Warning! Speed Doubler 8.1.1 and Finder crashes

Finder crashes Last time, we noted the release of Speed Doubler 8.1.1 and indicated a possible problem whereby the update may cause Finder crashes. Although it does not appear to affect all users, several dozen readers have now reported it. This is typically a sign of a serious and widespread problem. Virtually all readers reporting this problem (including Paul Ennis, John Melby, Bill Roemer, Richard Vail, Michel Benita and many more) agree that reverting to Speed Doubler 8.1 eliminates the crashes. A few readers suggest that the problem may involve a conflict with other software. They also provide more details about the symptoms. In particular:

Accessing menus Rob Erwin noted that Finder crashes almost always followed an attempt to access a menu item. Several other readers had similar observations:

Adrian Mann adds: "Anything to do with the top menu bar in the Finder causes an immediate crash. I couldn't select Shut Down from the Special menu or anything from the Apple menu without crashing."

Ken Anderson notes: "The Finder crashes always seemed to occur when I was accessing an item from either the Application menu or the Apple menu."

Dave Stirling writes: "If I selected an item from the Apple menu, my desktop would clear (all the icons disappeared), and then my system locked up."

Stephen Arnold had these crashes or Finder quits when accessing menus, especially to empty the Trash.

Aladdin StuffIt Several readers linked the problem to using Aladdin's Stuffit Deluxe, Expander or DropStuff. Disabling True Finder Integration software may prevent the crashes:

Raul Luque eliminated his crashes by "removing the Magic Menu item from the TFI Extensions folder, inside the Aladdin folder in the Extensions folder."

Keith Brown linked the menu-related crashes and the StuffIt conflict together: "I had Finder crashes any time I tried to select an item from the Apple Menu. Conflict Catcher identified a 3-way conflict involving Speed Doubler 8.1.1 True Finder Integration (4.5 or 4.5.1) and AppleScript. My problem was solved by disabling True Finder Integration."

Bill Hengeveld had the crash whenever he dragged a file to the DropStuff icon (although it occurred at other times as well).

Another reader noted that the StuffIt menu installed by StuffIt Deluxe 4.5 "quits or disappears" after having installed Speed Doubler 8.1.1. [Note: Make sure that the Magic Menu item did not somehow get disabled (from the TFI control panel setting).]

Update: Several readers have not had any crashes due to Speed Doubler 8.1.1, even with StuffIt software installed. This also means that the cause, for those that do have the crashes, is still not nailed down.

Other conflicts? Other programs (including Net-Print 8.0.8, Photoshop and Netscape browsers) were linked to Speed Doubler 8.1.1-related crashes, although these remain isolated reports for now.

Good news: Keyboard Power works better Two readers (David Blair Toub and Edward Lovelace) report that the 8.1.1 update fixed problems they had with the Keyboard Power feature not working in previous versions of Speed Doubler.