Major Problems With Safari

It's BETA software... by xyrw · 2003-01-09 09:44 · Score: 5, Insightful

Use at your own risk...

Granted, I was using Moz while it was in Beta, but there had been testimonials... and if you're an early adopter you ought to have good backups anyway.

Just my 2 cents...

Re:It's BETA software... by Twirlip+of+the+Mists · 2003-01-09 10:11 · Score: 5, Interesting

The responsibility for that problem lies squarely on the shoulders of the Mozilla guys. Back when I was young, "beta" meant "feature-complete, but not yet debugged." If a product is in "beta," that meant that it was absolutely not going to get any new features before release.

The Mozilla guys kept glomming features onto their browser for months and years. Eventually they got rid of the term "beta" and started calling them "prereleases" or "milestones" or something, but the fact remains that it's an awful practice.

Apple has a history of treating betas like betas. The Mac OS X public beta didn't get any major new features when it went to 10.0. iSync beta didn't get any major new features when it went to 1.0. And I hope, oh I hope, that Safari doesn't get any major new features before it goes to 1.0.

--

I write in my journal
Re:It's BETA software... by neuroticia · 2003-01-09 14:52 · Score: 3, Insightful

In addition, most Mac users are still accustomed to a lower-power OS, where not much damage could be done by too many things. OS X is a new breed, and old work/play habits are still being used.

Not to insult the people new to the Mac, who have come over because of OS X, or those who *DO* understand the meaning of 'beta', but most Mac and Windows users think of "Beta" as pre-release, as in "It might crash before you can save your file". They don't realize that the potential exists to cause extremely wide-spread damage and data loss.

A company with the userbase that Apple or Microsoft have, should spend a LOT more time educating their userbase as to what "Beta" means before making it as easy to download as it is. If the casual user (I'm thinking about some of my non-computer-inclined friends, some co-workers, my mother.. You know. Average.) were to see "Beta", either they a.) know what the word means in this context due to extensive exposure to long lectures on the topic courtesy of the resident geek, b.) know that in green it's the second letter of the alphabet, and assume "Beta" means "Second release", or "Version 2" or c.) Looks up "Beta" in the dictionary and sees that it's the second letter in the alphabet, is totally confused as to what the heck it means, and downloads it because Apple says it's cool, fabulous, and faster than anything out there.

Those users are also those that are most likely to be screwed by a major software bug. They don't know what "backup" means, they don't know how to "backup", even if they do know what it means, and they think computers are rock-solid stable things that will never lose anything of theirs.

If these people make up even 10 percent of your total market, you have a MAJOR obligation to inform them of what "Beta" means, and make sure they actually understand that it can result in extensive damage. Apple doesn't. It's three clicks from the main page until it's downloaded, and no place does it say in big red letters "CAUTION".

It should.

-Sara
Re:It's BETA software... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-09 17:03 · Score: 4, Interesting

Well. Yeah. But it could use some tabs... :-)

According to some of the developers who wish to remain nameless (no, Hyatt isn't one of us... publicly) Safari will get tabs over our dead bodies. We didn't omit them because we didn't have time. We left them out because they're a terrible UI design. To see this in action, just open six or seven tabs in a Chimera window. You can't even read the titles any more! Tabs are pretty useless at that point.

Read my lips. Safari will never have tabs.

What do you expect. . . . by DansnBear · 2003-01-09 09:46 · Score: 4, Insightful

Dont get me wrong, Im as big of an apple person as they come (I refuse to use a windows machine) but as the page stated (and jobs in his keynote) many times: It's Beta. . . use at your own risk. . . Im sure once it goes to a full release it will be the most kickass browser around, but untill then, I keep my copy of opera in the dock, right next to safari.

--

-= Who are The Headlocks? =-

Re:What do you expect. . . . by baryon351 · 2003-01-09 13:24 · Score: 4, Funny

And ellen said it was a really good paper.

but the paper was devoured.

"It was a really good /tmp... and Safari devoured my /tmp, and I had to link it again but it wasn't as good..."

Specific and useful would be good here by nrich123 · 2003-01-09 09:48 · Score: 5, Insightful

Instead of useless scaremongering.

I have done multiple control click downloads, and printed a gazillion pages with Safari b48- with no problems.

So can you please tell us *exactly how to reproduce these bugs so we can avoid it, or stop yelling fire in a crowded theatee?

Thanks.

Of course, I wouldn't have installed beta software on an unbacked up production machine mysefl, but there we go.
I don't have a production machine with less than daily backups.

Re:Specific and useful would be good here by Twirlip+of+the+Mists · 2003-01-09 10:44 · Score: 5, Insightful

Those who have discovered the bug experience the following: (1) option-clicking a link deletes ~/.

For the record, there are very few reported instances of this happening, and none of them is crystal-clear. On Apple's support boards, I think I counted three people who said that this happened to them, but none of them have thus far been able to describe what they were doing when it happened. (Their accounts sound something like Ellen's "switch" commercial, if you can believe that.)

For kicks, after I heard about this I DVD'd my entire Users folder and went about option-clicking everything in sight. I ended up with a bunch of files on my desktop, but I didn't have any problems even remotely like what has been reported.

Should you be cautious? Hell, yeah. It's beta, for Chrissakes. If it sneaks out of your office in the middle of the night, rearranges your sock drawer, eats your children, and deletes all those unwatched episodes of "Wild On" off your TiVo, it's nobody's fault but your own. But is it a disaster just waiting to happen? Apparently not.

--

I write in my journal
Re:Specific and useful would be good here by Anonymous Coward · 2003-01-09 12:10 · Score: 4, Interesting

I've tried to replicate this bug and cannot, when noone is giving specific information that will allow a tester to replicate a bug that usually means that something else has happened. I'm a software developer who been through many alphas and betas and I can smell hysteria here. It's human nature to assume that computer problems are caused by the software that's currently being tested. Sometimes this is true, and in those cases the effect can be reproduced and hopefully fixed. Many other times the software in question cannot be prodded into recreating the error, and it is often something else (like something the user did that is not related to the software being tested).

The second part of this phenomenon is the hysteria -the (possibly erroneously reported) bug looks bad and pretty soon everyone's talking about, it seems like everyones got it and anything that goes wrong with a person's computer is due to the program.

You also get a significant "joiner" effect -people who didn't like the software, or company or whatever begin clamoring about the (now many) debilitating bugs.

I'm not especially impressed with Safari one way or another, but I've been using it for many hours, doing all the things that are supposed to cause problems, and I still:

1) have a home directory
2) have a sym-link to /private/tmp in /
3) can print

What am I doing wrong!!!

Forgot my UID so I am anonymous...
-Aaron

Hmm by KH · 2003-01-09 09:54 · Score: 3, Insightful

I am a bit skeptical about the reports. It sounds like some people are freaking out because something they didn't happened. Is it not possible that someone tried to download a file whose name was exactly the same as his home directory, and he has set his download location to /Users for whatever reason I don't understand?

Also, the reports say that /tmp was missing, not that Safari replaces /tmp with a link to /private/tmp. /tmp has always been a link to /private/tmp.

Safari is a beta software anyway. Use it at your own risk.

Re:Stop the presses!!! by Zelet · 2003-01-09 09:55 · Score: 4, Funny

I downloaded Safari and it was like beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep. It was a really good slashdot post, too.

Relax I am an Apple user.

--
...And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me." - Martin Niemoeller (1892-1984)

X11 and /tmp by Daleks · 2003-01-09 10:12 · Score: 4, Informative

The other has been reported as a printing problem, but is far worse. The printing problem occurs because Safari deletes /tmp, which is a link to /private/tmp.

So that explains it. Apple's X11 application was crashing on me shortly after launch and immediately when requesting the creation of an xterm. The logfile said a lock file in /tmp could not be created.

How to fix the /tmp problem by kuwan · 2003-01-09 10:26 · Score: 5, Informative

The following was deleted from my original post. Here's how to fix the problems with /tmp:

You need to recreate the /tmp symbolic link (/tmp is just a link to /private/tmp).

Open the Terminal application.
Type "sudo ln -s /private/tmp /tmp" (without the quotes).
You'll be prompted for your password, so enter it.
Everything should now work like before (you may have to log out and then log back in again).

I agree with those that have said that you should use caution with beta software, but considering that over 300,000 people downloaded it on the first day there are going to be a lot of people that are going to be needing a fix. 5 of the 6 people I work with (including me) that used Safari had /tmp deleted. That's 83% which means there's probably more than 250,000 people (from just the first day) that are going to need a fix.

Other problems that might be experienced include:

Can't launch any Classic Application
Can't run Software Update. I get "an unexpected error has occured."
Can't log in as any other user except the Admin.
Can't print.

There are many more problems that may come up, so anything we can do to get the word out is a good thing.

--
infested with jello like fishes no melotron wishes

Alpha, Beta, Pre-Release Candidate, etc... by shdragon · 2003-01-09 10:36 · Score: 5, Informative

This is a rather old debate...please see link for related debate.
KDE Office Beta

Above is an old thread regarding KDE office beta and the confusion caused by alpha, beta, etc. and different people's expectations.

I think that a good general rule of thumb is to say that:

pre-alpha/alpha software all bets are off.

Beta - We've worked out all the major computer destroying bugs but there's still lots of little annoying ones.

Pre-Release candidate - Hey, we got this thing to work pretty well and now we need people to try and break it so that when we actually release we can

Honestly, I'd be pretty pissed if someone released a beta and it did something nasty like erase my ~ directory. We're not talking about CS 101 students releasing the Hello World Browser.

--
"...we dont care about the economics; we just want to be able to hack great stuff."

Chimera 0.6 by MacAndrew · 2003-01-09 11:14 · Score: 4, Interesting

For Mac faithful, try Chimera Navigator which is astonsihly based on Gecko yet worlds apart from Netscape. It's a nice example of a rapid development project benefitting from the OS X environment. 0.6 is a major advance.

I use Opera and like it, but you do have to pay $40 for it, and we have three machines. I'm a little worrid about Opera's apparent feature creep.

I don't know what Chimera's future is, but it's free and GPL. I wish Safari all the best but will wait a little. And WHY with Aqua have they still not dropped that awful brushed metal look??? Chimera does a better job of Aqua than Apple's own product.

Re:Stop the presses!!! by MacAndrew · 2003-01-09 11:17 · Score: 3, Funny

Do you look like Ellen Feiss?

If yes, this may not be a safe place for you.... :)

Rushed job? by batobin · 2003-01-09 11:25 · Score: 3, Insightful

A friend who is considering updating to Jaguar asked me if I liked Safari. I had to think for a second. I've switched between iCab, Netscape 6, Mozilla, IE, OmniWeb, and Chimera since I started using OS X. I had finally settled on Chimera as my primary browser before Safari got released.

So what did I respond? I told him that it seemed to me like it was a rush job. I didn't really see any signs that Apple had spent much time or effort developing the software. Yes, I fully realize it's beta. It should have bugs. But bugs as big as are mentioned in this story? Good gracious no. I've been beta testing Apple software for a long time, and bugs this big are usually taken care of with internal builds. Even seeds delivered to ADC members shouldn't have bugs this big. Safari is a widely publicized public beta.

Does anybody see any features that really show work? I know they did a lot of under-the-hood stuff, but what did they start with? What was the state of KHTML before Apple started contributing? I'm sure Apple is going to make the browser a large priority, but how much did they really put into Safari before it was released?

Re:Rushed job? by P.+Niss · 2003-01-09 13:13 · Score: 3, Interesting

Well, for one thing, prior to Safari, KHTML (in the guise of Konqueror, I guess, although I've never run it under Mac OS X myself) ran as a KDE application under X11 in OS X; now, Safari runs as a native application in Aqua. I don't know how much work this took, but it obviously differentiates Safari from KHTML. The UI of Safari is noticeably different from prior implementations of KHTML; I don't remember having seen the SnapBack feature in KHTML before Safari, although I could be just out of the loop; and, as one would expect, KHTML prior to Safari did not include the Address Book and Rendezvous integration that Safari now has. These facts, among others, indicate to me that, while Apple might still have a ways to go with Safari (hence the "beta"), they did put at least some significant degree of work into it before releasing it, and I'm not sure there's any evidence, in the absence of inside information, that Safari was a rush job.

With regard to the two major reported bugs, I don't think it ever makes sense to tell otherwise intelligent people who've just had their home directory wiped out after trying to download a file that the bug is nonexistent. In reality, however, these bugs seem to be being reported sporadically at best, and there may be some specific set of circumstances outside of Safari which cause these bugs that we're unaware of. I think the best you can do, then, is acknowledge the usual caveats that go along with using a beta; unless you've actually experienced the bugs, however, I think running scared from Safari might be overdoing it a bit. As always when dealing with software before its official release, caution is the better part of prudence.

Re:How is this possible? by KH · 2003-01-09 12:29 · Score: 4, Informative

[xxx@xxx:~]% ls -l / . . lrwxrwxr-t 1 root admin 12 Jan 10 00:43 tmp@ -> /private/tmp

If you are a member of admin group, you can delete it.

I am beginning to get an impression that people who had set Download folder to Macintosh HD:tmp in OS 9 using Internet Config may be affected. Looks like Safari honors the setting from the Internet Config.

Posting from Safari :)

Another reason not to run as admin by Van+Halen · 2003-01-09 12:46 · Score: 3, Informative

Although there doesn't seem to be much detail about exactly what Safari is mistakenly doing to cause these bugs, I don't think they would happen to a normal (not in the admin group) user.

Actually I'm a little perplexed about the home directory thing and would like to see more details on what is going on. /Users on both of my machines is writable by root and the wheel group, but not the admin group. It doesn't seem like this could happen without write permission to /Users, so it sounds a bit fishy. However, if the user were in the wheel group, that could explain it.

The /tmp thing is easily accomplished if the user is in the admin group since most Apple software updates like to chmod g+w / even when I don't want it that way.

Personally, I run everything as a non-admin user and have a special "admin" account which is the only one in the admin group. I've ranted on this before, but I still think Apple would have been better off telling people, when they first configure the machine, to simply enter a special administrative password, separate from their normal password. Behind the scenes, they would create an admin user, but any non-advanced user would need not even know that administrative privileges are given via a separate account. All they need to know is their regular account (non-admin) password and the admin password. The facilities for this setup are mostly there - many system-type actions (system-wide prefs, software installs) already ask for an administrative user/password. Just dump the user part (defaulting to "admin"), so as not to confuse non-advanced users. Then add stuff in places like the Finder - try to copy a new program to /Applications and get a dialog asking for the password. Make it as seamless as possible.

I really think this sort of scheme would have been better, more in line with the traditional Unix security model while still giving people full control over their machines without absolutely requiring knowledge of "root," "sudo" and other Unixisms. Advanced (or wreckless) users could even be given the option to "give my account full time administrative privileges" (add to the admin group) with proper warnings of possible doom.

--

Say hello to zMac.

I call bullshit by ealar+dlanvuli · 2003-01-09 16:25 · Score: 5, Insightful

None of those posts claiming their home directory was deleted contained any of the following information:

1: The file being downloaded
2: The download destination
3: Their Username
4: The settings they had in Safari.
5: How to attempt to repeat it.

Sounds like a nice distributed troll with a goal of ruining Safari's reputation. If anyone can provide those 5 peices of information to me, I will start to believe this might possibly be a legitimate rumor.

--
I live in a giant bucket.

whew! by Slur · 2003-01-09 16:59 · Score: 3, Funny

Thank goodness, according to the latest reports it only affects Microsoft astroturfers.

--
-- thinkyhead software and media

here's what happened to me--specifically by cmdrjbgoode · 2003-01-09 17:17 · Score: 5, Informative

i run 10.2.3, and have two main users, an admin and a normal user. i always log in a the unprivileged normal user and only use the admin for, uh, admin. duh. when files are downloaded, they go to ~/Desktop. i won't reveal my usernames for security reasons but they don't contain spaces. my admin user lives on the same disk as os x (/users/admin/), and my normal user lives on an external firewire disk (/volumes/disk/foouser/) i download flat files from my bank to import into quicken. on every other browser i've used, clicking the appropriate link on the bank's page downloads a file "foo.qif". safari comes out, i get it and use the default settings. i try downloading the file. safari shows me the contents of the flat file in the window. i go back to the previous page, option click on the link and choose "save link target as..." (i don't have the exact text, because safari is banned for reasons that will become obvious). the file downloads, i import it. fine. good. i keep using my computer for a few days, using safari (but not option-click downloading anything). i read here about how this problem has happened. i logout from my normal user, log in as my admin user and delete /Applications/Safari.app, ~/Library/Safari/*, and everything else i can find with that name. (yes, i know i can do that from terminal, but i had other stuff to do in the gui.) when i try to log back in as my normal user, i get the default desktop and dock. yikes! sure enough, my home dir /volumes/disk/user is empty except for . and .. after a few minutes of panic & regret & resolutions to get a friggin cd burner for backups of those priceless photos of my kid, etc, i realize the disk usage hasn't changed. relief sets in and i realize the files aren't gone, they've just been misplaced. i log out and then log in as my admin user. i run disk utility and repair the external disk. it says the directory listing is incorrect and repairs it and then everything is magically good as new. i log in as my normal user and all my files are back. i never had any printing problems.

Other Bugs by rixstep · 2003-01-09 20:30 · Score: 3, Informative

These are other bugs I have seen. It will be interesting to see if anyone else has experienced them.

1. Safari can handle only three downloads at a time. If you put a fourth download in the queue, it will replace the third, which will be completely skipped; the fifth will replace the fourth; and so on.

2. (Cosmetic) The "no man's land" in the lower right hand corner between the scroll bars can get screwed up if you start scrolling before Safari's finished rendering the page. Occurs especially when the horizontal scroll bar is in use.

3. (Cosmetic) Safari attempts to win time by rendering each frame in a frame URL as it is received, but before the entire frame set is known. As a result, rendering can look clumsy, with frames jumping across the window and back again.

4. You can't turn off auto-complete. To not get an entire URL as Safari presumes it, you have to delete the completion twice.

5. You cannot stop animations, and you cannot set animations to loop only a single time.

6. The History menu becomes impossible to use with too many URLs - it locks up as Safari attempts to load the "Earlier Today" submenu. Workaround is to hit the up arrow key when the menu is highlighted on the menu bar.

None of these are serious, except perhaps the download queue bug, and that's a good one.

Cheers, R.

Re:I hope you're putting us on.... by King+Babar · 2003-01-10 07:05 · Score: 3, Insightful

One of the hallmarks of good UI design is to maximize the amount of free desktop real estate, which is one reason why tabs are so popular.
If screen real estate was the hallmark of UI, we'd still be using CLIs. Look at an app that follows those rules: vi. You have *no* clue what's going on, but you've sure got lots of real estate!

Screen real estate is a red herring here. Ease of navigation is way more important in this case. I can more easily navigate to what I can see (read tabs here) than what I have to move stuff around to see (even tabbing throught windows). Most GUI navigational aids take up screen real estate, of course, so the two ideas are not completely independent in practice.

I am not sure what point you are getting at with th CLI slam. In the days before windowed interfaces, a CLI was in one sense the ultimate screen hog, since it took up the whole screen. Now I guess you could say that vi saved screen real estate because no space was given over to navigational aids or useful status indicators. The other problem with vi is that it forced modes on you for things where modes did not necessarily make sense, and gave you no visual feedback about what was going on. The power of vi, of course, was the ability to use the power of the command line, and the power of regexes.

--

Babar

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