Mac OS X 10.2 (Jaguar) Compatibility Reports

Jaguar Special Report Our Mac OS X 10.2 (Jaguar) Special Report, which consists of extensive troubleshooting insight and commentary from Macintosh industry figureheads including Microsoft and Tenon Intersystems, is available for Pro subscribers here.

Third party Wi-Fi card fix We previously reported that Mac OS X 10.2 (Jaguar) breaks an open source driver for wireless networking cards - WirelessDriver 1.0.0 Beta 4. Brian Fountain has now posted a fix, which can be implemented through a series of steps that utilize the shareware tool, Pacifist.

The workaround is posted to a SoureForge mailing list.

Preference file deletion Several users report that deleting the preference file for certain applications (located in the user/Library/Preferences/ directory) allows proper operation under Mac OS X 10.2 (Jaguar). Ben Rosenthal writes regarding AppleWorks:

"I attempted to run AppleWorks 6.2.4 after intalling Jaguar. During the flash screen's 'Building Font Menu...' process, the app crashed the entire system to the point of no return. Beachball appeared in the Dock and soon everywhere else. I could only force quit apps with Ambrosia's EscapePod, but I couldn't logout or safely shut down. Deleting the AppleWorks preference file resolved the problem."

Richard Hess had similar success with Pepper, which previously ceased to function under Jaguar:

"I was able to get Pepper to work under Mac OS X 10.2 by deleting all of it's preferences files from my system and then restarting it. Of course, I had to re-enter the registration information, but I did seem to work better. It still crashes immediately if you open the About box and then click in that window."

UPDATE: Toby Cockcroft experienced similar success manipulating the preference files for QuickTime 6.0, after it ceased functioning under Jaguar:

"I discovered that there were two preference files that QuickTime uses but the permissions of the two files were different. One was owned by me (administrator) and the other was owned by System. I changed the second from system ownership to administrator ownership in the 'Get Info' window and QuickTime ran without any problems afterwards. This occurred after I used the archive method for updating to Mac OS X 10.2 and I suspect that one of these files was replaced by the installer and gained its privileges."

Extensis Statement Extensis is the latest developer to make an official statement regarding Jaguar compatibility:

"Due to an update to the Mac OS, Extensis has identified an issue when using Suitcase 10.1 in conjunction with Mac OS 10.2 (Jaguar) AND the Classic environment. Under these circumstances, font activation and deactivation is noticably slower. This problem does not exist if Classic is not running.

"Extensis is investigating the issue further and will provide an update, free of charge as soon as possible. In the meantime, users who choose to upgrade to Jaguar immediately should be aware of the following work-arounds.

1. Do not run Classic. The issue only manifests itself if the Classic environment is running under Mac OS 10.2. Disabling Classic returns font activation and deactivation to near instantaneous speeds.
2. If you must use Classic and Mac OS 10.2, activate fonts before starting Classic. Before you start Classic, use Suitcase to activate your fonts. Then start Classic. Your fonts will be available to your Classic applications (only Mac PostScript and Mac TrueType fonts are supported in Classic).

"Extensis is working hard to provide Suitcase users with complete support for Jaguar."