Mavericks is getting on my last nerve

[Dan Worley]

Does anyone know for certain if once your message base for the Mail app is upgraded to work with the Maverick's Maill app, you can't retrieve those messages if you downgrade to Mountain Lion. I'm actually sort of kicking myself now for leaving Mountain Lion (I was a very LATE adopter) because my machine seemed pretty trouble free and even an old legacy apps like Now Contact and Up-To-Date actually still ran under ML.

Sorry I can't help you, James. I went straight from Snow Leopard to Mavericks and I don't use Apple Mail (I use Thunderbird). I looked but couldn't find a definitive answer for you.

Mike, I'll look at Console next time the trackpad acts up. In my case, I lose scrolling in the Finder, but it will work everywhere else. It's only happened a few times. There are sooooooo many people in the support forums complaining about Mavericks and the Magic Trackpad, that I doubt it's a simple fix. For me, just logging out and logging back in fixes it, but even that is a pain, and it's only a temporary fix. I went almost two months without a problem, but then it got me. That's how insidious it is.

My new/used Mac had a really weird crash two days ago in the middle of updating Compressor. It froze up and would not reboot. It wouldn't boot up in safe or recover mode, or any other mode. I finally unplugged everything but the keyboard and it booted. Whew! It's been working fine since then, thankfully.

Mavericks is buggy buggy buggy and sloppy like iOS7. Apple needs to get on the ball and start fixing things. And for gosh sakes, could we have some degree of difference between tones, please? In other word, CONTRAST!

I've been demoing Path Finder for about a week now. Normally I stay away from these types of alternative Finder apps, but I like it. It's taken me some time to get used to it, of course, but it has some great features and the customization is pretty impressive. Not perfect, but better than the Finder.

[mikehalloran]

People keep mentioning the number of complaints as if it should mean anything to me. Things like that never do.

There are thousands of complaints about the wired mouse not working properly in OS 10.7 along with hundreds of suggestions as to the problem - yet not one was correct. I know as I found them all when my wife had the same issue. It wasn't a bug and the fix was simple: turn bluetooth off. In 10.8, Apple made it more difficult for Bluetooth devices to pair with Macs. It was a problem but not one of Lion's many bugs.

Conversely, when there were printing and scanning errors in OS 10.7 - 10.8.1, it didn't matter to me that, according to Apple, no one else was having my issues. Logging into my system remotely, the engineers were able to see the problems, acknowledge the bugs and fix them them all by 10.8.2 - and made Bonjour much better in the process as it now supports wireless scanning, a feature not found in 10.6. Wireless was not one of my issues - it seems that adding the functionality was the cause of all the problems.

When there are millions of copies out there and thousands of complaints, it may indicate a problem but, if I can't duplicate it on any of the computers that I administer, it is probably not an OS bug.

If it is a conflict with something else, it will likely show up in Console. It could be the same issue that my wife had - an external Bluetooth device overriding your track pad (instead of her wired mouse) - if so, that will show up in your Bluetooth settings. I don't know. It's working fine for me.

The conflicts that James is having are different. We were assured that all software that worked in SL should work in Mavericks. Some things don't. A lot of it has to do with the new security settings. I have no idea what is happening with Now Contact as I don't have a copy but the first thing I would try is to disable or minimize all of those settings and see if that fixes anything. My Izotope issues have not been fixed but they are aware of them and there's an easy workaround till then. Toast updated but its issues were annoying only.

[Shooshie]

If it is a conflict with something else, it will likely show up in Console. It could be the same issue that my wife had - an external Bluetooth device overriding your track pad (instead of her wired mouse) - if so, that will show up in your Bluetooth settings. I don't know. It's working fine for me.

It bears none of the earmarks of that sort of thing. There are no mentions of Bluetooth devices in the Console in association with anything going on at the time of these freezes. The problems with gesturing page-forward and page-back, and its rare cousin in the Finder, seem to have more to do with caches than the device that commanded it. Evidence: the animation for page-forward or page-back begins, and it looks like the page is going to do as you commanded, but then it gets stuck at the point where the page is starting to be revealed. Once stuck, attempts to gesture page-forward/page-back may actually cause the page header to go forward and back, but the rest of the page content remains stuck and is non-functional, no matter whether you're gesturing or using the back-buttons.

That doesn't even sound like an issue of the input device. It has to do with something about the way Mavericks stores and retrieves pages from the cache. It can happen in any app that uses page-back commands, but one app's freezing doesn't affect another app. Likewise with scrolling issues.

In some apps (iTunes, for example) scrolling simply gets stuck and won't budge with the input device scroll, but you can still scroll using the scroll-bars, if you've got them set to be visible at all times. This may have something to do with the Trackpad or other input device, but it occurs on a per-app basis. If iTunes is stuck, Safari and the Finder are usually still working. One app being stuck does not affect the others. So, it really could NOT be a Bluetooth conflict, which would affect the device's input universally.

I've been studying Console logs on and off for a couple of months, and I've yet to identify the pattern, if it appears in the logs at all. I know you keep asking about it, and I keep telling you that I haven't found anything yet, but I can assure you at least that it's not some simple thing like the Bluetooth issue you're expecting it to be. I wish you'd accept that the likelihood of that being correct is 00.00%.

Eventually, someone will figure out the problem. Most likely that will be Apple, as I am pretty certain that it's not user error.

Shooshie

[bayswater]

Shooshie, that's an apt description of what I'm seeing. It reminds me of older versions of Windows where, from time to time, the OS would wander off an do its own thing and ignore some user input devices. I was told that was a security feature.

Maybe something analogous is going on with Mavericks, and it is too busy checking back with the mothership to pay attention to us.

[HCMarkus]

RIght now I am really glad I have resisted the urge to upgrade from ML... I may wait for Mountain Mavericks before I do.

[kgdrum]

RIght now I am really glad I have resisted the urge to upgrade from ML... I may wait for Mountain Mavericks before I do.

+1
I was amazed at all of the users who jumped at upgrading to Mavericks when it was released initially,for me it will be MM.01 or MM.02.

[Dan Worley]

I just want to use my Mac without a lot of hassle. I have a computer so I can get things done, not so I can spend all my time thinking about and taking care of it. I'm a computer user, not a repairman. All I know is Apple has now made it more difficult for me to use my Macs in a productive way.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

And yet for many others it all just works. Sweet mystery of computing life.

[Dan Worley]

And yet for many others it all just works. Sweet mystery of computing life.

It is a mystery sometimes, isn't it?

I'm happy for anyone who isn't noticing any of these issues. Yay! Be blessed.

[Shooshie]

Shooshie, that's an apt description of what I'm seeing. It reminds me of older versions of Windows where, from time to time, the OS would wander off an do its own thing and ignore some user input devices. I was told that was a security feature.

Oh my gosh! That is so funny! I mean, it's just what I'd expect Microsoft to say about it. "Uh... yeah. That? It's intentional. Yeah. We put that there for... uh... Security! Don't mess with it."



Shoosh

[mikehalloran]

. It has to do with something about the way Mavericks stores and retrieves pages from the cache.

Believe it or not, that activity should show up in Console. And if it affects your system, why isn't it affecting mine? Console records every call to the System.

If another Bluetooth device is affecting your scrolling, that does not show up in Console. I see that I wasn't as clear as I could have been on that point. All detectable Bluetooth devices show up in the Devices list when you click on the Bluetooth icon. Looking at mine, it shows 9 devices detected - scrolling through the list, only one is paired (connected) and that is my Magic Trackpad.

I am still convinced it is a) a conflict that should show up in Console or b) Bluetooth interference. Unfortunately, I am not in front of your system and can't test it.

It's a computer, not magic. Something is going on.

[Shooshie]

. It has to do with something about the way Mavericks stores and retrieves pages from the cache.

Believe it or not, that activity should show up in Console. And if it affects your system, why isn't it affecting mine? Console records every call to the System.

If another Bluetooth device is affecting your scrolling, that does not show up in Console. I see that I wasn't as clear as I could have been on that point. All detectable Bluetooth devices show up in the Devices list when you click on the Bluetooth icon. Looking at mine, it shows 9 devices detected - scrolling through the list, only one is paired (connected) and that is my Magic Trackpad.

I am still convinced it is a) a conflict that should show up in Console or b) Bluetooth interference. Unfortunately, I am not in front of your system and can't test it.

It's a computer, not magic. Something is going on.

Here's the thing, Mike: I went from a perfectly working, 100% solid system with absolutely no performances issues to a system filled with malfunctioning scrolling, huge memory leaks, and crashes. The variable? Mavericks.



Shooshie

[Shooshie]

I am still convinced it is a) a conflict that should show up in Console or b) Bluetooth interference. Unfortunately, I am not in front of your system and can't test it.

I am in front of my system, and I have tested it extensively.
It’s not Bluetooth, and the log so far is inconclusive.

Shooshie

[HCMarkus]

Can you revert to ML Shooshie? Sounds like it may be worth it!

[Shooshie]

Can you revert to ML Shooshie? Sounds like it may be worth it!

I'm going to ride it out. My next big move will be to reinstall Mavericks if the crashes get worse. I'm getting memory leaks that fill up and disable 40 GB of RAM. Those seem to be coming from Safari when there are a lot tabs open. If I can control them by going easy on Safari and keeping it closed when I'm not using it, then I'll make it until the next update.

I really don't want to get caught up in figuring out what works with ML vs. Mavericks, so I'd rather just stick with it. In the meantime, I'd love to get involved in building a fire under Apple to fix it.

Shooshie