[alphasubzero949]

In the system prefs, unlock the Energy Saver if it isn't already unlocked and accessible.

Put in times to start/shut down under Schedule. In other words, enable them.

Lock the Energy Saver.

Quit System Prefs and relaunch it. (I tried rebooting my Mac).

Go back to Energy Saver and have a look at Schedule.

Where did your times go? (Reproduced this on my and two other machines)

The workaround? Don't lock the Energy Saver afterwards. If you have enabled authentication to unlock each secure preference, the same problem with Energy Saver manifests itself.

So is this a bug or is something wrong with these machines?

[Detrius]

I think the settings don't get set until you exit out of the System Preferences panel, so it may be that locking it before leaving the panel disallows the changes when they need to be made. That would definitely be a bug. Check and see if the same thing applies on the other panels.

All found bugs should always be reported directly to Apple at http://www.apple.com/macosx/feedback/

You can also give recommendations here too. After all, I recommended a music writing application to go along with a movie making application and photo making application. It only took them about a year or two to get it out. I said it seemed like a logical addition--they had programs to acquire and edit both movies and photos, but they only had an application to acquire music. Why not add an application to edit/create music too? They did. Woo hoo! Go me!

[alphasubzero949]

Originally posted by Detrius:
Check and see if the same thing applies on the other panels.

For the record I did submit a bug report shortly after posting the original message. I was able to reproduce the problem on my girlfriend's two Macs. So that's a total of 5 now...definitely an OS issue.

I also tried other "secure" preferences. The changes stuck after locking the pane and quitting System Prefs. Another interesting note - particularly with accounts - I can change pictures and startup items WITHOUT authenticating*, even though it is a secure system preference. Hmmm.

*I enabled the password requirement for every secure preference, found under the Security pane.

[Big Mac]

That's interesting. Perhaps it's a feature: by locking the pane you're undoing the changes you just made. Certainly does not seem like the proper behavior, though. And that "presto no authentication change-o" bug with Accounts is pretty ridiculous. You would think Apple would have found these things by now. . . A much less serious System Preferences flaw is the proxy configuration dialog that says something like "then choose a the port." I wish I could speak to Apple's software QA team.

[alphasubzero949]

Yeah, it's absurd. But as far as the "Accounts" bug, I believe that enough is "unlocked" for a standard user to do whatever (s)he wants within the privileges. When I changed my picture and other things, I did it as an admin with the pane still locked.

And speaking of pictures, if you run AppleJack, OnyX, or the like and clean your cache, you LOSE your picture as it's stored as a cache file in your home or in ~/Library/User Pictures and NOT in /Library/User Pictures, where it SHOULD be. Ever since I migrated my pictures there and selected them through the gallery window, I never had a problem losing pictures after cache cleaning since. For Apple to have not seen this after 8 maintenance releases (and possibly after the 9th) boggles my mind. Maybe if more send reports through Apple Feedback they'll get the message.

[fisherKing]

here's a bug i discovered thru much pain & suffering (basically, at apple's suggestion, wiped & zero'd my drive, reinstalled everything...then had the same problem!)

in the international pane, customize the time formats ( i was using + for pm, and - for am).

energy saver will not let you change settings, it will keep reverting to "reduced"