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ITunes 8 a Real Killer App; Taking Down Vista

Posted by timothy on from the da-dum-pshhhhhhh dept.

CWmike writes "Apple 's latest version of iTunes crashes Windows Vista when an iPod or iPhone is connected to the PC, scores of users have reported on Apple's support forum. Plug in and Vista crashes and shows the 'blue screen of death.' The errors began showing up immediately after updating iTunes to Version 8.0, which Apple released Tuesday as part of its iPod refresh. 'I just installed iTunes 8 over my iTunes 7 on Vista [and] now whenever I plug in my iPod, I get a blue screen death. Three times so far. Even if it is plugged in on boot, I get a blue screen," said a user identified as 'sambeckett' on the support forum about 90 minutes after Apple CEO Steve Jobs wrapped up the iPod launch."

33 of 735 comments (clear)

  1. Good Marketing by TheSpoom · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Expect Apple to blame Vista.

    --
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    - E. Debs
    1. Re:Good Marketing by gooman · · Score: 5, Funny

      Expect Slashdot comments to blame Vista too.

      --
      "Kittens give Morbo gas!"
    2. Re:Good Marketing by bhtooefr · · Score: 5, Informative

      Except the application installs drivers.

      And it's not necessarily a bug in the OS if drivers are causing it, unless you run all drivers in the userland like QNX does.

    3. Re:Good Marketing by Aphoxema · · Score: 5, Funny

      Expect Vista to bla #####

      A problem has been detected and Slashdot has been shut down to prevent damage to your discussion.

      The problem seems to be caused by the following file: BLAMEVISTA.SYS

      BLAME_FAULT_IN_MICROSOFT_AREA

      If this is the first time you've seen this Stop error comment, restart your discussion. If this comment appears again, follow these steps:

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    4. Re:Good Marketing by Malevolyn · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Actually, it does. Not only does iTunes 8 drag my XP machine into the depths of hell-lag (iTunes 7 didn't), it also causes a blue screen if I put a large number of songs in the conversion queue.

      --
      Your ad here.
    5. Re:Good Marketing by TheSpoom · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Eh. Kinda. Ultimately I think this is a lack of testing on Apple's part though. I don't think you should be able to code together some drivers and then pass off any and all testing to Microsoft.

      --
      It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
      - E. Debs
    6. Re:Good Marketing by Hyppy · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The special drivers are still signed by Microsoft. If they weren't it would be quite obvious due to the many "Arte you SURE?" messages.

    7. Re:Good Marketing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      It is Apple's fault. If you read the forum you'll note that they already tracked down the offending driver in the minidump. It is Apple's USB driver for the iPod: usbaapl64.sys.

    8. Re:Good Marketing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      No it's not. If you are going to deploy an application and you are a well funded commercial entity it is your burden to test it on whatever platform you plan on supporting. While I am not letting Vista off the hook for this flaw you cannot say Apple is 100% in the clear here. Either they didn't test it, which is incompetence, or they didn't care.

      But I am sure if the next version of Microsoft Office somehow crashed OSX, the conspiracy nuts would be in here complaining about how Microsoft is trying to tarnish Apple's good name.

    9. Re:Good Marketing by quazee · · Score: 5, Informative

      Vista will not magically run kernel-mode USB device drivers in userspace.
      There *is* support for user-mode USB drivers via UMDF (User-mode driver framework). But, the driver has to be implemented differently for that to work.
      Apple USB driver (Usbaapl.sys) is a traditional kernel-mode driver.
      Any unhandled exception (or, perhaps, kernel memory corruption) in the driver will cause a blue screen.

      And there is, in fact, a redistributable version of UMDF for Windows XP (SP2 and later).

      --
      throw new SuccessException("Sig read successfully");
    10. Re:Good Marketing by pesc · · Score: 5, Funny

      Pop quiz: What does the kernel use to access hard disks, memory, and whatever other hardware is in your system?

      iTunes?

      --

      )9TSS
    11. Re:Good Marketing by Sandbags · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Hey bud, I'm a software tester for a disaster recovery company. Let me put this past you:

      - 4 identical hardware machines
      - 4 exact copies of an ISO of Vista EE
      - all 4 machines side by side, I make the same click on the same screen on each one.

      After installation is completed with exactly the same settings on all 4 machines, we install our corporate AV program, then allow the machines to download and install updates. Each of the 4 machines has exactly the same list of updates added in the same order.

      All 4 machines are benchmarked prior to and after installation, using 2 different tools from boot CDs. All 4 machines benchmark the same (within less than a second on a multi-million CPU cycle run, and withing 5 seconds on an multi-hour RAM test. No machines exhibit RAM, disk, or CPU issues and are regularly burned in and tested both before and after installations.

      of the 4 machines, 1 has a C: with 3.9GB used space. 1 has 4.7GB used, 1 has 5.2 GB used, and 1 has 8.2!

      One machine boots Vista in less than 22 seconds, one takes longer than 2 minutes. others are inbetween. Hard drive I/O pattern tests are run and all 4 drives exhibit nearly identical characteristics and I/O patterns for randomized I/O read/write testing.

      One machine has 860MB or RAM free out of 2GB, one has less thqan 200MB free out of 2GB. Others fall between.

      When we blank the drives and repeat the tests, machines exhibit completely different results. Sometimes the slowest one to boot in one test wiull be the fastest one to boot in another. Swapping components from system to system was no impact on the performance of a machine.

      We started doing this test a few years ago when I was setting up several exchange 2003 servers to be used in a classroom and noticed simalar wild divergence between system performance, install size, and more, even before service packs or patches were added. We have repeasted this test with every version of 2000, XP, Vista, 2003 servre, 2008 server, as well as older OS. Anything NT or previous, and installer seems to be very consistent. Anything 2000 or later, very inconsistent. The newer it is, the worse the installer inconsistancies.

      We have also done this test by repeating installations on the same single machine over and over, and the installation size on that machine is just as inconsistent.

      So, what's the deal? Why does the same installer batch file, which is basically a top down program that collects data based on pre-defined rules, and processes installation order based on documented, databased information, produce such inconsistancy?

      As a result, we no longer test product on a single machine, but we bought 4 each of 5 different machines, and installed the OS seperately on each one, then burned images of it. We test each application agains all 20 OS images with the same OS on each one, then swap images for each OS service pack and each OS supported. This can mean teasting a single application against over 70 Windows versions, each on 20 machines. This is a test base run of 1400 installs. After this, we release internally, and install to roughly 100 machines. We purposely buy only 2 or 3 of each model from a manufacturer to deploy in the company, so we have dozens of different machines, and allow each user to basically maintain their own box the way they like, creating what in other companies would be an IT nightmare, but in this case it;s a benefit (and each user is an admin on some level, and completely capable of maintaining their own machine). We'll find a dozen bugs we didn't find running through the 1400 image test run. After release to the field, when roughly a thousand customers get a hold of it, we'll find more bugs...

      You CAN NOT test for every hardware reviosion on every machine made, and every OS that could be on it. If you're asking Apple to do that,. you're expecting them to have access to over 10 million differing system images to test on. This is IMPOSSIBLE.

      The fault is ENTIRELY microsofts. If the soft

      --
      There is no contest in life for which the unprepared have the advantage.
  2. BSOD... by james1983 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Yay!! I was getting worried I was never going to see the BSOD again.. Welcome back old friend

  3. Wow! by gentlemen_loser · · Score: 5, Funny

    That really IS horrible. I did not know that anyone was actually using Vista. - Steve J.

  4. Surprising by ohxten · · Score: 5, Insightful

    That this wasn't caught in the testing stages?

    --
    Need an automatic screenshot taker? Try here.
    1. Re:Surprising by roc97007 · · Score: 5, Funny

      Well, you know how it is; QA labs are always underfunded... Maybe their budget wouldn't stretch to a Vista license. Or they couldn't figure out which version to buy.

      --
      Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
  5. In Soviet Cupertino... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    iTunes ain't done, 'til Vista don't run!

  6. Sounds like a feature to me... by Jon+Abbott · · Score: 5, Funny

    This sounds like a feature, not a bug.

    --
    Slashdot's first reaction to VMware
  7. I wonder . . . by catbertscousin · · Score: 5, Funny

    "iTunes has detected illegal music files. Now trashing your computer . . . please wait for the lawyers to show up."

    --
    No good deed goes unpunished. - Avon, Blake's 7
  8. "Hi, I'm a PC." "...And I'm a Mac." by AmericanPegasus · · Score: 5, Funny

    "Wow PC, it looks like your Vista users are really having headaches running great software like iTunes 8. Mac runs them just fine."

    "You son of a bitch." (Pulls out a gun)

    "Whoa PC, whoa, let's not..."

    BLAM.

  9. My advice by Kredal · · Score: 5, Informative

    This happened to me... I read the Apple thread, and followed simple instructions... unplugged my HP printer, and it stopped the BSOD's when I plugged in my iPhone. Most people are saying the problem is with the Apple USB drivers screwing with the drivers for HP printers and Logitech mice/keyboards. There may be other devices that cause the problem as well, but those two are the biggies.

    So until iTunes 8.1 is released, I can either charge my phone or print... but not both at the same time!

    --
    Whoever stated that signature sizes should be limited to one hundred and twenty characters can just go ahead and kiss my
  10. Best roadblock ad ever by Sloppy · · Score: 5, Funny

    I went to RTFA. Before it showed me the article, though, I got a page that asked, "What are you waiting for? Make the move to Microsoft Vista with confidence."

    --
    As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
  11. Re:Sigh. by Dynedain · · Score: 5, Informative

    iTunes installs its own CD drivers to manage ripping and burning, as well as always-on "helper" and updater processes, in addition to drivers for the iPod/iPhone.

    Asinine, but then again Apple doesn't follow Windows UI guidelines either.

    --
    I'm out of my mind right now, but feel free to leave a message.....
  12. The fault is by David+Gerard · · Score: 5, Funny

    Personally, I blame Linux.

    --
    http://rocknerd.co.uk
  13. Re:But still... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Clippy: It looks like your printer is on fire. Would you like to:
    * Call 911
    * Put it out.
    * Let it burn.

  14. Re:But still... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    That's a nice philosophy, but anybody who's actually written a kernel-level driver will tell you that's impossible. Kernel-mode drivers require direct access to your computer's memory and bus, and anything with that level of access can cuse your kernel to panic, period.

    You can make non-kernel-mode drivers that are much safer, of course, but at the expense of performance and capability.

  15. Re:But still... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Maybe for userland drivers like printers under Vista using the latest driver model, okay, but if you mean that no driver should ever be able to crash the OS, you clearly don't understand how drivers work.

  16. Re:Sigh. by cbrocious · · Score: 5, Informative

    Mod this bullshit down. The iTunes DRM is 100% inside quicktime.qts.

    (I'm the original author of PyTunes, the base for Pymusique -- I know a bit about Fairplay)

    --
    Disconnect and self-destruct, one bullet at a time.
  17. Not surprising by Idiomatick · · Score: 5, Informative

    Itunes in past has:

    - deleted your legit music

    - Unstalled othe mac applications without asking you

    - Hijacked volume control from windows

    - Modified code specifically to make it hard to work with the ipod outside of itunes

    - Is the largest pusher of DRM technology

      Really a BSOD isn't that big of a deal. And incase you are curious NO it isn't windows fault. Why is a music player installing drivers overtop of standard drivers that work perfectly? Aside from their hatred of doing things the same even when they are better only jobs knows. If windows tried to pull even half the bullship Apple has they would have been sued into dust. I find it disgusting its ok since its mac.

  18. Re:But still... by Kjella · · Score: 5, Informative

    You can make non-kernel-mode drivers that are much safer, of course, but at the expense of performance and capability.

    That depends entirely on what the device is doing - USB drivers live in userspace (only the generic read/write support for USB devices live in kernel space) and it works fine and support everything AFAIK, but running a modern GPU from userspace I wouldn't try. The iPod is definately in the former category.

    --
    Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
  19. IT seems to only involve people with an by geekoid · · Score: 5, Informative

    HP Printer.

    Drivers on windows can be troublesome. It would suprise me if usbaapl64.sys has some issue previously undiscovered.

    This is fallout of shared component design MS uses.

    Should Apple have tested with HP printers? Probably, but no one can test every configuration of a PC.

    The USB set up MS is using is causing a fault in Ring 0. That's the only way I can see this causing a BSoD

    --
    The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
  20. Re:But still... by cbreaker · · Score: 5, Insightful

    But, Apple does install drivers, and those drivers CAN crash the operating system.

    It's no different from any other popular operating system. If you have a bad OSX driver - boom. Grey box. If you have a bad Linux driver - boom. Kernel panic.

    The only utter nonsense is that Apple can't write a driver that doesn't crash the operating system. There's tens of thousands of drivers out there, and most of them run great. Apple is big enough to do proper testing. They didn't QA properly, obviously.

    --
    - It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
  21. Re:But by andy55 · · Score: 5, Informative

    There's a great lightweight player called Play that may float your boat:

    http://sbooth.org/Play/

    Basically, it has the core functionality of iTunes, it's free as in beer, and isn't bloated.

    --
    G-Force music visualization