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Special Report: Troubleshooting Mac OS X 10.3 (Panther) Part 2

Special Report: Troubleshooting Mac OS X 10.3 (Panther) Part 2

CNET staff
19 min read

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Solving printer problems

Several users (especially HP LaserJet owners) have reported a complete loss of printing functionality, or loss of specific funtions/settings after upgrading to Mac OS X 10.3.

Paolo Caturegli writes "We are having problem with Panther in printing with HP LaserJet printers (specifically LJ4000n and LJ4550n) since even if when installing both of them the Printer Setup Utility. It says the duplex option are installed on both printers (it automatically detects two side printing accessory), but when you print there is the 'Two Side printing' pop-up menu does not appear as it does in Jaguar (Mac OS X 10.2)." NOTE: The duplex (Two Sided Printing) option now appears under the Layout menu. There are three radio buttons - "Off", "Long-Edge Binding", and "Short-Edge Binding".

Solutions that users have identified as successful so far for a variety of printers:

  • Deleting the drivers supplied with Mac OS X 10.3 and re-installing the drivers supplied with their printer on CD or available from the respective manufacturers' Web sites.
  • Delete all of the com.apple.Print.(...).plist files from the ~/Library/Preferences folder.
  • AllOSX describes a printing problem that can occur when repairing permissions after installing Mac OS X 10.3, and offers a downloadable AppleScript workaround.

For some printing problems, a driver update may be required.

Fix for Canon "i" printers Glenn Carey offers a workaround that restored functionality for his Canon "i" printer, and has also worked for other readers:

  1. Delete all instances of ?Canon? off your computer (Go to the Finder, press APPLE and F together and do a search).
  2. Download the driver from the ?Support? section of Canon?s website, install it and restart.
  3. Rename: [hard drive name/Library/printers/Canon/BJPrinter/PMs/Canon190PM.plugin to [hard drive name/Library/printers/Canon/BJPrinter/PMs/190PM.plugin
  4. Now go to Printer Setup in Applications/Utilities and click ?Add?

HP LaserJet 2200dn It seems that the HP LaserJet 2200dn duplex unit functionality is unavailable under OS X 10.3. Rob Hogendoorn writes ?Although the duplex unit is listed in the printer info window and can be checked there, checking the box there doesn't make the duplex box available in the print menu listing."

MacFixIt reader Gerry Altmann has a workaround:

"I re-installed the original drivers (taken from the archived previous system), and it worked. Duplex printing is back.

"Some critical things you must do: use the Print Center to uninstall the printer first. And after you've copied over the original HP folders (in the old /Library/Printers), repair your permissions. Hopefully you won't suffer the kernel panic I suffered during restart. Then use Print Center to add the printer, and it should appear with the old driver (in my case, 1.4.1 instead of 2.3.1)

"There's a whole bunch of new folders that get installed in the hP folder (within /Library/Printers) and deleting them so as to restore the folder structure to the original appears to have no ill-effects (no doubt they're critical for some newer printers!). I take no responsibility if this worked for me but works for no one else."

Meanwhile, Rod Smith suggests that while in the print dialog, users should simply select "Layout," and set "Two Sided Printing" to Off, Long edge binding, or Short edge binding.

Graphics card problems; solutions

There appear to be several problems with Power Mac G4 "Sawtooth" systems and graphics cards from NVidia and other manufacturers.

Now Michael Scarce notes new information showing that in some cases the problem only occurs on systems with more than 256 MB RAM, and a workaround from Other World Computing.

"For some reason, graphics are only rendered properly in a G4 ?Sawtooth? model with my video card (an Apple-supplied NVidia GeForce2MX 32MB AGP video card) if the machine has only 256 MB or less RAM due to a conflict between video memory and system-managed memory. I had 512 MB, so I pulled half out, and sure enough ? things look great, but a system with less RAM.

"A workaround has been posted at: http://eshop.macsales.com/Reviews/Framework.cfm?page=/hardwareandnews/nvidia103/nvidia103.html

"The workaround enables higher RAM usage but Quartz Extreme is still disabled. They note several video cards by different manufacturers are problematic in Panther.

3Dfx cards Several readers have reported limited resolution selection in Mac OS X 10.3 with 3Dfx chipset cards.

David Besade writes "I have been testing the Voodoo3 with the WWDC Preview of Panther and the GM release 7B85 and it has been confirmed that 3DFX Cards do not function properly on Mac OS X 10.3. The cards are limited to a resolution of 640x480 and it reports the colors at 256 but in reality its 16 or less colors, almost black and white."

This problem will likely require a driver update that may never be released.

Problems with PC-specific cards If you have a ROM-flashed, PC specific GeForce card, you may need to remove it during installation. Charles Tishman writes: "I have a G4/400 Sawtooth that was previously running 10.2.6. Upon running the MacOS X 10.3 installer, the first disc worked fine, but restarting got only to the beginning of the blue-screen. Before it showed the progress bar, the system went to a black screen. The problem turned out to be a ROM-Flashed PC GeForce 2 MX card (Elsa Gladiac MX) I was using in my AGP 2x slot. When I removed this card and replaced it with my machine's stock ATI Rage 128, the boot succeeded, and the installation of discs 2 and 3 continued."

Apple posted a Knowledge Base article on the subject, stating "Contact the video card's manufacturer to see if they have updated the card's software or firmware drivers to work with Mac OS X 10.3. For best results, install the updated software or firmware before installing Mac OS X 10.3.

"If the third-party card is the only one installed and the screen is dark when you start up the computer, you may need to reinstall the original video card temporarily, install Mac OS X Panther, install the updated third-party drivers, then put your third-party video card back in."

Music and Audio issues compilation

Peter Kirn, Editor-in-Chief of MacMusic, has compiled a repository of music and audio application troubleshooting issues with Mac OS X 10.3 (Panther). Kirn says the report includes "links to all the software updates we've posted in the last two weeks adding Panther compatibility to everything from little utilities to major audio software, plus reports on incompatibility and improvements for audio users in the new OS we've found so far. The good: better audio, lots of updated software from MOTU, Tascam, Edirol, BIAS, and others, including new features and new functionality from MOTU enabled by the OS the day of the release! The bad: FireWire 800 drive problems, roadblocks with compatibility. The ugly: Digidesign users are advised to stick with Jaguar for the near future."

Wake-from-sleep issues

While there have been a number of reported problems with waking from sleep after updating to Mac OS X 10.3, the general consensus has focused on one specific scenario:

Sometimes when sleep is activated, the hard drive will appear to spin down and the monitor will go dim, but the fans will stay on, indicating that the processor(s) is still functioning. When the user attempts to re-awaken his or her system, the monitor will remain dim.

This problem is not consistent, and is not repeatable every time by most users experiencing it.

One potential clue is that some users experiencing this problem have been able to successfully put their system to sleep and awaken it after a restart or a cold start, but only if they haven't performed any tasks yet. This indicates that some process (possibly a graphics card initialization?) could trigger the problem.

George Lacy's loss of video with a GeForce card lends credence to this theory:

"After installing Panther (not a clean install) I lost video on my GeForce4 MX 440 AGP card. The computer started up fine until time for the finder to come up and then the screen goes black and presumably the computer freezes. I was able to get video initially but the screen redraw was terrible. When I tried to change the resolution the monitor went black and the computer seemed to freeze - although I have mouse movement."

QuarkXpress 6.0 follow-up For the past few days we've been covering a problem with "corrupt" QuarkXpress 6 Activation files that can occur after doing a new or Archive install of Panther. We reported a workaround that involved re-installing QuarkXpress, and another that involved moving frameworks from one folder to another. MacFixIt reader Bryan Schappel offers another workaround:

"I've read many reports of users complaining about Quark 6 not working after upgrading to Panther. For those that do not want to manually move frameworks around there is a very elegant solution. Inside the Quark 6 application folder there is a folder named 'For System.' The application in this folder, named 'QuarkXpress Components' is the installer for the needed frameworks. Simply run this installer and all is well."

Fast User Switching fixes

We've been discovering, and readers have been reporting, issues, expected or unexpected, that are experienced when using Fast User Switching. Below is a list of a few of these issues:

"Cube" effect not appearing Yesterday we mentioned that one common cause of the vaunted "rotating cube" effect not appearing -- when switching between accounts using Fast User Switching -- is an older video card. We've since received a number of additional potential explanations, from a number of MacFixIt readers.

One such reason is if the account being switched from and the account being switched to are set to use different display resolutions, color bit depths, and/or refresh rates. In these situations, Panther evidently forgoes the rotating cube effect and instead simply fades between the two account displays.

Another reason, according to reader David Butler, is that some video cards may not be able to support the effect at extremely highest resolutions, even if they are "supported" cards that are able to show the effect at lower resolutions.

NetInfo Login issues Reader Dov Cohen describes an issue using Fast User Switching in a NetInfo/Workgroup Manager environment, in which users' Home directories are stored on a server rather than on the local computer:

"We have a Jaguar Server set up with Netinfo/Workgroup Manager enviorment. User's Homes are stored on the server, and they can move from one machine to the other maintaining their settings. You can pick 'Other...' in the login window, type in your short name and password, and vuala - you're in (well, that's the whole point of WG Manager). That's the good thing. After installing PANTHER, once logged into a machine via your network account, you can use the Fast User Switching menu to go back to the login window. Then pick "Other..." and type in another network login name and password, you'll immediately get an error 'Logging in to the account failed because an error occured. The home folder for the user account is located on an AFP or SMB server. Contact your system administrator for help'."

iTunes pauses/stops If you're listening to iTunes in one account, and another user is "switched to" using Fast User Switching, iTunes will pause. Considering that the other user would have no way of stopping iTunes in your account, we consider this to be a nice feature.

On the other hand, if iTunes is running in one account, no other users will be able to run it. They'll receive an error that "You cannot open the application 'iTunes' because another user has it open. Ask the other user to quit the application, then try again." We consider this to be an not-so-nice feature. (See the "Classic Environment" entry, below, for a way to get around this if your account has admin privileges.)

QuickTime Player preference Related to the previous item, QuickTime player has a preference -- "Fast User Switching: Pause movies when logged out" -- that provides the same functionality. If you don't enable this feature, QuickTime Player will continue to play during a user switch.

iChat disconnects If you are logged into AIM/iChat/Rendezvous and your or another user switches to another account, iChat will automatically log you out. However, once you switch back to your account, iChat will automatically log you in again.

Classic Environment can only be used by one user at a time If another user has launched the Classic Environment in their account, and you then attempt to launch it when logged into your own account, you'll get an error that reads "Classic cannot start because it is already running. Classic is being used on this Mac by the user 'username'."

If you are an administrative user and you need to use Classic, you can use Terminal to force the Classic Environment to quit. You can also launch Activity Monitor, switch the "Show" menu to Other User Processes, and then quit the "TruBlueEnviro" process. You will then be able to launch Classic in your own account. Note that both of these methods may result in the other user -- the one who was running Classic -- losing data if they had unsaved changes in Classic applications.

"Where is It?" questions

Since Panther was released, we've received a good number of questions asking where familiar features of Jaguar have gone (or stating that such features are "missing"). In many cases, the functionality users are looking for has simply been moved or renamed. Below are a few of the most commonly "missed" utilities; this is not an exhaustive list, but it should solve some mysteries for a few users:

  • Disk Copy The disk image-mounting functionality of Disk Copy is now built into the Finder. (Actually, the Finder uses a background application called DiskImageMounter, located in /System/Library/CoreServices, to mount images.) Most of the other features of Jaguar's Disk Copy, and a few new features, can be found in Panther's Disk Utility.
  • Process Viewer In Panther, Process Viewer has been replaced by the new -- and significantly improved -- Activity Viewer.
  • Apple System Profiler In Panther, Apple System Profiler has been replaced by a similar utility called System Profiler.
  • Print Center Jaguar's Print Center has been replaced by a new utility called Printer Setup Utility. (There are also a few settings in the Print & Fax panel of System Preferences, including a working way to choose which printer should be the default; Jaguar allowed you to choose a default, but if you selected a different printer in a print dialog for a particular print job, that printer became the default.)
  • CPU Monitor This utility has also been rolled into the new Activity Monitor.
  • Key Caps Key Caps is no longer a part of OS X; however, you can access most of its functionality from the new Keyboard Viewer palette in Panther. To access Keyboard Viewer, open the International panel of System Preferences and click on the Input Menu button. Check the box next to Keyboard Viewer, and then enable the "Show input menu in menu bar" option. With these options set, you can access the Keyboard Viewer at any time from Panther's input menu (which looks like a tiny flag, using the flag of the current language used by OS X). Unfortunately, one limitation of Panther's Keyboard Viewer is that it doesn't provide a text field; Key Caps would allow you to find a particular character and type it, then copy it from Key Caps for pasting into another application. In Panther, Apple suggests using the Character Palette (also available from the input menu) for this.

Keychain First Aid Eric Hildum notes that Apple rolled Keychain First Aid into Keychain Access, and that the version of Keychain First Aid 1.0 currently available from Apple's Web site may have some problems with Panther:

"I have been trying to resolve some keychain issues, and discovered that the Keychain First Aid 1.0 that is available for download from Apple is not completely compatible with Panther. In particular, the repair option of 1.0 will report a successful repair, but in fact the keychain may not be completely repaired. The latest version of Keychain First Aid has been combined with Keychain Access, and is available under the Windows menu of Keychain Access. That version seems to be able to fully resolve Keychain issues under Panther."

Where are Internet Preferences? Several users have noticed that the Internet Preferences pane in System Preferences no longer exists in Mac OS X 10.3. In order to set a different browser application, you will have to open Safari and go to the "General" pane in the application preferences. In order to set a different mail application, you will have to open Apple's Mail.app and go to the same "General" pane in menu Mail > Preferences.

Macromedia applications and authorization

Some users of Macromedia MX applications were prompted to re-enter their serial number - in some cases triggering the anti-piracy measures to think that too many copies are in use - after upgrading to Mac OS X 10.3. Some readers are reporting that Macromedia technical support is providing access to a special FTP site for users who need to re-download updates after receiving a "download limit exceeded" message. Bruce Wise writes:

"I did a clean install of Panther, and when I tried to open Freehand MXa (which is an update to MX), i was surprised to discover that it wanted my serial number again. I entered it, and was taken to the Macromedia site, and I was informed that I could not activate as I would exceed my one download limit. I wrote them, and explained that this was only due to the fact that I did a clean Panther install. They agreed to give me another download, as long as i used a special FTP address and it would only be available to me for 24 hours. Thanks Macromedia! (but does that mean, if I ever have to do another clean install, i will have to get special activation permission from Macromedia for this product?)"

Macromedia application launch failure Brett Wickens, along with a few other readers, report that since upgrading to Panther, Macromedia Contribute and Flash MX will no longer launch. He writes

"This is with a fresh archive/install of the system and complete deletion/reinstallation of the programs. They appear briefly as if they are going to open but then nothing. There have been emerging notes on various forums that this is due to Macromedia's new authorization scheme and some users are reporting the only workaround to be backing up their entire hard drive, erasing and installing a fresh system, then reinstalling the offending Macromedia applications. Of course, for people with a hundred or so other programs besides Flash MX and Contribute, this is not only annoying, it's unacceptable."

A follow-up note from Wickens, who spoke with Macromedia's technical support department, cites on possible workaround for launch failure: "Sometimes they do not launch at all. If that is the case, delete the Macrovision folder from library/preferences. Then they should launch."

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"However, you will be asked for you serial number and then it is possible you will receive a 'too many activations for this serial number.' Macromedia allows two installs. It looks this up over the internet during installation and if it thinks you are installing more than your allocation you will need to call the number the dialog box shows you, tells them you are re-installing because of Panther and they will help you out.

"Note: If you can get your MX products to launch, or even before you install Panther, go to the help menu in that product (i.e., Flash/Help) and select 'Transfer my software license.' What this does is give you back one install in the Macromedia registration database. Then you can re-install successfully once you have Panther up an running properly.

Separately, some users have reported that every time they try to launch one or more Macromedia applications, they are prompted for an administrator password, and upon entering the correct password, simply re-prompted in an endless loop. Apparently deleting the Macrovision folder from Library/Preferences will do the trick in this scenario as well.

Misc. Issues: Login problems; Registration; Firewall issues; more

Solving an odd login problem Alan Linnenbank reports that his home directory was somehow changed to include an unnecessary IP address prefix, causing an inability to login. Changing the home directory link after logging in as root solved the problem:

"After upgrading a system to Panther that had been upgraded to 10.2.8 since the first preview releases of OSX. I stumbled on to a solution to a slow login problem I had. I had the slow startup problem in 10.2.8 and previous versions but after upgrading to Panther my system wouldn't login anymore at all (mind you I had auto login enabled). After booting the Panther system I would get the message that my home/dir was on an AFP server and that the system could not log me on.

"So I tried logging on as root and started NetInfo manager. Located the user that couldn't login and checked his home directory. turned out that he had a line there stating that his home dir was something like: aFP://ipadress/Users/username instead of /Users/username. I changed that line and now the user can login just fine and no more startup delays! Apparently Jaguar would eventually find the home dir and login wick was painfully slow, but Panther wouldn't login at all."

Non-US registration problemsRod Yager reports that the English version of Mac OS X 10.3 shipped to him in Australia refused to allow proper registration because it requires United States-based data.

"With this install, the Setup assistant is US-centric. It requires you to enter a US state and a US 5 or 5 4 Zip Code, a US style area code and a US 7 digit phone number. Since I live in Australia, the real values did not pass the validation test, so I had to enter false details in order to be able to continue."

Firewall problems If you are having problems using the built-in Mac OS X Firewall, try deleting "com.apple.sharing.firewall.plist" in /Library/Preferences and restarting.

More on limited resolutions Yesterday we reported that reported limited resolution selection in Mac OS X 10.3 with 3Dfx chipset cards. We've now received several reports from ATI Rage Pro-based graphics card owners who also have limited resolution and fewer color depth options.

While it is unlikely that NVidia (who now owns the 3Dfx code-base) will update drivers for the Voodoo line of cards, ATI may release a Panther-compliant driver for the ATI Rage Pro chipset.

Third-party keyboards and the "function" key If you have a third-party keyboard, you may need to press the "function lock" key in order to re-assign certain keys or gain other functionality that was enabled by default in Mac OS X 10.2 (Jaguar).

David Averbach wrote "I can?t seem to reassign function keys (F1 etc.) using Microsoft Keyboard.  It had this really great iTunes control feature, which now does nothing," then followed up "Fixed it?the Function Lock key has to be on?this didn?t have to be the case before. It resets itself when I turn on the computer, so each day, I have to remember to push that button or my function keys don?t work."

New networking scheme confusing for some users

Some users are none too pleased with Panther's new networking architecture, which prevents some shares from showing up on the desktop.

As evidenced by a number of reader reports, this can cause confusion from network users who can see a window on a shared volume, but cannot unmount the share via "ejection," not easily determine their connected status.

MacFixIt reader Alex Gray writes: "Under Mac OS X 10.2 and earlier, when you mounted an AppleTalk share by browsing AppleTalk Zones, the file server would appear on the desktop, and "Computer" as a server.

"Under Mac OS X 10.3, this has changed. The only time a server will show up on the desktop is if you enter its IP or AFP name directly in connect to server. When connecting via the 'Network' apparatus on the finder toolbar you can browse the Zones, albeit slowly, and then hit 'Connect' to the server that you want, which brings up an authentication window."

"However, when you do it this way the server will not show up on the desktop, or the Finder Toolbar, and there is really no indication that you are connected to the server. To get back to this point you would have to browse the Zones again and there is no easy way to eject the Volume. This creates problems if you are not always connected to the network, as when you disconnect from the LAN, there is the typical LAG, Spinning Ball, and then disconnect message telling you that you are not connected to the Server.

In the meantime, as a potential workaround, you can add shared folders) from a networked machine to be included in Panther's sidebar by selecting it and pressing Command-T. However, you still won't be able to "eject" the server.

Slow Photoshop launch times

MacFixIt reader Patrick Martin reports that some users on the Adobe Photoshop for Macintosh User to User forum are reporting increased startup times for Photoshop 7.0.1 after upgrading to Mac OS X 10.3.

"One user reported a startup time of 10 seconds in Jaguar on a dual 1 GHz G4; after installing Panther, he was seeing Photoshop launch times climb to 30 seconds or more until his palettes appeared. This occurred with standard system fonts being the only fonts loading into memory at startup. All other fonts were being managed with Font Agent Pro, and were deactivated.

Several users have identified one culprit for the slower startup times as Auto-Activation feature of Font Agent Pro (a font management application from Insider Software). Martin writes "When that (feature) was switched off, startup speed returned to normal."

Resources

  • Upgrade Procedure Recommen...
  • The FireWire debacle
  • The dangers of case-sensit...
  • Problems with installation...
  • Virtual memory use
  • Panther access changes go ...
  • FileVault and losing data
  • Fixing Scanner Problems
  • Screen calibration issues
  • Fixing fax problems
  • Compatibility: Quicken; Di...
  • Solving printer problems
  • Graphics card problems; so...
  • Music and Audio issues com...
  • Wake-from-sleep issues
  • Fast User Switching fixes
  • "Where is It?" questions
  • Macromedia applications an...
  • Misc. Issues: Login proble...
  • New networking scheme conf...
  • Slow Photoshop launch time...
  • Solving printer problems
  • AppleScript workaround
  • Graphics card problems; solutions
  • http://eshop.macsales.com/...
  • article
  • Music and Audio issues compilation
  • repository
  • Wake-from-sleep issues
  • Fast User Switching fixes
  • "Where is It?" questions
  • Macromedia applications and authorization
  • Misc. Issues: Login problems; Registration; Firewall issues; more
  • New networking scheme confusing for some users
  • Slow Photoshop launch times
  • reported
  • Font Agent Pro
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