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Mac OS X 10.4: Third-party applications

Mac OS X 10.4: Third-party applications

CNET staff
14 min read

Full Tiger compatibility list Our sister site, VersionTracker, has posted a comprehensive list of applications that have been updated for Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger) compatibility.

Windows Media Player crashing A number of readers report that the current version of Windows Media Player -- 9.0 -- is crashing repeatedly under Mac OS X 10.4. The crash occurs either at launch, or when re-sizing windows. An updated release is expected from Microsoft.

Virtual PC networking issues A number of readers report networking difficulties in Virtual PC 7.x after updating to Mac OS X 10.4.

MacFixIt reader Sebastian Dreyfuss, for instance, writes:

"Virtual PC does not work in the virtual network switch mode after upgrading to Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger. It will launch but warn you that the virtual network switch will not work. You can use it in NAT mode, which is fine for me. As a matter of fact, when you log in your session, the Finder will give you a warning saying that some startup items cannot work properly and need to be repaired, citing the VirtualPCOSServices file located in /Library/StartupItems/. They offer to repair the file's permission and correct the problem. Unfortunately, Virtual PC still gives you an error at launch. I reinstalled the Virtual PC to no avail. It seems that the Microsoft's Mac BU is working on a fix, but the timeframe is ridiculous: two to three months after the official release of Tiger."

Cisco VPN client incompatible MacFixIt reader Richard Hardy reports issues with Cisco's VPN client under Mac OS X 10.4.

Richard writes:

"It has been discussed on a number of forums that the Cisco VPN client (current release version) does not work under 10.4 and will require an update, hopefully available 'real soon now'... Network admins running this VPN will need to obtain the software from Cisco and distribute it to Tiger early adopters."

Adobe Creative Suite installation and Case-sensitive HFS MacFixIt reader Peter Bosse reports that Adobe's Creative Suite will not install on Mac OS X volumes that are formatted with Case-sensitive HFS.

"There is a potential issue installing Adobe Creative Suite on Mac OS X 10.4. If the install volume is formatted as case-sensitive, the Adobe Creative Studio installer will not install. I haven't seen a report of this yet and the problem and solution is not obvious. If Tiger has been clean installed and the volume format is 'Mac OS X Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled)' Adobe Creative Studio will refuse to install with the error message, 'This installer cannot be run independently. Please install this product using the suite installer.' This occurs even using the suite installer.

For more information on Case-Sensitive HFS, see previous coverage in our Mac OS X 10.3.x Special Report.

Norton AntiVirus Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger) is not compatible with Norton AntiVirus's AutoProtect feature. After installing Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger), users receive the error:

"Norton AntiVirus Error Norton AntiVirus AutoProtect could not continue. Please reinstall Norton AntiVirus and restart."

DAVE compatibility coming in August Thursby has issued a press release stating that a Tiger-compatible release will be issued in August. The statement reads

"We have been working closely with Apple for the past year to ensure a timely delivery of our new releases. The vastness of Apple's enhancements to critical parts of the system (both the kernel dealing with network transports and the file system) are requiring a major effort to obtain compatibility.

"Our target dates for FCS of ADmitMac v3.0 is August 8, and for DAVE v6.0 by the end of August. These dates are also dependent on a future release of the Mac OS that includes a critical bug fix that has been acknowledged by Apple."

PGP Desktop John Dasher, Director of Product Management for the PGP Corporation tells us:

"PGP Desktop 8.x (including PGP Disk) on Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger) is incompatible and unsupported. PGP Desktop 9.0 is fully compatible and supported on Mac OS X 10.3.8 and 10.3.9.

"PGP Desktop 9.0 is currently unsupported on Tiger. Although early compatibility testing has proven successful, PGP Corporation was unable to complete final Tiger certification of PGP Desktop 9.0 due to Tiger's recent release. Final testing with the shipping version of Tiger is underway, and PGP Corporation intends to fully support Mac OS X 10.4 in the near future."

"For more Tiger-specific information, please visit http://www.pgp.com/products/tiger.html"

Extensis Suitcase X1 We previously reported issues with Extensis Suitcase, particularly in conjunction with Adobe applications. Now one reader reports that deleting the Suitcase .plist file (see instructions above) resolves the issue.

He writes:

"I had the same issue with Suitcase not working with my Adobe programs, but all I needed to do to fix the issue was delete the com.extensis.Suitcase.plist from my /Users/Library and it worked fine."

Virex 7.5.1 All versions of Virex, including the release included with .Mac subscriptions, have issues with Mac OS X 10.4.

Thomas Cloer writes:

"I found that after installing Tiger Virex 7.5.1, which i got from my .Mac subscription, ate all my available CPU percentage (even though background scanning was disabled in the prefs) and caused my PowerBook fan to run almost continuously. 

"After removing it with the CLI uninstaller - which is included in the distribution - everything went back to normal."

Meanwhile, Charles Ridley received the following response from the .Mac customer support center, regarding Virex compatibility with Mac OS X 10.4.

"Virex is not currently compatible with Mac OS X v10.4. Virex is compatible with Mac OS X versions 10.1.5 through 10.3.x. We will maintain updated virus-definition files for active .Mac members until May 31, 2006.

"If you plan to upgrade to Mac OS X v10.4 and wish to uninstall Virex, please follow the instructions in this article: .Mac: How to uninstall Virex

"Apple takes virus protection seriously. As a result, .Mac email servers scan and remove viruses from all email messages sent to .Mac accounts, protecting you from viruses even if you don't have virus-protection software installed on your computer."

Oracle 10g Several posters to Oracle's forums indicate compatibility issues with the Mac OS X release of 10g.

Photoshop CS Several users report that since installing Mac OS X 10.4, Photoshop CS refuses to open any new files or create any new documents, reporting a "program error" when one tries to do so.

Andy Bannister reports that problem can be temporarily resolved by creating a new user account and running Photoshop from within it; which suggests some sort of permissions/preferences problems in the main user account.

Meanwhile, David Enzel reports that re-installing Photoshop CS resolves the issue permanently.

David writes:

"Well, I now have Tiger installed on my G5 and my PB. I did an archive and install on the G5 and regular update on the PB. No problems except I had to re-install PS CS on the G5 after the archive and install. Dragging an image file to the PS icon in the dock would not open the image, but would open PS. Reinstallation solved the problem."

Virtual PC 7 Matt Ruben reports issues with the Virtual PC Disk Image handler bundle that resides in /System/Library/Plug-ins.

Ruben writes:

"Upon upgrading to Tiger (via an "archive and install"), when you first launch VPC, it says you have to reinstall certain VPC components. These include the Disk Image handler and a couple of kernel extensions - components which are in subdirectories within / System/Library and are thus not transferred over by the archive and install process.

"The Virtual PC Disk Image handler, when installed, prevents Apple's own diskmounter helper from working. As a result, all attempts to mount DMG files in the Finder fail with a "broken pipe" error; Disk Utility will not launch; Toast Titanium will not launch; and, I presume, any application that interacts with the diskmounter helper will fail.

"Moving the Virtual PC Disk Image handler to the trash immediately restores all of the lost functionality of the Finder, Disk Utility and Toast Titanium.

"The Good News: Virtual PC will still launch and function after the Disk Image handler has been trashed. I do not know if it is still able to mount disk images, however - haven't had a chance to test it."

Macromedia Dreamweaver MacFixIt reader Dana Stuttion reports that performing a clean install of Mac OS X 10.4 may cause issues with Macromedia Dreamweaver.

Dana writes:

"If you are forced to erase your hard disk as part of the installation of Tiger, you will have the same kind of problems launching Dreamweaver (and perhaps other Macromedia software) mentioned in Macromedia Service Note 19833. This technical advisory was written for the upgrade OSX.2 > OSX.3, the issues described are the same, but the posted patch doesn't do any good. Obviously, Macromedia needs to post a new patch."

Now Up-to-Date and Contact Tom Cooper received a reply from Power On Software's support department regarding a previously reported incompatibility with Now Up-to-Date and Now Contact.

Power On says:

"Now Up-to-Date and Contact version 4.5.3 worked with early development releases of Tiger. New OS releases usually involve a lot of changes under the hood and Apple has changed certain APIs that caused incompatibilities with version 4.5.3 in the recent developers release of Tiger. We are now testing NUDC version 4.5.3 with the final release version of Tiger. If version 4.5.3 proves not to be compatible it is our plan to have a solution for our customers early next week. Please visit our web site at http://www.nowsoftware.com for breaking news.

"Our initial testing showed problems getting the program to load using Rendezvous, but we will have more details after further testing with the final release."

CodeTek Virtual Desktop CodeTek VirtualDesktop has some initial issues under Mac OS X 10.4 that, like many other application-specific issues, can be solved by deleting an offending .plist file.

Mark B writes:

"I initially had problems with CodeTek VirtualDesktop under Tiger. I eventually found that it runs fine if you always start it manually. If it's ever run as a Login Item, it corrupts its preferences file (~/ Library/Preferences/com.codetek.virtualdesktop3.plist) and won't run at all thereafter. The workaround is (i) remove CTVD from the Login Items list, preferably before upgrading, (ii) if it's too late, delete the corrupted preference file (or replace it from a pre-Tiger backup) and then (iii) put CTVD in the Dock or the like so it's easy to start manually."

AbiWord A reader reports a similar issue, and solution, for the AbiWord word processing application (which provides viewing of WordPerfect documents and other file formats that might not be accessible with Apple's TextEdit or Microsoft Word).

The reader writes:

"I previously reported that Abiword does not work under 10.4. Removing the preferences plist and the Application Helper folder AbiSuite, and reinstalling fixed the problem."

ProTools MacFixIt reader Sherman Heinig reports issues with Digidesign's ProTools, seemingly another victim of Apple's transition to Core Audio.

Sherman writes: Sounds pretty unprofessional, given that Protools is the most widely used professional audio application. You have to get Panther back out of the cabinet and make him eat Tiger."

SPSS Gerry Altmann reports that SPSS v11.0.3, the most recent version of SPSS for Mac OS X, is broken in Tiger.

Gerry writes:

"If enough of us contact SPSS directly, they may be encouraged to remedy the situation sooner rather than later, so I urge anyone reading this to contact them (via their website http://support.spss.com/contactus.asp).

Important StuffIt-related questions answered MacFixIt reader Scott Rose had an enlightening question and answer session with Allume Systems regarding issues with StuffIt Expander and StuffIt Deluxe in Mac OS X 10.4.

Q. Can you please explain why Stuffit Expander is no longer included with Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger?

A. That's a question for Apple, not us. Here's what they say on the Apple website: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=301016

We would certainly like to see it included in the standard install of the OS again. I know several developers have submitted its absence as a "bug" in Tiger!

Q. Also, why does Apple no longer migrate over the Stuffit Framework when using the Migration Assistant to migrate from one computer to the next?

A. The Migration Assistant copied the StuffIt.framework successfully in my tests. However, the "Archive & Install" option does not copy the StuffIt.framework, leaving a crippled StuffIt Expander. We have a post on our forum suggesting users reinstall to correct this issue

In addition, try this: in Safari's preferences, turn off the "Open 'safe' files automatically" option, then download a MacBinary encoded file (.bin) and see if you can do anything with it. You can't! There are no tools that come included in Tiger to deal with MacBinary, BinHex, StuffIt, StuffIt X, and other formats.

We just released a stand-alone StuffIt Expander installer for Tiger users to deal with that issue.

Norton SystemWorks and Norton Utilities will not be updated for Mac OS X 10.4 MacFixIt reader Gabriel Dorado reports receiving a message from Symantec indicating that there are no plans to develop updated, Tiger-compatible versions of Norton Utilities or its parent suite Norton SystemWorks.

A note from Symantec reads:

"The original releases of Symantec 2003 -2004 Macintosh products are not compatible with Mac OS X 10.4. Symantec is working on solutions to allow compatibility between Mac OS X 10.4 and the following products:

  • Norton AntiVirus for Macintosh
  • Norton Personal Firewall for Macintosh
  • Norton Internet Security for Macintosh

"Norton SystemWorks and Norton Utilities will not be updated for compatibility with Mac OS X 10.4."

Entourage 2004: Attachment corruption After yesterday's initial report, we've received several notes from readers corroborating an issue where Entourage 2004 attachments become corrupt under Mac OS X 10.4 -- particularly when outgoing.

One reader writes: "I have been experiencing a similar problem with Entourage...all of my outgoing attachments (mostly PDFs) arrive at the sender's address corrupted and unusable."

Philippe Carignan adds:

"For me, it corrupted every type of file. I sent ZIP files, they can't be decompressed. I sent JPG files, they arrived in garbage at the sender (image was flipped, readable, but the image was changed),. I also sent SITX files that came out corrupted."

At this point, two viable options have presented themselves: using an alternative e-mail application (like Apple's own Mail.app or Thunderbird), or less consistent, using a different file format for the attachment.

MacFixIt reader Maurice Coombs writes:

"If I send a Word 2004 .doc document under Entourage 2004 to enterprise systems running Windows XP and Word, the recipients cannot open the received attached documents. On one recipient system, the email is identified as having a virus attached or embedded. On the other system, Word XP gives an error message about being unable to access the document?s path.

"If, however, I send the same document, saved under Word 2004 as an RTF document, the Windows recipients can (usually) open the RTF version.

"I have now tried sending the same .doc document to the same recipients using Mail, instead of Entourage. The attachment sent by way of Mail.app can be opened under Word and Windows XP."

EyeTV Some readers have reported that EyeTV windows sometimes disappear under Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger. MacFixIt reader John Carr received the following note from Elgato Systems (developer of EyeTV) regarding Tiger compatibility:

"The only main bug we know about with EyeTV 1.7.1 and 10.4 is that sometimes the application windows will stick together, and move as an unit, or temporarily disappear.

"We are almost finished with the next version of EyeTV, which should come out any day now. That will take care of Mac OS X 10.4 support, and will have many new features."

Entourage 2004: Attachment corruption An issue we've been dealing with in-house has now been confirmed by a handful of MacFixIt readers.

It appears that on some Mac OS X 10.4 installations, Microsoft's Entourage 2004 is no longer able to properly handle some incoming attachments. When the user attempts to download the attachment, or open it from within Entourage, they are provided with a message by the host application (the application opening the attachment) that the file is not recognized or is not in a valid format.

MacFixIt reader Richard Pockat writes:

"On two different machines (old flat screen iMac and rev. a dual) with Tiger easy install, PDF documents sent as attachments arrive damaged. Acrobat and Preview both refuse to open them. Looking at the files in a text editor, for instance, shows a significant difference in the code near the end."

If you are having a similar issue, please let us know.

Tiger-compatible Retrospect released EMC/Dantz has released Mac OS X 10.4-compliant versions of the various Retrospect product offerings:

However, several limitations are noted:

Metadata Mac OS X Tiger introduces support for a new file system feature called metadata. Metadata is used by Spotlight to enable fast searching for files based on user-defined tags on those files. Retrospect cannot back up or restore the Tiger specific metadata, though the contents of the files are backed up.

ACLs Mac OS X Server 10.4 (Tiger Server) adds support for Access Control Lists (ACLs). ACLs allow for finer grained control of the permissions set on files and folders. Retrospect cannot back up or restore ACLs. If you use ACLs, you will need to reset them manually after restoring a Tiger server with Retrospect.

Retrospect CD/DVDs Do Not Mount in the Finder When Inserted Retrospect includes a File System Plug-in that is used to mount Retrospect CD/DVDs in the Finder. Apple changed the requirements for File System Plug-ins in Tiger so the Retrospect Plug-in no longer is supported. This problem is only cosmetic. Although Retrospect CD/DVDs no longer mount in the Finder, Retrospect will correctly recognize Retrospect CD/DVDs when running, so immediate and unattended backups will work as expected.

Also, Retrospect can't erase volumes/subvolumes on a Mac OS X Client in Configure > Volumes Retrospect's Volumes Database (Configure>Volumes) provides the ability to erase and rename volumes (disks or partitions) and subvolumes (folders). Erasing volumes or subvolumes on a Mac OS X Client running Tiger will fail with error -519 (network communication failed).

Office 2004 and font corruption MacFixIt reader Philip De Simone reports an issue with Office 2004 and font corruption, apparently confirmed by Microsoft.

The issue can be worked around via the tedious process of uninstalling Microsoft Office 2004 before Mac OS X 10.4 installation, then re-installing the suite after updating is complete.

Philip writes:

"When I first installed Mac OS X 10.4 and started Microsoft Word, Word reported that almost all the fonts were corrupted. Other programs, however, did not report that that these same fonts were corrupted. My system then became corrupt and crashed repeatedly. I contacted Microsoft tech support, but they were unfamiliar with the problem. I erased my hard disk, copied my bootable backup onto it with 10.3.9 installed, and reinstalled 10.4. This resolved the issue. A few days later Microsoft called back and said that they had confirmed the problem. They recommend that Microsoft Office be uninstalled before updating to OS 10.4 and then reinstalled since they claim this prevents the problem form occurring."

SAP MacFixIt reader Luke reports that the current version of SAP is incompatible with Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger).

Luke writes:

"I have just discovered that Tiger has an incompatibility with the java version of the business software SAP (version 1.3.1). Some modules produce a runtime error causing a 'termination with a short dump". I am using a dual 2.5 GHz G5. Since our Research Institutes (>4000 employees) depend heavily on this financial software package, we won't be able to upgrade unless a patch is imminent."

Photoshop CS: Fix for file opening problem Yesterday we reported that since installing Mac OS X 10.4, Photoshop CS refuses to open any new files or create any new documents, reporting a "program error" when one tries to do so. Our previously reported workaround involved re-installing Photoshop CS, but MacFixIt reader Bryan Schappel now offers a faster solution:

"This happens because the Archive and Install option does not copy over a necessary folder for Photoshop. The critical folder is called 'ScriptingAdditions' and is stored in the main Library folder. This folder contains one file 'Adobe Unit Types' that makes Photoshop open files that have been double-clicked or dragged to the PS icon in the Dock.

"Simply move this folder (and file) from the 'Previous System' backup to the Library folder, relaunch Photoshop and all is well again. No need to completely re-install."

BounceBack MacFixIt reader Phil Call writes: "CMS Products informed me this morning that they are in the process of upgrading their BounceBack Automatic Backup System in order to support Mac OS 10.4 and will release the upgrade v5.0.1 in a couple of weeks."

Resources

  • comprehensive list
  • previous coverage
  • http://www.pgp.com/product...
  • .Mac: How to uninstall Vir...
  • compatibility issues
  • Service Note 19833
  • http://www.nowsoftware.com
  • http://support.spss.com/co...
  • http://docs.info.apple.com...
  • forum
  • stand-alone StuffIt Expand...
  • let us know
  • Retrospect 6.0.212 Installer [39MB]
  • Retrospect 6.0.110 Client Installer [3.2MB]
  • Express 6.0.212 Installer [14.8MB]
  • More from Late-Breakers