.com web site we are now able to see the Exchange server. However, when running Outlook 2001 for Mac, each time we reboot the workstation we have to create the profile in Outlook 2001 for Mac.
John Leonard offered advice and observations in a much longer report, which we've posted on our Outlook Report page.
SMB folders look empty with Active Directory. June 12, 2003 -- When Michael Larsen switched to Active Directory, server folders accessed by SMB on Macs look empty. This sounds similar to reports of files becoming invisible when file names are changed, though the circumstances are different. Larsen says:
I'm probably missing something very basic here, but as our organization has moved to Active Directory and Win2K servers, it appears that connecting with SMB in OS X has gotten more and more problematic.When connecting to various servers, that were not a problem before, I get access to all of the directories (folders) but they all show as empty - no files. It doesn't seem to matter what format for SMB that I use -
smb://servername/share or smb://domain;servername/share or
smb://username@servername/share, etc. the results are the same. Plus, no matter how far down I go in a path to mount a share, only the top level share mounts; ie. smb://Server/graphicshare/folder/subfolder will only mount graphicshare.
I have also been applying Apple's updates as they occur, perhaps mistakenly thinking they are keeping pace with the changes in Windows networking. I'm running 10.2.6 on the Macs, currently. It is beginning to appear that a third party solution, such as DAVE or ADmitMac may provide a more compatible approach.
If you've seen this problem, please let us know .
Readers say SP3 is the culprit in ASIP, Win2K client problems. June 12, 2003 -- Several readers wrote to say that Service Pack 3 of Windows 2000 is the cause of the problem with documents on AppleShare IP Servers with Windows clients. Guy Masson reports:
I've seen this before. It's a issue with SP3, it appears to break something in Win2K as it relates to it's ability to connect properly with a ASIP server. There is no work around, other than to revert to SP2.FYI - Win XP does not have this issue.
Luis Antezana saw this with another piece of software:
I've seen a problem with Windows 2000 SP3 clients trying to access a Clients and Profits database hosted on an ASIP server. It is a known issue, according to C and P's tech support (although I hadn't seen any mention of it on their web site). Apparently Service Pack 3 introduced some kind of problem for Windows 2000 and AppleShare 6.x, but I don't know the specifics.
Matthew Wallis saw a problem with Citrix:
Just following up on one of your recent stories, we've got Citrix MetaFrame XP running on Windows 2000 server and an ASIP 6.3.3 server. With service pack 2 on the Win2K server, MetaFrame clients are able to open Office documents on the ASIP server no problem, but with service pack 3 they are not. I guess it's probably an ASIP issue, as I remember something similar happening when Windows 2000 first came out and it was fixed by Apple eventually upgrading ASIP, but it's odd that the same problem doesn't occur with Windows XP SP1.
More on Veritas's Backup Exec for OS X Server. June 12, 2003 -- Luis Antezana reports about the possibility of a Mac OS X Server version of Vertas Backup Exec:
I spoke with a product manager for Veritas's Backup Exec about OS X Server support beyond just their current remote client. He said an OS X accelerator agent was definitely on his plate and could appear in Q4 2003, but cautioned it was somewhere on the "would like to have" list (as opposed to "must have"), and therefore was subject to getting cut from the near-term agenda. Still, nice to hear that the biggest Windows backup manufacturer has an ongoing consideration of OS X.
Reports and suggestions: Outlook Mac can't see Exchange 5.5 Server. June 11, 2003 -- Several readers responded to last weeks report about problems with Outlook 2001 not seeing the Exchange 5.5 Server. Two more readers report having the problem, and described the circumstances. (You can read them on our Outlook Reports page.) Five other readers sent suggestions, which you can read here. One of these, the original reporter of the problem, told us what fixed the problem.
Another reader with corrupted Quark Files on Win 2k Server. June 11, 2003 -- Jason reports that his Quark files are corrupting:
I just read your article (dated May 20th) about Quark files getting corrupted when placed on a Windows 2000 Server. It turns out that all my Quark files that I stored on my Windows 2000 Server are now useless. Also, some of my old Photoshop files are corrupted too.I am running Jaguar 10.2.6 and connect to my server via SMB.
The May 20 article Jason refers to reports an issue with Quark files becoming invisible. We also have numerous older reports of SMB file corruption with earlier versions of Jaguar.
If you can add to this discussion, please let us know.
Tip for AutoCAD from Terminal Server. June 11, 2003 -- James Nennemann added to our discussion of running AutoCAD on as Citrix server from a Mac by suggesting using Apple's X.11 for Mac OS X and a Unix Citrix client:
I have successfully installed and used the Unix tool Rdesktop to connect to my terminal server. I am using it in conjunction with X11.app and I am surprised that the performance exceeds MS' RDC for Mac and almost equals RDC for PC. I can pan, zoom and rotate in a way that is so fluid that a unknowing individual might not realize that they are using another machine.Please pass this on. It could be useful to others that are in my situation; lots of Macs with people screaming to switch to PCs because they need one application.
If you've tried this, please let us know.
Windows 2000 Server Permissions fix verified. June 11, 2003 -- Stephen Chiang verified one of the suggested fixes for the Windows 2000 Server permissions problem:
Adding the everyone group was what I ended up doing as well.
SFM in Windows Server 2003--better or worse? June 11, 2003 -- Chris McFarling asks "I'm trying to find out if there are any changes/updates to Services for Macintosh in Windows 2003." We could not find any mention of changes to SFM in the new server at Microsoft.com. If you know of any benefits or drawbacks over Windows 2000 server, please let us know.
Problems with Macs running on NetWare network. June 11, 2003 -- Vadim Gorelik reports three problems with Macs on a NetWare network:
We have a 50/50 Mac and PC environment running on NetWare network. As it goes, the PCs are virtually problem-free, but Macs present us with a load of issues. We are currently in the process of upgrading from NetWare 5 cluster 1.01 to NetWare 6 cluster 1.6 and I am wondering if anyone out there has encountered same/similar problems and what they did/do about it.1) Blinking icon - when our Mac users mount any volume, once in a while, the mounted volume icon can blink and do one of three things:
(a) Just blink with no negative effect;
(b) If files are open, give an error message stating that Volume cannot be dismounted;
(c) Just loose the icon along with the volume2) Slowness of the volumes - while working on Quark documents from the server, users may start experiencing slowness in file access and even directory contents redraws. The slowdown cannot always be confirmed by looking at the CPU utilization on the server and can only be fixed by rebooting either the server, or even the entire cluster
3) If user is working on a file and experiences a computer crash, after reboot the file appears to be locked (In use) and the only way it can be fixed is to reboot the server.
If you've seen these problems, please let us know .
ASIP, Win2K SP3 and Office Document. June 11, 2003 -- Jerry Manning reports a problem with Office for Windows users and the AppleShare IP server:
I notice several users have posted issues about MS Office for Windows users unable to use documents located on an Apple file server. The school district I work for upgraded a number of clients from Windows 2000 SP2 to SP3 prior to my arrival and the users are unable to open Office documents. They receive different errors such as out of memory and low disk space. They can copy the document to their desktop, modify it and copy it back to the server.
If you've seen this problem, please let us know .
Solutions Update: QuickBooks conversion tool. June 5, 2003 -- Intuit now has a free QuickBooks Windows-to-Mac Converter, Mac software that will convert QuickBooks for Windows 2003 data files to QuickBooks for Mac format. A Step by Step Users Guide can be found on this Inuit page.
We've added this utility to our list of file translation tools on our File Solutions page.
VPN Tracker 2.0.3 for adds compatible with CheckPoint VPN-1 Client. June 5, 2003 -- Equinux Inc. released VPN Tracker 2.0.3, a new version of its virtual private network client for Mac OS X 10.2 and later. The main new feature is interoperability between VPN Tracker and CheckPoint's VPN-1. Eqinux also has a free manual that describes configuring VPN Tracker and CheckPoint's VPN-1.
Reader verifies Citrix ICA Client and PPTP problem. June 5, 2003 -- Kim Holburn having the same problem with the Citrix ICA Client and PPTP virtual private networks that we reported Monday and provides some more information:
I have this same problem. Citrix Client 6.3.0 (6.3.314 (Build 60841)) works without VPN, Mystery Machine works with or without VPN. A TCP dump shows that Citrix has chosen the right interface (ppp0) but got the wrong source IP number (the IP of en0).
Outlook Mac can't see Exchange 5.5 Server. June 5, 2003 -- Jeremy West has a problem with his Exchange 5.5 server -- none of his Macs can see it. He has hosts files configured.
We've got a strange Outlook problem.Last night we took our Exchange 5.5 Server (NT4 ) offline for a couple hours and the file msvcrt.dll was replaced because of a software compatibility issue with Netback 4.5 and Exchange 5.5. Since this morning every Mac Outlook 2001 client on our AD network gets an error saying "The Specified Microsoft Exchange Server is unavailable or a connection cannot be established."
When I try to create a new profile and test the settings I get the same error. We have host files configured for all of our Mac clients that points to the correct server on the network, but Outlook still cannot access the server. Outlook Web Access can connect successfully from the Macs and we are using that as a temporary fix. We have another domain on our network with its own Exchange 2000 Server and all the Mac clients can connect to that server without issue. Our DNS info looks good and we are running DHCP on the network.
Using my Network Utility app in OS X, I was able to ping the server by IP address but not by the Fully Qualified domain name. I resolved that issue by adding an entry into the Host info in NetInfo Manager following the steps I found on your site, but Outlook still will not find the server. I didn't have any problems pinging servers by their FQDN on the domain that has the Exchange 2000 server. None of the PCs are affected.
This message showed up during the reboot last night:
Source MSExchangeSAEvent ID: 2042
Unable to get the AppleTalk network address of the Microsoft Exchange Server computer.
I can't seem to find any info in Microsoft's Knowledge base about this error, but I can't figure out why it would matter. That server isn't running any AppleTalk services and our clients connect using TCP-IP.
If you've seen this problem or have an idea as to the cause, please let us know.
Missing Sync for Pocket PC will work with iSync. June 4, 2003 -- Yesterday, Mark/Space, Inc., announced Missing Sync for Pocket PC, upcoming new software for Mac OS X 10.2 that will synchronize calendar and addresses between a Pocket PC handheld and Mac OS X's iCal and Address Book, using iSync. It will also synchronize MP3 files in iTunes and digital photos in iPhoto. You'll also be able to mount Pocket PC internal memory and an expansion card as a volume on the Mac desktop to transfer, delete or install files, or install Pocket PC applications.
Mark/Space plans to release a beta version at the Macworld Creative Pro Expo & Conference in New York in July. Mark/Space has a mailing list for news about Missing Sync for Pocket PC.
MS to release Exchange 2003 Release Candidate 1 this week. June 4, 2003 -- Eweek reports that this week Microsoft will make available Exchange 2003 Release Candidate 1, a preview version of the next generation of messaging server.
Wormhole updated, cross-platform file transfer software, updated. June 4, 2003 -- CrystalFire Software has released CrystalFire Wormhole 1.0.2 (US $10 per computer until July), an update to the company's low-cost, Windows-Mac file transfer utility. Among the improvements:
Wormhole is a low-cost cross-platform file sharing program designed mainly for small LANs. You run a copy on each computer and they'll automatically find each other and set up a connection. Drag-and-drop files or folders into the a window to transfer to another computer. You can also transfer the (text) clipboard.
No local Admin for ADmitMac 1.0. June 4, 2003 -- Michael Perbix answers a recent reader question about designating a Thursby ADmitMac user a local admin: ADmitMac 1.0 does not yet support this feature. "I would be on the look out for that feature in a future update," said Perbix.
More on the Windows 2000 Server permissions problem. June 4, 2003 -- A couple more readers sent in observations about the Windows 2000 Server SFM problem with permissions. Greg LaViolette wrote:
I've seen this as well, but only when OS X users create items in a folder that doesn't have the "Everyone" group. The OS X client creates the everyone group (Others) and gives them read only access and then adds themselves as having full access. For the time being I have put the Everyone group back.
Dan Tesch commented on a recent suggestion that different file names might have something to do with the problem:
I have had this problem on and off for several years now and I have always been extremely anal about naming things EXACTLY the same and I still experience the issue - with native SFM -AND- ExtremeZ-IP.
If you've seen this problem, please let us know.
icWord 3.0 and icExcel 2.0: read Office files without Office. June 4, 2003 -- Panergy Ltd. released icWord 3.0 and icExcel 2.0, upgrades to the Mac utility that lets you read and print Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files from Mac and Windows users without having to have Microsoft Office. (See also this press release.) Among the improvements in icWord 3.0:
icExcel 2.0 includes these improvements:
SEC investigating IBM for bookkeeping irregularities. June 4, 2003 -- Yesterday, IBM disclosed that Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating potential bookkeeping irregularities in 2000 and 2001. Yesterday, the company's stock closed down 4 percent on the news. (See this SF Gate story.)
Fix for Win 2000 SFM permissions problem. June 2, 2003 -- B. C. Morris sent us a workaround for a problem we reported on May 22 regarding a permissions problem with Services for Macintosh. As part of his report, Morris notes a discrepancy in file names:
...The unaffected directories had the same Folder Name on the NTFS volume as the Mac Share name as the SMB Share name. The problem directories had dashes in the NTFS name and SMB share name and spaces in the Mac Share name. So in creating the new shares I have made sure all the 3 names match exactly...
You can read Morris' full response on our Windows 2000 Reports page.
Citrix ICA Client "Loading Controls" problem disappears with RDC and Mystery Machine. June 2, 2003 -- Richard Bird reports a problem with using Internet Explorer for Windows on Macs with the Citrix ICA client: IE freezes when trying to load a specific web page.
Strangely enough, the problem only occurs with the Citrix ICA client. The problem does not occur when the Macs use Microsoft's Remote Desktop Client or Darren Montjar's free Mystery Machine client. You can read Bird's full description of the problem on our Citrix Reports page.
If you've seen this problem, or have a clue as to the cause, please let us know.
Files become invisible to OS X clients from Win2K SP3 Server. June 2, 2003 -- Jayme Thomas comments on our reports of Jaguar can't see files on file servers when names are changed and offers a workaround:
I just read the couple posts about various invisible files and have a similar experience to add for you. We use a standard low end Dell Win2K SP3 server and have (2) Mac OS X clients, (6) Windows XP Pro's and a Linux box.Our OS X boxes are both occasionally unable to see files. We have seen this issue for HTML and Flash .FLA files. The files are there, the permissions are all as they should be, and the Mac's don't see them at all.
Copying the file back into the directory solves the problem immediately.
The XP workstations have no problem seeing the (invisible) files.
SFM Server disappearing from Chooser solution verified. June 2, 2003 -- Emmanuel Etiévent verified a previously reported solution for the problem of Windows 2000 Services for Mac volumes disappearing from the Mac OS 9 Chooser.
For me too, I had to set "Accept connections on that adapter" in the AppleTalk properties to make appear the server in the [OS 9] Chooser (access from "Network and remote-access"). It works even if the zone dialog box was blank. We have Windows 2000 SP2.
This is a problem that appears to have many different causes, as discussed on the MacWindows Windows 2000 Reports page.
Updates on problems related to Mac OS X 10.2.6 Combo updater. June 2, 2003 -- We've had several more responses to recent reports of drive problems with the Mac OS X 10.2.6 Combo update.
Safari kernel panics
Darren Montjar has a recommendation for a reader who had a problem with Safari after updating:
Reported on May 28th, David Gregory was having problems with Safari crashing on his iBook. I've had lots of problems with Safari crashing on its own, but never a kernel panic. Something else is wrong with his machine. Some suggestions, if I may:Create a new user for the machine, admin or not, doesn't matter. Make sure the latest Safari is installed. Log in as this new user and try Safari. If it doesn't crash, then he's got corrupted preferences or cache files in his own Library folder. Internet Preferences, Safari's com file, maybe the bookmarks. If it still crashes, then there's something else. I would look at pulling any extra memory out of the computer first. Also, as posted last week, run the 10.2.6 Combo updater, just to get every file installed with fresh copies.
Repairing permissions after software updates correction
James Richardson sent an update to his May 22 report on repairing permissions, saying that he made an error. He corrected his error, and sent us a new tip on how to fix extents issues that are found with the FSCK tool. You can read both of these reports on our Jaguar Reports page.
Scott Sayre agrees that repairing permissions will only get at part of the problem. He has a suggestion to repair "Overlapping Extent Allocation Files," a suggestion you can read about here.
Another report of drive problems
Finally, Mark Feliciano adds to many previous reports of drive problems, where he could not get a 120 GB drive to be recognized after installing the 10.2.6 Combo Update. You can read Feliciano's report here.
ADmitMac reader question. June 2, 2003 -- Eric Benfer asks this about Thursby Software's ADmitMac:
Has anyone else tried making an ADmitMac user a local admin. I figured it would just involve going into the Accounts preference pane and checking "Allow user to administer this computer.In Netinfo Manager my ADmitMac user shows up in the admin group. However, I do not have read write privileges to the Applications directory. The group is set to admin with read write access. Am I really a member of the admin group? Is there a different way to do this?
If you know they answer, please let us know.
CDFinder 4.1.2 fixes a bug. June 2, 2003 -- West-Forest-Systems has released CDFinder 4.1.2, which fixes a bug that caused files to grow large in size. CDFinder is a disk cataloging tool for Mac OS 8.6 - 10.2.4. CDFinder can work together with CDWinder for Windows as a cross-platform, network solution to catalog disks and CD-ROMs on a Macintosh and a PC.
New Special Report: Macs and Active Directory. May 29, 2003 -- We've created a new special report page called Integrating Macs and Microsoft Active Directory. It contains all of our previous reports and links on the subject from the past year and a half, including information related to Thursby Software's new ADmitMac software for Macs.
Thursby suggestion for ADmitMac configuration. May 29, 2003 -- Thursby Software's Carl Ketterling sent a suggestion for yesterday's reader report of configuration problems with ADmitMac:
As for Chris, the .local top-level domain may be confused in DNS with .local in Rendezvous and may be interpreted incorrectly. To avoid this situation, do not test with .local as the top-level of your domain name. Here's an Apple web page that discusses this in more detail.Sincerely
Carl Ketterling
Thursby Software Systems, Inc.
VPN Tracker 2.0 ships, adds digital certificates. May 29, 2003 -- Yesterday, Equinux released VPN Tracker 2.0, a new version of the IPsec virtual private network client for Mac OS X 10.2 and later. New features of version 2.0 include the ability to be authenticated using encrypted digital signatures. Users can drag and drop to import and export certificates. Certificates can also be centrally managed by means of digital generation and signing and issuing. (NOTE: 2.0.1 is the actual version number.)
New Group Logic Knowledge Base articles. May 29, 2003 -- Group logic has added some new articles to its Knowledge Base:
Revolution 2.0, multiplatform software development. May 29, 2003 -- Runtime Revolution yesterday released Revolution 2.0, a new version of the multiplatform development tool for Mac OS X, classic Mac OS, Windows, Linux, and Unix. Runtime Revolution says that with Revolution, developers can create software once to deliver on all the supported platforms. Revolution 2.0 is object oriented and supports XML, multimedia objects, and SQL database connections.
Late news update: VPC 6.0.2 fixes for AirPort Extreme. May 28, 2003 -- Connectix has released Virtual PC for Mac 6.0.2, an update to the PC emulator for Mac. This update fixes Virtual PC problems with Apple's Airport Extreme card.
Connectix is recommending this update ONLY for users of Airport Extreme Card who are having problems:
If you are not experiencing any issues with your Airport Extreme Card, please refer to Updater 6.0.1
It appears that this would apply to people who are not using AirPort Extreme.
Readers report: ADmitMac 1.0 does the job, with a few nits to pick. May 28, 2003 -- A number of readers have sent in reports and first impressions of Thursby's ADmitMac, Mac software that fully integrates Mac OS X machines into Microsoft Active Directory networks. Most people believe ADmitMac 1.0 is the most complete solution available, though there are some issues to be resolved. Several readers also feel that the pricing is too high for the education market.
You can read these seven new reports on our Active Directory Reports page.
Update on 10.2.6 drive problems. May 28, 2003 -- We have a few more reports of problems with hard drives caused by the Mac OS X 10.2.6 update. David Diamond moved his "dead" drive to a PC, where it functioned:
I wrote you a few weeks back about my Maxtor drive dying after upgrading to 10.2.6. I was about to trash the drive when I figured I'd stick it back into the Mac and try one more time. Same deal. Not recognized at all and still making the clicking sound.On a hunch, I put the "dead" drive into my PC (Win XP). I was able to format it and copy 20 or so gigs worth of data to and from it without any trouble. Then I put the drive back into the Mac and it was visible again. I could reformat it and copy data to and from it. It's been in there now for about 5 hours with no problems.
So I'm guessing that the 10.2.6 update screwed something up on the drive that the PC reformatting corrected. Drivers maybe? If your readers with dead drives have PCs available to them, they might want to try this out before trashing the drive.
David Gregory had a kernel panics with Safari:
My iBook (800 MHz/ 14"/ 640 MB/ Airport) has had some previously unseen problems after the 10.2.6 and Safari v74 upgrade:
- Spinning beach ball of Death
- System Preferences
- Safari on launch after startup
- Sherlock on launch after startup
Kernel Panic with Safari -- It got so bad that at one point I downloaded a copy of Opera. I deleted Safari, ran prebinding, and Disk Repair permissions. Rebooted and downloaded Safari through Opera and reinstalled. Kernel panics are now infrequent, but still do appear.
Strangely my nephews iMac (400 MHz/384 MB/ Airport) seems largely unaffected. Maybe the difference in Firmware could be the difference.
Another unhappy SoftMac user. May 28, 2003 --John Campbell adds to our reports of problems with SoftMac, a 68000 Mac emulator for PCs. You can read his report on our Mac Emulation Reports page.
Tip: Repairing permissions after software updates. May 22, 2003 -- In response to our reader reports of problems with the Mac OS X 10.2.6 Combo update (see our Jaguar Reports page), James Richardson offers a suggestion:
Reinstalling is not always the answer.I may be able to shed some light on the Mac OS X crashing issues that several of your users have reported. I've experimented with the results of Software Update since its inception and I have to say that results will vary. This is due in most cases to the nature of how file permissions work under Mac OS X.
This simple procedure will insure that problems do not propagate. Before running Software Update, close all applications, open Terminal and type the following:
sudo diskutil repairDisk /Enter your password and let it go to town. After that is done, type:
sudo diskutil repairPermissions /Then run Software Update. After complete, again open terminal and type:
sudo diskutil repairPermissions /Once done, your System should boot properly and crash less. If you experience frequent application crashes, do the repairPermissions step, as the most frequent cause is file permissions being screwed up on the boot drive.
So why does this happen?
The most logical cause is files not being closed properly. This can be caused by an application crash, an OS hang or kernel panic, installers, and yes, you guessed it, software updates.
Anyone can prove this by installing Jaguar and verifying permissions. After running all the Software Updates to bring it to 10.2.6 and the iApps up to date, several files will need their permission fixed to function properly. Based on the severity of file permission corruption, the OS may actually not boot properly. However, repairing file permissions will fix this.
Updated on PocketMac Pro Entourage beta plugins. May 22, 2003 -- A pair of readers responded to our May 16 reader report of success with the beta plugins for Pocket Mac that allow Entourage syncing with PocketPCs. Bob Compton sent an up date to his previous report:
Since posting my opinion on several websites, the PocketMac folks have started responding. They sent me some Beta plugins for Entourage, and the are notably faster. They did solve some of the problems, but there are some remaining and some new ones created. Nevertheless, it seems that they are still trying to do some work on the product.
Jonathan Mitchell also tried the Entourage beta plugins, and doesn't recommend them. He said they made changes to his calendars and contacts.
(We remind readers to use caution with any "beta" software, as the name implies "unfinished.")
Reader report on Thursby ADmitMac, Active Directory for OS X. May 22, 2003 -- Brian Frobisher sent us an observation about Thursby's new ADmitMac, Mac software that enables Mac OS X to participate in Microsoft networks with Active Directory. Frobisher comments:
I downloaded the demo copy of this software. I am using it with an NT domain. After fiddling around with it I did get it to work. It's pretty interesting. Anyone in the DOMAIN can log onto the Macintosh and their Home directory is there, but not mounted on the desktop. It is in a folder called Domain on the hard drive.I emailed Thursby and told them it would be much cooler if the home directory could mount on the desktop. Also, files in the home directory "MOVE" when you drag them to the desktop, not COPY, which is kind of strange.
If you've tried ADmitMac, we'd like to hear your comments about it.
Windows 2000 Server permissions bug? May 22, 2003 -- Stephen Chiang reports a problem he's having with Services for Macintosh:
I'm running SFM on a Win 2K server with SP3. I started noticing this problem on two separate servers since I started tightening NTFS security on my servers, basically removing the Everyone group and giving access only to those groups that need access.Here's what's happening:
I create a SFM share point called MAC SHARE. I give permissions only to these two groups: DOMAIN ADMIN and CREATIVE. When a user of the CREATIVE group logs in via MSUAM or Apple UAM on either Mac OS 9 or X and creates a new folder within MAC SHARE, the CREATIVE group does not have access to this new folder. In addition, it looks like Everyone group is added into NTFS permissions for this new folder with nothing checked in the allow box, SYSTEM is added as well with everything checked, and the user is now the owner. If the user logs in via SMB on OS X, everything works as advertised (CREATIVE and DOMAIN are the only ones with permission to this new folder).
If you've seen this, please let us know.
Invisible (Quark) files on Win 2000 Server. May 22, 2003 -- Marc Feininger responds to a recently reported problem of Quark files that become invisible on a Windows 2000 Server:
We have a similar problem with our Windows 2000 Server. We run about 10 Mac clients and 2-3 Windows clients. As far as I can see the problem has nothing to do with file types as for us we had disappearing Photoshop files (.psd), EPS-Files (.eps) and, strangest part of all and happened only one time so far (yesterday) we had disappearing directories as well.Happens from time to time, I would say once to twice a month.
We have mixed Mac clients, OS X and OS 9.x, problem is the same for all.
On the server and the Windows Clients all files are still visible. Renaming or moving the files makes them visible again for the Macs.
Chris Rugen has some other problems with Quark and Illustrator:
I was browsing your site's front page, and saw an entry that sounds somewhat similar to ones we're having. We are plagued by inexplicable difficulties with our eight OS X 10.2.5 Quicksilvers and our Win NT 4.0 SMB server.Some of the problems:
- Markzware's FlightCheck Collect collects our Quark files, and creates a problem where the collected fonts and images folders cannot be copied to the server in one drag, but have to be pulled over piece by piece. The error:
The operation cannot be completed because one or more required items cannot be found. (Error Code -43)There are no illegal characters or unusual filename lengths involved.
- Quark files occasionally generate a "Bad File Format" error and are unopenable, even back on our OS 9 machine.
- Illustrator 10 cannot open a file from the server, change it, save, then open it again and save other changes. The file has an "unexpected end of file" error and cannot be saved. The contents then need to be copied out.
- Entire folders will become invisible to one user, but perfectly visible to another. (We've attempted to solve this problem by 'resetting' all of the user profiles/ rights in the group. We'll see if the problem occurs again.)
None of these things were a problem in OS 9. In fact, we could work off of the servers seamlessly (even if that's not the best method). This may or may not be related to issues described in the post "Invisible Quark files on Win 2000 Server. May 20, 2003" on your site. Also, I believe this may actually be 2 problems: one with FC Collect, and one with our server or related settings.
I updated to 10.2.6, which didn't solve our FC Collect problems.
If you've seen these problems, please let us know.
We also have previous reports of Quark and Illustrator problems on servers on our Jaguar Reports page.
Fix for problem with Exchange patches. May 20, 2003 -- Responding to last week's report of a problem with Exchange and web access, Payman Parastaran offers a fix and an explanation. He says it is an issue of NTLM authentication:
I believe what Tony McArthur is saying is that the only browser that can be used after applying the Exchange patch is Internet Explorer rather than not being able to use the traditional Mac or Windows Outlook client. This is most likely due to the authentication mode setting within IIS or the Exchange Server application changing upon patch application from requiring basic authentication to one of requiring NTLM authentication. The only browser that supports NTLM authentication under Windows and Mac OS is Internet Explorer.Simply changing this setting will restore previous functionality. As long as the OWA (Outlook Web Access) server is on the same domain as the Exchange server (or even the same machine), it should not be necessary to specify the domain in the form of typing "domain\user" as the username.
More 10.2.6 drive problems, crashing, kernel panics. May 20, 2003 -- We've had more reader reports about problems with the Mac OS X 10.2.6. Our previously reports have do with with hard drives problems. Readers are now also reporting crashing and kernel panics. The problem seems to be mostly with the Combo updater, which updates version below 10.2.5. (The 10.2.5 Combo updater also caused problems, but of other types.)
Dan Pouliot offer evidence that this his previously reported problems with the 10.2.6 update were not a case of coincidence:
I'm now happily back to 10.2.5 (thanks to Apple for Combo Updaters!), and I'm staying there.
William Bowden addresses the problem at login that several readers have reported:
We have had a few of these issue, although not so many as to worry. To get around we boot from install CD and go to installer menu down to reset password. Note do not reset password with original password this fails.
C. Dennis Peek sent an update to his May 14 report about a corrupted hard disk:
I corrected the corrupted disk caused by the 10.2.6 update by erasing the partition using Disk Utility, then copying my backup partition with OS X 10.2.3 using Carbon Copy Cloner. I encountered a kernel panic, requiring a reboot, then a system freeze, another forced reboot, then the clone transfer worked on the third attempt. I have learned to keep a second partition, usually on a second hard drive, as a backup. It has saved me on multiple occasions. BTW, i was updating from Apple's Software Update when this happened.
Syd Sellers' problem with his iBook drive and 10.2.6 could be a coincidence, but given the other problems with the 10.2.6 update, it may not be:
Hi, just to let you know what happened here. I have a 1 year old iBook. I have been trying to keep it running the latest versions of the system. Only a few days after I installed the 10.2.6 update, the drive started to complain. Lots of noise and finally no longer able to read from it. Reboot then also failed. As it was still under warranty, Apple changed the drive, reporting to me that it was a very intermittent problem. I have never had a HD fail this fast. The evening before, it worked 100 percent. The following morning it was no good.
John "Eljay" Love-Jensen has had a nasty experiencing with the 10.2.6 Combo Update:
I've been having lockups and crashes on my PowerMac dual G4 1.42 GHz machine with ATI 9700 and Bluetooth, which came with 10.2.4. For three weeks, nary a problem. Then I get my Internet connection, and apply the software update:
- AirPort Software (3.0.4 at 5.8 MB)
- Java (1.4.1 at 26.1 MB)
- Mac OS X Update Combined (10.2.6 at 84.4 MB)
- QuickTime (6.2 at 19.6 MB)
- iMovie (3.0.2 at 4.4 MB)
- iPod Software (1.3 at 5.7 MB)
- iTunes (4.0 at 7.0 MB)
Crash, crash, crash. Crashes hard. At first, I blamed 10.2.6. After much hassle and frustration, I now suspect that the culprit is could be one of the other updates. Why? Because I only did the SU on those items, and then the machine began behaving badly. Running 10.2.4.
Note: OpenFirmware setting of "setenv boot-args cpus=1" eliminates the crashing problem. Hmmmmm.
As I write this, I'm SU-ing:
- * Java (1.4.1 at 26.1 MB)
- * Mac OS X Update Combined (10.2.6 at 84.4 MB)
- * QuickTime (6.2 at 19.6 MB)
I tried reinstalling, and crashed again. Installation steps:
- OS X 10.2.4 from CD Restore
- Classic 9 and Applications from CD Restore
- OS X 10.2.6 Combo Update (Software Update)
- Java 1.4.1 (Software Update)
- QuickTime 6.2 (Software Update)
- Remove Microsoft Office Test Drive
- Install December 2002 Dev Tools
Crashed in the midst of MS-Explorer. (I hadn't put Camino on yet.) Crashed hard enough that the boot partition was corrupted, and I have to reinstall. (189th time is the charm...)
If you've seen these problems, please let us know.
Gimp-Print and recent Mac OS X updates. May 20, 2003 -- Richard Laycock believes that the CUPS/Gimp-Print problem of Mac OS X Security Update 10.2.4 and updated 10.2.5 does not occur with Update 10.2.6:
I was posted regarding the recent Mac updates breaking of the SAMBA printing. I keep duplicates of the working smbspool and smbclient and rpcclient files in case of reoccurrence.The 10.2.5 update did break it again requiring copying the archived copies of these files to overwrite the newer versions.
The 10.2.6 update did not break it. CUPS printing worked exactly the same before and after the 10.2.6 update as it did before on my workstation.
Another reader with VPC and Win MX problem. May 20, 2003 -- We've added WinMX, a file sharing application, to our list of Windows applications that have problem with Virtual PC, on our VPC Conflicts page. Martí Blesa Millan has confirmed previous reader reports that WinMX will freeze VPC or crash the Mac in Windows 98 with VPC 6:
I had the same problem, running Win 98 SE on VPC and WinMX on my PowerBook 800. If I leave it running for a long period of time, the PowerBook crashes. If I force quite VPC, the only way to close it, then a lot of text appears over Finder, the same as if I were running the terminal whole screen under Finder.Then I have to reboot, sometimes several times, until everything goes back to normal. The first time I reboot it might take 15 minutes or more to start up.
The problem does not seem to occur with Windows 2000 or Windows XP.
Invisible Quark files on Win 2000 Server. May 20, 2003 -- Glenn Roscoe reports this problem with Windows 2000 Server and Quark files:
We recently moved from NT server to Win 2000 server. We run over 100 Mac stations plus printers.We are now experiencing invisible Quark files, invisible image files. All these files need to be moved at the server level to a temp folder then back into its original folder--then the Macs can see the files. We are also experiencing corrupted Quark files that start out fine, but then generate a "Bad File Format" error. We run Markztools utility and find a few images are flagged as modified, but they aren't. Once these images are removed the files can be repaired.
If you've seen this problem, please let us know.
Cross-Platform DVI/ADC Switcher shares 2 displays with 4 computers. May 20, 2003 -- Gefen announced the ex-tend-it 4x1 DVI/ADC Switcher ($849), a box that connects four Mac or PCs with DVI to two ADC and/or DVI displays. Any DVI or ADC equipped display can be used, including Apple's 23-inch Cinema HD Display. The unit switches video, USB and audio for each source. It's also rack mountable and comes with an infrared remote control.
Solutions update: JIMZip, low-cost zipping for Mac OS X. May 16, 2003 -- David Allouch is offering JIMZip 1.3 (US $7), a low-cost Mac OS X utility that can compress and decompress files in zip format. You can create zip archives by dragging files to the JIMZip Dock icon or to JIMZip's window. You can also use the Finder's contextual menu to compress files. Version 1.3 adds compatibility with Mac OS X 10.2.6.
We've added JIMZip to the project listings on our Compression Solutions page.
Thursby shipping ADmitMac, Active Directory integration for Mac OS X. May 16, 2003 -- Thursby Software Systems is now shipping ADmitMac, a new software solution that enables Mac OS X to participate in Microsoft networks with Active Directory. For instance, ADmitMac allows Mac users to keep their home directories on Microsoft servers. ADmitMac runs completely on the Macs, and requires no changes to the Windows server.
PocketMac new beta plugins. May 16, 2003 -- Patrick Scott reports that new beta versions of PocketMac work with Mac OS X:
The newest beta plugins that I received last night work pretty well. Syncing contacts and calendar was very fast. No duplicates this time, nor deleted contacts.I still would like to see notes sync with Entourage, or something similar. I'm considering moving completely over to Mail.app and AddressBook.app/iCal., since they sync painlessly from computer to computer to iPod. I am unsure how much work has been done with those plug-ins for Pocket PC users.
Autodesk seeking input on AutoCAD for OS X. May 16, 2003 --Neil Christie pointed us to this item at Apple's HotNews page, which is asking readers to email AutoDesk about their views on a possible AutoCAD for Mac OS X:
The AutoCAD product manager would like to hear from people interested in having Autodesk develop AutoCAD for Mac OS X. Let him know what you think.[May 13]
Workaround for Gimp-Print problem with OS X 10.2.5-10.2.6. May 16, 2003 --David Talley sent us another work around for the problem of Gimp-Print not working with Mac OS X 10.2.5 and 10.2.6 that readers have reported:
If you want to avoid the NT_STATUS_ACCESS_DENIED, on your user account, delete your password on the Windows PC and use a blank password to log on.On the Mac, just press Enter when you prompted the password on smb//winuser:@workgroup/server/printer
Suggestion and more reports of hard drive problems with 10.2.6. May 16, 2003 --Steve Maser offers a solution for people who have drive login problems after the updating to Mac OS X 10.2.6:
On your page today, somebody commented about this:In our case, the login screen appears, password is entered and then Enter is pressed. About 5 seconds later, the login box reappears. None of the IDs can log in. Drive 10 repaired a problem with the drive but not the login issue.I've seen this on rare occasions. For us, what happens is that the accounts dock.plist file got damaged somehow and certain OS updates seem to barf on this damaged file more than others and the user cycles back to the login screen (or worse -- if the computer automatically logs in, then it cycles through the login process over and over.
If the user can ssh into the computer, they should delete the file:
/users/<user>/library/preferences/com.apple.dock.plist.
They'll get back to the generic original Dock after doing this, but they should be able to log in.
If they can't ssh into this, then they probably will need to boot from another disk to delete the file.
Petr Siemens is another person locked out of his account after the upgrade:
This am after using 10.2.6 since it was released, I had my first major problem. On a Quicksilver G4/733, I use many apps left open, Photoshop, Golive, Eudora, Safari, iTunes, Explorer, QuickTime, Netscape, Flash Mx, Freehand, Now Up to Date, etc. I also had File sharing turned on.I awoke my machine, and I got a message saying Close some applications as my Hard Drive was Full. I ignored it and tried to retrieve my email. It said it couldn't trash the spam as my hard drive was full.
So I quit everything, rebooted the machine, and did a FSCK. It came up clean. I rebooted and logged in and much to my surprise, I was in a brand new window - like a new user. I logged out, and logged back in, and same thing. I've had to get all my applications back in the Dock. Most preferences have gone back to default.
Dan Pouliot
I've had trouble installing 10.2.6 on my beige G3. First I upgraded 10.2.5 to 10.2.6. My system wouldn't make it past my blue desktop- no menu, no icons, no dock. I force rebooted and it never went past the gray screen. I ran fsck several times, rebooting after each successful try. Each reboot failed. I performed an Archive and Install back to my original 10.2. Worked fine. Then I decided to run the combined 10.2.6 updater. My computer failed when I did that too. Now I'm back to 10.2.
Sven-Goran Ljungholm
The 10.2.6 updated killed a client's hard disk. It started clicking and then died. Had to boot from a 9 CD to get data off.
Cross-platform problem with Exchange patches. May 16, 2003 -- Tony McArthur notice a problem with Mac and Windows Outlook clients when he updated Exchange server:
Our techs have installed the latest patches from Microsoft onto our Exchange Server. Since then, we are only able to access Outlook via Internet Explorer. This hold true for Windows machines and Macs. The server insists on the viewer specifying the domain. We can find no way of doing this in other browsers. Apparently this is an additional security feature. I have tried a number of "tricks" like domain\user but nothing has worked. It is not a huge problem but it is annoying. I believe that Outlook 2003 will use a browser interface so we might have this problem for some time.
If you've seen this problem, please let us know.
Microsoft ships MSN for Mac OS X. May 16, 2003 -- Microsoft yesterday began shipping MSN for Mac OS X, Microsoft's first Internet subscription service from MSN built for Mac OS X, similar to AOL. (United States only.) However, unlike AOL's multiple-window approach to interface design, MSN uses a single window. The e-mail component is based on Entourage. Microsoft is offering around-the-clock Mac-specific customer support.
A Better Finder Rename v5.6 available. May 16, 2003 -- PUBLICSPACE.NET is offering version 5.6 of its "A Better Finder Rename" (US $15) Mac Finder enhancement that allows you to rename multiple files. (You can use it to to make batch of files Windows-ready.)
CDFinder 4.1.1 supports AAC files created by iTunes 4. May 16, 2003 -- CDFinder 4.1.1 (US $25, free upgrade) from West-Forest-Systems is a new version of a disk cataloging tool for the Mac OS 8.6 - 10.2.4. CDFinder can work together with CDWinder for Windows as a cross-platform, network solution to catalog disks and CD-ROMs on a Macintosh and a PC. The new version can read the AAC files created by iTunes 4, including the tag information for each song.
Asante offers Bluetooth adapter for Mac and Windows. May 16, 2003 -- Asante Technologies is now offering the FBT100 Wireless Bluetooth USB adapter (US $45) for Mac OS X 10.2 (including iSync) and Microsoft Windows 98SE/Me/2000/XP. The adapter provides a 723 Kbps transfer rate.
Details on upcoming Mac-Pocket PC solution from Mark/Space. May 14, 2003 -- Brian Hall, President and CEO of Mark/Space, Inc. Missing Sync for Pocket PC
As others have pointed out, we're indeed working on our own solution, which we will be officially announcing later this month. It combines sync (to iApps and our own app for notes/sketches) with backup/restore, install tools and plug-ins for iPhoto and iTunes...Below is the email we send out to people that ask about the product...
Frequently Asked Questions:
Q: When will it be released?
A: We have not set a specific release date yet, although we are targeting 2nd calendar quarter 2003. More towards the end of May or June.
Q: What will be included?
A: Desktop mounting, iTunes and iPhoto Plugins, conduits for iCal (datebook and to do), Address.app and a Note/Sketch Pad app, backup and install tools.
Q: Are you accepting beta testers?
A: Not at this time.
Q: Will you support Entourage?
A: It will not be part of the 1.0 release. The 1.0 release will focus on the iApps (iCal, Address.app, iTunes, iPhoto). We plan to address Entourage (and other popular desktop applications) in the future.
Jason Rush is having problems with the Citrix ISA Client for Mac OS X. May 14, 2003 -- Responding to Monday's report of access problem with the Citrix ISA Client and Jaguar, Pete Dodge sent us some suggestions:
I have seen these same problems in installations where the original install was fine, but the C: drive access issue surfaced at a later date for no discernible reason. This may be a function of changes at the server end and not the Citrix client itself although it appears it's possible to rectify the issue via the client configuration.A better solution [than modifying hard disk permissions] might be to check the drive mapping settings in the client. These settings can be configured using the "Citrix ICA Client Editor" by selecting "Default Settings" (button) --> "Drives and Devices" (tab). Check to make sure that the access icons to the right of the C: drive mapping explicitly allow read and write. (Make sure the icons have no question marks indicating the user should be prompted.) This should correct the issue without having to change ownership of any volume.
Also, the C: drive should map to the user's Home folder (/Users/<username>), not the root volume.
Regarding the problem of being unable to make a connection to one server Dodge recommends:
You can also just disable mapping using the client editor which will also resolve the issue. Although this means your users will be unable to save to the local drive.
Monday's reader said "I searched all my partitions on my OS X machine but did not find MSDOS.SYS or IO.SYS written anywhere. Does it write these files only for the given connection session and then erase them?" To this, Dodge replies:
I don't think it writes any files to the local disk. But it has to map the drive in order to allow saving files to the local disk. In our situation, we are able to disable the drive mapping without any apparent effect on the client beyond being unable to write files to the local drive.
Readers says EPS file corruption fixed in Mac OS X 10.2.6. May 14, 2003 -- Gavin Costello reports that Mac OS X 10.2.6 fixes the problem with EPS file corruption:
I can confirm that the issue with EPS file corruption saving via Apple Events to Win Server that I was encountering with 10.2.5 has gone away since the update to 10.2.6.
More reports of 10.2.6 hard disk corruption. May 14, 2003 -- We've received four more reports of hard disk problems after installing the Mac OS X 10.2.6 update. We don't believe this is enough to tell us whether or not the problems were actually related to the upgrade, but we will be following the issue. (A reader on Monday reported a problem on multiple Macs.) One reader (who did not give a name) reported these symptoms:
We have had 2 machines in the last week get screwed up but I don't know if it is 10.2.6 related or not.In our case, the login screen appears, password is entered and then Enter is pressed. About 5 seconds later, the login box reappears. None of the IDs can log in. Drive 10 repaired a problem with the drive but not the login issue.
Dennis Peek saw a problem on one Mac, but not on others.
I successfully updated a G3 iMac and G4 500 DP (Gigabit) with no problems. After updating a Quicksilver 733 G4, the drive is unbootable. Neither Drive 10 nor Apple's Drive Utility has been able to repair the drive. The second drive in this machine contains a partition that still has 10.2.3 and I am using that to boot and extract data from the damaged drive. I may have to reformat to salvage the first drive.
Tony Marbois also had a drive problem:
My G4 933 MHz would not restart past the gray screen after downloading and installing the combined updater. Disk repair and Drive TEN found many file problems. I tried safe mode and /fsck and nothing even an archive and clean install of Jaguar but finally had to initialized the hard drive and fresh install Jaguar and apps.
As did David Diamond:
A day after I did the update my Maxtor 40 GB (Model: 94098U8) drive just died. It started intermittently making a clicking noise and eventually stopped completely (all within a few hours). I tried to reformat it, but the Mac (Beige G3 upgraded to XLR8 G4) couldn't even see it anymore. I figured that the drive just died, but now I'm wondering it it's related to the upgrade.
Doug Gray saw drive problems with 10.2.5, but not 10.2.6:
We have seen three machines get corrupted from the previous update (10.2.5), but none with the most recent (10.2.6) This article makes me nervous though, I just finished the repairs!
If you've had a drive problem after installing the 10.2.6 update, please let us know.
VPN Tracker 2.0 PR2 released. May 14, 2003 -- Equinux has released a new preview release of its IPsec virtual private network client for Mac OS X 10.2 and later. VPN Tracker 2 PR2 eliminates the need to go to the command line in order to generate certificates. It now gives you the option to create and export a certificate signing request for external signing or to create your own CA and sign certificates. The signing of external certificate requests will be added in the final version of VPN Tracker 2. Equinux warns not to use this prerelease version for production purposes.
TIP: Time Servers on local network with XServe. May 14, 2003 -- Timothy Neely describes using Apple's XServe as a time server on a local network:
I can't give my users a gateway to the Internet, so, I'm I was looking for a way to set my Macs to look to my Xserve for network time.I did find a way. As soon as one sets their Xserve to point to a place (time.apple.com for example), the Xserve will then act like an NTP server for all Macs on the network. Works like a charm.
VPC 6 on slower G4 is too slow for XP. May 14, 2003 -- Steve Thomson adds to our reports of users with slower G4 Macs who find Virtual PC with Windows XP too slow:
I have a Sawtooth 400 MHz G4 with 768 Mb of Ram and a 64 Mb Nvidia GEforce 3 card. Windows XP is unusably slow. I'll have to install Windows 2000 or upgrade my Mac processor.
Mac OS X 10.2.6 does not fix Gimp-Print problem. May 12, 2003 -- A pair of readers report that last week's Mac OS X 10.2.6 update does not fix the problem with Gimp-Print created by the 10.2.5 update (or possibly, the 10.2.5 Combo Update). The Gimp-Print package is a collection of printer drivers for Jaguar's CUPS architecture that lets you print to Windows printers on networks.
Duane Hawkins says the same workaround works:
Unfortunately, the Gimp-Print SMB authentication bug is still there in 10.2.6. After installing, I lost SMB print services. Replacing smbspool with the 10.2.3 version fixed the problem.
Tom Hesbach also reports the bug:
Sadly Gimp-Print 4.2.5 still doesn't work, with the 10.2.6.
Readers confirm that 10.2.6 fixes AFP- MS UAM bug. May 12, 2003 -- Seven readers have added to the reports of last week to verify that Mac OS X 10.2.6 does indeed fix the Microsoft UAM Finder crash problem created by the Mac OS X 10.2.5 Combo update. One of these readers, Michael Larsen, says the update fixed some other problem as well:
The 10.2.6 update definitely solved the MS UAM Finder Crash as well as a few other AFP/SMB related problems we were having in isolated instances. So far, everything seems to be running smoothly.
You can read the rest of these new reports on our Jaguar Special Reports page.
10.2.5-10.2.6 problems with SMB. May 12, 2003 -- Andrew Cunningham reports another problem with SMB file sharing found in Mac OS X 10.2.5 and 10.2.6:
We use Microsoft SourceSafe as our programmers source code control system. It is hosted on a Windows 2000 Server and serves a number of Win2K clients and a Mac client (me). I access the database using an OS X "Carbon" client ( Metrowerks CodeWarrior) and a "Classic" client (Metrowerks VSS Client). I can also mount the VSS volume as either AFP (Services for Macintosh on the Win2K server) or as SMB.Since 10.2.5, when I mount the volume as SMB, and open the SS database, the Windows clients are kicked off with an "error reading file". It appears the 10.2.5 SMB client is inappropriately locking the "names.dat" file. The only way to solve the problem is to exit SourceSafe and unmount the SMB volume. The Windows clients can then connect again.
If I use AFP exclusively, then the problems go away.
10.2.6 did NOT fix the problem, but it was definitely introduced with 10.2.5.
If you've seen this problem, please let us know.
Reader reports 10.2.6 hard disk corruption. May 12, 2003 -- Daniel Gregoire report that the Mac OS X 10.2.6 update has damage the hard drive information on several Macs:
It may be too early to celebrate Mac OS X 10.2.6. After installing this update we've had 4 or our newer machines' hard disk either go corrupt or our user accounts including the root account get corrupted to the point where we can not log in at all - even in safe mode. No amount of disk repair or permissions repair works to fix it. The only recourse we've been able to take is to use FireWire target disk mode to save our data and reformat.
If you've seen this problem, please let us know.
Photoshop file corruption with 10.2.5 AFP. May 12, 2003 -- Joe Coppola adds to the many reports of Photoshop (and Illustrator) file corruption with Mac OS X 10.2.5:
I too have seen Photoshop file corruption, usually opening files on my Mac an saving them to my Windows server. And here I thought I was the only one.
If you've seen this problem, please let us know if the 10.2.6 update corrects it or not.
Article on active directory integration. May 12, 2003 -- AFP548.com has an article discussing one of several methods of integrating Macs with Microsoft's Active Directory.
Access problems with Citrix Client for OS X (v6.30). May 12, 2003 -- Jason Rush is having problems with the Citrix ISA Client for Mac OS X:
I've been installing the new Citrix Client on a number of OS X 10.2 machines in our domain and have come across some peculiarities.I can install the client and configure the connections to a couple of Citrix servers we have, but only one of the connections is error free. The other connection keeps asking for permission to allow READ access to the "C" drive. If you then try to "allow" or "deny" the access the client seems frozen. I modified my HD permissions (in OS X) to indicate that my username would become the owner of the HD (and not Systems, as originally indicated under File, Get Info), then everything proceeds normally.
A couple of other users (who are Admins on their iMac) have been unable to make a connection to this one particular server. I'm wondering if their HD permissions are what's preventing them from having a successful connection as well?
I realize that the OS 9 Citrix Client wants to have READ access to the local drive as well when first connecting, but that client places two empty DOS files (MSDOS.SYS and IO.SYS) on the local drive. Does the new OS X client wish to do the same but not recognize the HD configuration since it's based on Unix? After having a successful connection to my troublesome server and logging off, I searched all my partitions on my OS X machine but did not find MSDOS.SYS or IO.SYS written anywhere. Does it write these files only for the given connection session and then erase them?
If you've seen these problems, or know how to get around them, please let us know.
Syncing Mac with PocketPC: Pocket Mac vs Virtual PC. May 12, 2003 -- A number of readers responded to last week's report of problems with Information Appliance's PocketMac, the syncing software for Macs and PocketPC handheld devices. Most of the readers also had problems, but not everyone prefers using Virtual PC, as previous readers have reported doing.
Marc Jaffe abandoned the PocketPC platform to get around the problem:
The program made me jump ship to the new Kyocera Palm phone. Much happier--no more weekly removals of all the duplicate entries in both my address book and Calendars. Rock on iSync.
Patrick Scott is running a forum on the topic, and notes that another company is developing a Mac-to-PocketPC syncing product:
I have been using PocketMac for quite a while now. There have been some serious bugs in its development, but I found it more reliable (and faster) than using VPC. Duplicate contacts and events were the most common bug for me.That said, I am testing the new Entourage Contacts plug-in, and it works very well. It's still not 100 percent polished, but it's a true sync, and it is fast. They are working on the Calendar plugin, and I'll let you know when I start testing. This new plug-in was written with the help of Microsoft's MBU, from what I hear. Based on the speed and reliability of this new beta plug-in, I am sticking with PocketMac to see what other improvements they create.
Readers may also want to check out MarkSpace of "Missing Sync" fame. They are developing a PocketPC solution now, as well.
Readers can also visit the forums on my site, where I have created a Pocket PC for Mac users forum.
Dave Carroll:
I have been using Pocket Mac to synch my iPaq 3670 with my G4 15" PowerBook 667, OS X 10.2.5. I have had sporadic success and sporadic failures.I too have experienced synchs cutting out for no apparent reason usually during or just after calendar synchs. The item that drives me nuts however is the failure of PocketMac to be able to distinguish between calendar events on the iPaq and those in Entourage. I end up getting a message tot he effect to either delete all or restore all. I'm afraid to delete all and restore all gives me duplicate calendar events and sometimes triplicate contacts in the address book(claims the lists are different). Admittedly this may be a problem with MS's Entourage plugin.
In addition there is no obvious way to update my iPaq software (currently running win CE 3.0) to Windows PocketPC 2002. There is some mention on their website on how to do it by extracting some files by means of a software resource that doesn't exist on their site.
Also their synching solution comes under my modem icon on the OS X toolbar despite the fact it is a USB hookup--very strange. It ought to mount the iPaq on the OS X desktop
Lastly, they recently changed their support forums over to yahoo forums that don't seem to be being responded to(i.e. customer inquires go long periods with no answers). They can really use some work in the product support arena.
I'm unable to use Virtual PC at the moment due to a Windows system problem (a whole another topic) that I haven't been able to resolve, so I can't speak to that solution. I love my iPaq, and I love my PowerBook--just wish they'd talk to each other better!
Bob Compton notes some more problems:
This is in response to your invitation to give comments on using PocketMac vs. Activesync and VPC.Like many Mac and PocketPC users, I was very hopeful that PocketMac Pro would be my answer to at least basic syncing. I am running OS X with Entourage. I have tried VPC with Activesync but it was too temperamental for regular use. (I should mention that until August I was using Activesync on a Windows machine at my office, and am very familiar and comfortable with the function and reliability of this setup).
I purchased PocketMac Pro in March. Since then, I have had numerous consistent problems. Among them:
1) Notes don't synchronize at all in Appointments
2) Notes entered into the notes field of contacts on the PPC get garbled when transferring to the Mac
3) Notes entered into the notes field of Entourage contacts don't transfer at all
4) All day events are consistently messed up when synched (duplicated, deleted, or moved)
5) Tasks with no due date transfer to the PPC with a past due date (1/1/1904). If you fix the due date on the PPC, the task is duplicated on the Mac.
6) If the Mac goes to sleep, the PPC freezes and the clock stops, and if this persists overnight any appointments during that time get moved to the next day.
I have contacted their tech support nine times, and to date the only responses I get are 'thanks, we'll get back to you' or 'we can't get that to happen'. It has now been three weeks since my last attempt to get help and they have stopped responding altogether. I have tried to solicit help from other users on their open forum, but my post has been deleted.
PocketMac Pro has promise, but anyone considering it should be fully aware that the vendor apparently doesn't have the resources to fix the bugs anytime soon nor the desire to keep customers in the loop. Having said that, the stable & reliable functions can be used if that is all you need. They are:
1) Sync of Address information only, with no notes
2) Sync of one-time only appointments with no notes
3) Manual file transfer
4) Sync of tasks entered into the Mac with a specific due date onlyAND if you only have your cradle plugged into the USB port during sync. After sync you must unplug the cradle and reset the PocketPC.
I am anxious to see the much-anticipated Missing-Sync. Hopefully whatever obstacles are preventing a reliable sync between PPC and Mac will be resolved....
Marvin Vasquez
I have experienced similar problems using PocketMac software Nick Coote. Worse yet I am still waiting to hear from there technical support staff, I logged my report about a month and a half ago!
Mac OS X 10.2.6 released: AFP/MS UAM bug may be fixed. May 7, 2003 -- Less than a month after issuing the last Mac OS X update, Apple yesterday released the version 10.2.6 update. Among the improvements are those in the area of AFP and SMB.
Although April's version Mac OS X 10.2.5 fixed a problem with SMB file corruption, it has proven to be a buggy version in terms of cross-platform networking, including with AFP. The Combo update was particularly problematic. However, this new version may have fixed some of the bugs introduced with 10.2.5.
Daniel Gregoire told us "10.2.6 fixes the Microsoft UAM Finder crash for me."
Michael Biven said that the 10.2.6 update caused a temporary glitch with the Cisco VPN Client 3.7.3.A:
After installing the 10.2.6 update, I tried using the Cisco VPN Client (3.7.3.A) over a wired and wireless connection. Over both links it failed to connect.I fixed the problem by repairing disk permissions, the first time I've ever had to do that on an update. Works fine after that.
We would like to hear from you. Does the Mac OS X 10.2.6 update fix any of the problems with 10.2.5, including the Microsoft UAM Finder crash, the problem with Gimp-Print, or problems with EPS files in Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop? Please let us know.
Problems with PocketMac, PocketPC syncing. May 7, 2003 -- Nick Coote reports problems with Information Appliance's PocketMac, the syncing software for Macs and PocketPC handheld devices:
I have a new 17-inch iMac running Mac OS X 10.2.5, equipped with Office X, and have tried syncing my iPAQ 3650 (Pocket PC 2000) using PocketMac Pro. PocketMac is awful:1. I have a modest number of files in the iPAQ's My Documents folder, but only about half of them get copied to the iMac, then the connection just cuts. I've seen from the forums that other users have had the same problem ˆ it will only sync a few dozen files. Sometimes it just hangs during the transfer process, sometimes it generates empty folders with Chinese script names (very strange), and then tries to copy them back onto the iPAQ.
2. Under these circumstances, if you click on Browse‚ you see nothing at all in the window, and then the connection times out and it disconnects.
3. If you have (had in my case) a second Activesync partnership to a second PC, PocketMac removes it (they don't tell you this in the support documentation!).
4. Calendar syncs with Entourage get garbled:
a. One day repeated events get sometimes lengthened to two days.
b. Conflict messages displayed are incorrect.
c. Categories do not get synchronized.
d. 15 min alarms are evoked on new entries added to Entourage from the iPAQ, even when the alarm function is turned off on the original entry.
I have not yet tried Virtual PC, and frankly I am reluctant to buy it as I really only need it for syncing, and even then it won't sync Entourage. However, for the regular Activesync tasks and syncing with Outlook, I guess VPC has to be better than PocketMac!
We have had previous reports of using Virtual PC 6 to sync Macs with PocketPCs. If you've tried PocketMac, please let us know what you think.
User verifies problems with VPC6 and Windows 98 and WinMX. May 7, 2003 -- Jørgen Tietze reports having a problem we previously reported with Virtual PC and an Internet file sharing program called WinMX:
I've had the same problem with Windows 98, but when I installed Windows XP or Windows 2000 there has been no problems (yet ;o) ). VPC6 running on a 1 GHz iMac.
Readers verify refresh delay on file copies to Win 2000 Server. May 6, 2003 -- Three readers verified last week's report about volumes on Windows Servers not being updated after files are copied. Howard Phillis:
I have seen this same problem when copying files from a PC to a Win2K server. The file is not visible on a Mac running OS X (10.2.5) if the share is mounted with SMB but appears immediately if AFP and AppleTalk is used. When SMB is used the only way to get the file to appear is to disconnect and then reconnect.
Bob Scott:
We are also having the refresh delay problems of the server described on the MacWindows site.
Daniel Gregoire offered a workaround for the refresh problem, as well as for some others:
We're seeing a lot of these problems as well.If I know files exist in a directory but it won't refresh I simply create a new folder to force a refresh then delete the empty folder. Either that or I click on a graphical file in column mode to get the preview to show in the next column. That seems to do the trick most of the time.
My favorite is the disappearing file syndrome. We'll copy a bunch of files up to a new directory on our Windows 2000 server - we'll see them - but then try to open them off the server but as soon as we click on them they disappear from the list. One after another we can do this until the entire directory appears empty. A mount - unmount fixes the problem.
We've had continual problems with files not getting permissions set correctly. The only way to fix it is to delete the file and copy a new version to the server or use a windows machine to make a duplicate, rename the file and nuke the old one.
We've had continual issues on a somewhat seldom frequency where a user will create a folder then not have permission to place files in it. Always fun.
We used to have the corrupt file after copy problem but only using SMB. We stopped using SMB and it went away.
More OS X 10.2.5 file corruption: Photoshop, PDF. May 6, 2003 -- Geoff Cottorone is another reader seeing corruption of EPS files on Windows servers with Mac OS X 10.2.5, not only with Adobe Illustrator, but with Photoshop as well.
I've seen the thread about Illustrator 10 EPS/PS files getting corrupted when saving to a Win 2000 server, and I too have experienced this.I am also seeing a severe problem saving Photoshop EPS and DCS 2.0 files to our Win 2000 server. I'll save a file out as EPS or DCS 2.0 and when I go to place them in Quark (4.1 AND 5.0) I get very strange info in the preview window - my file bounding box gets 'lost' and Quark can't tell what size it is. I'll get either a 0" x 0" or sometimes a negative size! (like -.05" x -50") If I proceed to import the image then Quark locks my Mac up requiring a reboot. This is repeatable.
These same files will not place into Illustrator either. I get an Error ID = -11000 Can't Place Illustration message.
I tried saving EPS or DCS files to my local drive first and then transferring to the server and that does seem to work fine.
So it looks like Photoshop has the same EPS file issue with networked Win 2000 servers.
Meanwhile, Bob Scott seeing corruption of PDF files:
When we save altered PDFs to a Windows file server (Windows 2000 server) it corrupts some PDF files so much so that you can't reopen the files at all. A big pain. We are connecting to server via AFP, OS 10.2.5 (didn't seem to happen too much in 10.2.4).Some PDF files downloaded via FTP straight to the network get corrupted. Copy same files to the desktop first and they are OK.
Solutions update: Mac-to-Windows file sync utility. May 6, 2003 -- We've added ExecutiveSync (US $20) from Weber Ventures to the list of products on our Network Solutions page. ExecutiveSync is a file synchronization program for Mac OS X that supports long file names, Unicode files, and synchronization with Windows servers running Microsoft Services for Macintosh, including Windows NT, Windows 2000 and Windows .Net servers ExecutiveSync understands and handles Windows file name truncation and Windows Daylight Saving time.
Reader Brian Douglas uses ExecutiveSync and says it works well:
Last week I found a new application called ExecutiveSync that knows how to synchronize files between a Mac OS X machine and Windows 2000 Server over SFM. It was designed to work around the file modification date problems you describe on your site... I can vouch that it actually works without the problems that Connectix CopyAgent and the shareware tools exhibit. It only took 10 years for someone to address this problem!
Optimize PowerPoint for display on Windows. May 6, 2003 -- Microsoft has a web page offer tips on how to optimize Mac-created PowerPoint presentations for display on Windows.
CDFinder 4.1, cross platform disk cataloging. March 6, 2003 -- West Forest Systems released CDFinder 4.1 (US $25, free upgrade), a new version of a disk cataloging tool for the Mac OS 8.6 - 10.2.4. CDFinder can work together with CDWinder 1.7 for Windows as a cross-platform, network solution to catalog disks and CD-ROMs on a Macintosh and a PC. New features in CDFinder 4.1 include:
Workarounds for MS UAM Finder Crash and OS X 10.2.5 Combo update. May 2, 2003 -- A pair of readers sent us workaround to the problem of the Microsoft UAM causing the Finder to crash on Macs with the Mac OS X 10.2.5 Combo update installed. Kent Durvin uses the URL in Connect to Server:
On connecting to Windows servers after the Combo 10.2.5 update, I tried a trick to bypass the Microsoft UAM. In the Address box at the bottom of the Connect to Server dialog, I used the URL format with the password included:afp:/at/username:password@server:*
If I connect to a Windows server that allows Apple authentication, it works. If I try a server that does not, the Finder crashes. I think that shows that the Microsoft UAM is not the culprit, but what is different about the connection to the server after authentication?
Karl Fisch found he could avoid the problem with aliases:
I ran the 10.2.5 combo update and was unable to connect to Win 2000 servers using the MS UAM and Connect to Server in the Go Menu. Aliases worked fine. I tried uninstalling and reinstalling the MS UAM with no luck. After reading the discussion on MacWindows I tried reinstalling the standard update, but it did not fix the problem - I still get Finder crashes.
Care to comment? Drop us a line.
Tips for troubleshooting Citrix ICA Mac OS X client. May 2, 2003 -- David Gurvich was having trouble with his Citrix ICA Client for Mac OS X, but found the answer:
I have finally found a way to make the native Client work. I found it posted at a Citrix user forum. I just had to make sure that I used the correct client editor, go into default settings there and make that one change. After that the native client worked fine.Some things to check:
1) Open the ICA Client editor for Mac OS X and make sure the protocol is set to TCP. To do this open the ICA client editor and make the window the focus. Select options -->default settings from the menu. Make sure TCP/IP is default protocol.
2) Check the event viewer of the metaframe server you are connecting to and see if any errors are reported.
3) Can you make a connection to the metaframe server without going thru csg with the Mac (This assume that you can get the Mac on the LAN).
AFP refresh delay on file copies to Win 2000 Server. May 2, 2003 -- Alan Edwards is seeing a problem with volumes on Windows Servers not being updated after files are copied:
We've had constant intermittent refresh problems when copying files to a Win 2000 Server AFP Share. File will copy across - can be seen by OS 9 clients and PC's immediately but "certain" Mac OS X 10.2 clients don't see the files. If you do a find file on the directory the file will be found, and then will appear in the finder. However you have to do this on every file you need to locate. Disconnecting from the server and reconnecting will show all files again until more are copied.We now also have problems when receiving folders on ISDN into a Shared volume on the Win Server. File corrupts and cannot be opened.
The refresh problem is more of an issue.
If you've seen this problem, please let us know.
Tips for AutoCAD in Virtual PC. May 1, 2003 -- Matthew Helt sent us a set of suggestions for running AutoCAD in Virtual PC 6. You can read them on our AutoCAD in Virtual PC Special Reports page.
Another fix for Outlook 2001 hanging in Mac OS 9.2. May 1, 2003 -- Tobias Hall sent us another fix for the problem of Outlook 2001 freezing in Mac OS 9.2:
I had problems with the Mac freezing after having Explorer open.Solution for me was to download the latest Internet explorer 5.16 and then take the "Microsoft component library" and "Microsoft Internet library" extensions from Internet Explorer folder and put them into the System folder thus replacing the old ones that were installed by Outlook.
Equinux releases VPN Tracker 2 beta and 1.6.2 update. May 1, 2003 -- Equinux has released the first preview (beta) release of VPN Tracker 2, a new version of the IPsec virtual private network client for Mac OS X 10.2 and later. The updated adds integrated support for RSA X.509 certificates. Equinux says:
Using the certificate manager available from the File menu, VPN Tracker can import and export certificates and certificate authorities (CAs) in PEM, DER and PKCS#12 format. Additionally, VPN Tracker is able to export certificates in the public/private key format used by FreeS/WAN (Linux).
Equinux plans to release a finished version of VPN Tracker 2.0 in late May.
The company also released the shipping version of
