SYNACK Posted February 3, 2013 Posted February 3, 2013 Typing These 8 Characters Will Crash Almost Any App On Your Mountain Lion Mac - Slashdot All software has bugs, but this one is a particularly odd one. If you type "File:///" (no quotes) into almost any app on your Mac, it will crash. The discovery was made recently and a bug report was posted to Open Radar. First off, it’s worth noting that the bug only appears to be present in OS X Mountain Lion and is not reproducible in Lion or Snow Leopard. That’s not exactly good news given that this is the latest release of Apple’s operating system, which an increasing number of Mac users are switching to. ... A closer look shows the bug is inside Data Detectors, a feature that lets apps recognize dates, locations, and contact data, making it easy for you to save this information in your address book and calendar. 1
Roberto Posted February 3, 2013 Posted February 3, 2013 Just tried it here and they're not wrong. Big oops. It crashes finder & Safari, which is especially daft because that's the two main apps where you might legitimately type that while trying to do something. Big cock up on Apple's part.
SYNACK Posted February 3, 2013 Author Posted February 3, 2013 Does it work if you click it? Apparently it only works in a text input field where it can be parsed by an osx system library and only with the capitalised version.
rich_tech Posted February 3, 2013 Posted February 3, 2013 sounds like something that you can expect a hotfix for sharpish there then
Arthur Posted February 3, 2013 Posted February 3, 2013 (edited) Does it work if you click it? Try this instead... grack.com/hangsafari.html or mailto:[email protected]?subject=File:///&body=File:/// or Type File:/// into Spotlight Btw, turning off the spell checker will stop your Mac from crashing. Edited February 3, 2013 by Arthur
SYNACK Posted February 3, 2013 Author Posted February 3, 2013 sounds like something that you can expect a hotfix for sharpish there then It's no where near as bad as the; doesn't bother checking passwords bug or, the stores your passwords in plaintext debug logs bugs. Those took some time to be patched, I can't imagine this one taking a higher priority, still a fun game for any Apple store patrons until then
Arthur Posted February 3, 2013 Posted February 3, 2013 still a fun game Indeed... http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/exploits_of_a_mom.png
SYNACK Posted February 3, 2013 Author Posted February 3, 2013 (edited) Indeed... http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/exploits_of_a_mom.png What's sad is that while this is an old joke but still would not work on our SMS, not because they sanitise their inputs but because the whole 3GB monster is based on three loosely linked Access 2003 databases. Now that's a joke Edited February 3, 2013 by SYNACK
Arthur Posted February 3, 2013 Posted February 3, 2013 the whole 3GB monster is based on three loosely linked Access 2003 databases. That sounds like a nightmare waiting to happen, especially once all three DBs reach a combined size of 6GB.
SYNACK Posted February 3, 2013 Author Posted February 3, 2013 (edited) That sounds like a nightmare waiting to happen, especially once all three DBs reach a combined size of 6GB. Yea, that is without student photos or anything, the main file size killers are all the VB exe files and ancient DLL libraries, the system files install still choke out on 64bit systems because it tries to register a 16bit graphics library. The DB sizes expand rapidly when you have a hundred users all accessing the MDB over the network. It even has a well known back door password in their online documentation. Still it doesn't crash when you type File:/// into it so it's not all bad Edited February 3, 2013 by SYNACK
Arthur Posted February 3, 2013 Posted February 3, 2013 IMO, the random crashes in Android 4.2 are much worse than this Apple bug because at least with the latter you can simply avoid typing File:/// into any text boxes. With Android, you're stuck with them until Google can be bothered to fix them. http://i.imgur.com/Ax1mgJ5.png
SYNACK Posted February 3, 2013 Author Posted February 3, 2013 IMO, the random crashes in Android 4.2 are much worse than this Apple bug because at least with the latter you can simply avoid typing File:/// into any text boxes. With Android, you're stuck with them until Google can be bothered to fix them. Oh, that looks like my Nexus 7 which I replaced and got one that glitches the screen with weird lines when using a browser as well as being slow and crashy like the last one, I don't know how it became so popular. Angry Birds must be VERY addictive.
CyberNerd Posted February 3, 2013 Posted February 3, 2013 IMO, the random crashes in Android 4.2 are much worse than this Apple bug because at least with the latter you can simply avoid typing File:/// into any text boxes. With Android, you're stuck with them until Google can be bothered to fix them. How do you get that logfile? I want to check mine - but I've not noticed it crash at all - I've rebooted it 3 times (in two months) and use it for long periods when playing ingress.
Arthur Posted February 3, 2013 Posted February 3, 2013 (edited) How do you get that logfile? I use this app. Depending upon the type of crash it may not have enough time to save a copy of the relevant log file(s) though. Edited February 3, 2013 by Arthur
CyberNerd Posted February 11, 2013 Posted February 11, 2013 IMO, the random crashes in Android 4.2 are much worse than this Apple bug because at least with the latter you can simply avoid typing File:/// into any text boxes. With Android, you're stuck with them until Google can be bothered to fix them. http://i.imgur.com/Ax1mgJ5.png @Arthur I think you must have something seriously wrong with your tablet, is it running a custom ROM, overheating or something? I've been running the app you suggested for over a week, some heavy ingress use over two weekends and the usual iPlayer, browser, email and games throughout the week. Still not had a single reported crash or reboot on mine. GF's is the same, crash count =0
SYNACK Posted February 11, 2013 Author Posted February 11, 2013 @Arthur I think you must have something seriously wrong with your tablet, is it running a custom ROM, overheating or something? I've been running the app you suggested for over a week, some heavy ingress use over two weekends and the usual iPlayer, browser, email and games throughout the week. Still not had a single reported crash or reboot on mine. GF's is the same, crash count =0 Maybe you somehow lucked out and got a good one, have you had the screen separation issue, have seen it on two so far, one from japan and my second one.
CyberNerd Posted February 11, 2013 Posted February 11, 2013 Maybe you somehow lucked out and got a good one, have you had the screen separation issue, have seen it on two so far, one from japan and my second one. No, not at all. I bought my girlfriend a 32gig one for Christmas as well, she uses hers at work and streams iPlayer all evening. Not seen those problems either.
sted Posted February 11, 2013 Posted February 11, 2013 i have similar reboot issuues with my phone android 4 is imo worse than 2 for phones and much worse than 3 on tablets. Im fed up of it refusing to connect to my car radio or staying connected when the car is turned off and out of range but the phone still thinks is connected and wont let go or reconnect until i turn bluetooth off and on. ive had it with android tablet has been replaced by an x86 win tab and phone will be replaced with a win8 phone or a nokia brick that just works when contracts up
Arthur Posted February 11, 2013 Posted February 11, 2013 (edited) I think you must have something seriously wrong with your tablet I did wonder that. Since I posted that screenshot my Nexus 10 has crashed a total of 41 times and when I unlocked it yesterday I found it has done some sort of partial factory reset - all of my apps were there plus various things I had downloaded to /sdcard, but almost all settings had been completely wiped out. I guess the last reboot must have corrupted something? is it running a custom ROM, overheating or something? I'm on the stock 4.2.1 ROM at the moment, although I might switch to a different ROM (CM 10.1m or Paranoid Android) to see if that helps. It must be a software issue because there are a lot of people reporting the same problem as me... code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=39879 Edited February 11, 2013 by Arthur Deleted Nexus 10 bit. :-)
CyberNerd Posted February 11, 2013 Posted February 11, 2013 They are both Nexus 7 on 4.2.1. I'd be inclined to send it back as faulty. At school we had a Toshiba android machine that kept crashing and rebooting, we send that back to tosh and a couple of weeks later they sent it back repaired. I guess it is easy to mix up a faulty hardware with a software bug if you don't have anything to compare it to.
Arthur Posted February 11, 2013 Posted February 11, 2013 I'd be inclined to send it back as faulty. I'll give that a try as it's starting to get ridiculous.
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