[Spheric Harlot]

Originally posted by graffix:
And for the second part of your reply, there should be NO reason that an 'upgrade' install shouldn't work perfectly... why people suddenly think that a reformat and reinstall is the way to upgrade your OS is beyond me... in fact we used to tease PC users about that very same fact.

You are absolutely correct for normal users who only have access to final releases.

In this case, the original poster mentioned that he'd had a previous developer release installed, in which case a reformat and reinstall is the ONLY supported install method.

-s*

[Badwisdom]

Ok first let me say that i vented my frustration because i love Apple and Mac OSX in general and i was so psyched up with Panther that the bugs i have been having really destroyed the idea i had of what it would be like, especially after using the 7B54 which i was very much impressed with.

Im sorry if i overreacted or if some people think i am just here out of anger and am not prepared to give Panther a chance. I guess it is easier for me to think the problems are coming from Panther than a hardware problem, which would mean having to send my 17B beck to Apple for a couple of weeks.

Ive only tried 7B85 on my 17PB Rev B with stock configuration, but as 10.2.7 and 10.2.8 were faster than on my Ti 1Ghz with 1G RAM, i didnt think these recent problems could come from my hardware.

Im going to do a fresh install and see what happens. If im the only one with these problems then it must come from either my installation, a bad seeded copy or my hardware. I hope its not the latter.

[Badwisdom]

I said in an earlier post that my install was on a fresh disk with absolutely nothing on it. I only have 512 MB RAM on my 17inch but 1Gig on the Ti. Can this be a factor for application launch and beachball problems ?

Thanks for your apology greener, no worries.

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally posted by Badwisdom:
I only have 512 MB RAM on my 17inch but 1Gig on the Ti. Can this be a factor for application launch and beachball problems ?

Possibly. I've installed on three machines so far, and beachball frequency is far higher on the 256MB G4 iMac than on the 768MB G3 iMac or the 640MB 12" Powerbook.

-s*

[SMacTech]

Originally posted by Badwisdom:
I said in an earlier post that my install was on a fresh disk with absolutely nothing on it. I only have 512 MB RAM on my 17inch but 1Gig on the Ti. Can this be a factor for application launch and beachball problems ?

Thanks for your apology greener, no worries.

I have an old Pismo PB 400 with 192mb of RAM that doesn't exhibit the slowness you have indicated or the spinning beachball problem. I can finally tolerate using OS X on it since installing Panther, although it is refreshing to go back to the mdd867 with 1gb RAM.
Certainly more RAM will help. but it should be fine with 512mb. However, iPhoto can really suck the RAM with lots of photos.
I am at a loss at to why you are having these problems, as they are not indicative of my results with Panther at all on 5 different Macs.

[swiz]

I would just suggest to wait until you have the retail version before you get too bummed.

[bmedina]

Originally posted by Badwisdom:
If im the only one with these problems then it must come from either my installation, a bad seeded copy or my hardware. I hope its not the latter.

Now if only that had been your original post.

[romanesq]

Well by this weekend, there is going to be lots of useful feedback.
I'm awating the mail delivery like many, but I will pull my Firewire drive out and set that up first.

As for the speed issues, I really don't have any complaints since I got my 15" 1.25 PB. In fact Safari launches on one bounce, 10.2.8 is the version that it's been running on.

I wish everyone good luck and suggest discretion with all the different system configs out there.

[JB72]

Originally posted by Badwisdom:
no i wont be going back to windows, but probably to 10.2.8 and wont be spending $129 for panther. I have no qualms using this 'illegal' copy if you can call it that, as i was ready to buy it when it came out. I wanted to try it out on my machine beforehand, and my friends ADC account allowed me to do so.

If I were you, I'd wait till 10.3.1 or 10.3.2 is released, then purchase a box.

[herbsman]

badwisdom i'm with you.

i have the 1.33 17" and the damn beachball loves my computer. build 74 was MUCH MUCH better than build85 in terms of responsiveness.

my main problems:

1. itunes: i launch itunes and right click on any song to bring up the menu and it will lag (this time with no beachball for 1.5-2 seconds) until the menu pops up.

2. safari: i launch safari, and wait for the default page to load up. i click on a bookmark link and the beachball ALWAYS comes up for 2 seconds before the menu pops down. this is definitely not the case with 10.2.8, everything is quick and responsive.

3. the thing i hated the most about jaguar in terms of the interface was when i would right click on the desktop and have to wait 2-3 seconds for the beachball to stopp spinning until the actual menu popped up. i didn't have this problem with build74 but with 85 its almost as bad as jag.

im comparing this with my old 1ghz tibook.

fresh clean installs always. kinda sucks, but i'm going to still buy panther this friday, hopefully everything will be better.

[Dale Sorel]

Originally posted by swiz:
I would just suggest to wait until you have the retail version before you get too bummed.

OK...one more time...

7B85 IS the retail version

Carry on

[RooneyX]

Originally posted by Dale Sorel:
OK...one more time...

7B85 IS the retail version

Carry on

OK,OK. But Dev seeds could still include a line of code here or there that prevents the prerelease build from updating when 10.3.1 comes out. I'd do that if I was Apple.

[sanity assassin]

I'm waiting a bit before putting Panther on my main machine. I've got both server, and client versions on order and have played around with 7B85, but there's too many little things that would annoy me at first. I'll wait till all the apps, 3rd party tricks and whatevers are all working properly. Also, there's quite a few GUI bugs still in there.

[Bobby]

You type pretty well for being a 6 month old... How long were you using before switching? If yer 6 months old, it couldn't have been that long...

Originally posted by Badwisdom:
And no this is not a flame. I am a 6 month old PC switcher and own a G4 1Ghz Ti Powerbook with 1 Gig RAM and bought a new 17' Rev B stock about three weeks ago. Came installed with 10.2.7 and worked great. Got Panther GM through a friends ADC account and installed it yesterday on the 17 inch PB. I had seen 7B54 and thought it looked amazing. New features were amazing (expose etc...) and it was fast. Extremely fast.

As i am typing this on my PB 17', i cant but feel very let down with the last version, 7B85. Assuming this is the retail version, and everything points to this being true, let me point out all the three biggest problems i have had during these last 24 hours of intense usage.

- Panther is slow. I get to login window fast enough, but then everything is sluggish. When i select the user i want to login with, i get two seconds lag. I get a beachball and at least 15 seconds to login and be able to use the desktop. When i open a finder application and choose applications i get a 2 second lag. Mail.app and safari are slow to open, at least 5 to 6 seconds each, which is as fast as i can get them on my PB 15 Ti which is still under 10.2.8. My 1.33Ghz and improved motherboard architecture are just 'not there'.

- network is AWFUL. Sometimes i get internet connection and cant see other windows computers. Sometimes i get internet connection but wont see any computers on the network. And then again i might just see my other powerbook but cant access the PCs. Its just a case of boot and hope i get lucky.

- lots of random beachballing. Sometimes the preference window will slow down for 10 seconds with a beachball logo for no apparent reason. Then i close an app and it takes 10 seconds to close. The OS crashes half the time when powering off, and i need to hold the power button to switch it off.

Anyone have a similar experience ? I want to like panther, expose is great, and so are all the changes, but i cant take this sluggishness much longer.

Cheers
BadWisdom

[Ratm]

Originally posted by graffix:
NO reason that an 'upgrade' install shouldn't work perfectly.

Apple specifically stated this themselves in the release forms, that with the beta version of Panther you should not preform an upgrade install but a total and clean install each and every time.

[Ratm]

Originally posted by Bobby:
You type pretty well for being a 6 month old... How long were you using before switching? If yer 6 months old, it couldn't have been that long...

[korn]

I have 4 macs; an 800 ibook, a 450 dual G4, a 800 Titanium PB and a 1.25 Alumium PB. I've installed 7B85 on all, some as a clean install (zero-ing the drive) some as upgrade.
I have none of the discribed problems. Actually I have no problems at all with any of the Macs.

Are you sure you have a genuine 7b85? I'm pretty sure there are "home-made" versions around the net.

[iJed]

Originally posted by RooneyX:
OK,OK. But Dev seeds could still include a line of code here or there that prevents the prerelease build from updating when 10.3.1 comes out. I'd do that if I was Apple.

That would be a major mistake to piss-off your developers like this. They will want to upgrade to 10.3.1 too and they pay for the OS with their developer accounts. The biggest mistake Apple could make is to annoy its developers.

[besson3c]

You do not have to reformat, what's with this knee-jerk "reformat" we've been getting a lot of lately?

If applications are launching slow, you can try re-running the prebinding scripts... download Cocktail from Versiontracker.com to do this.

What startup apps do you have running? Check the "Startup Items" tab in your System Preferences under "Accounts". If you have any Norton stuff running, I wouldn't be surprised if this was causing your problems.

What 3rd party preference panes do you have installed (what appears in the "other" category, if any, in your System Preferences)?

Have you tested your RAM to make sure it works? I've never done this, but you can try to test the RAM through the Apple Hardware Diagnostic CD. I don't know how good of a job it does with RAM testing, but perhaps that would be worth a try.

Cool it with the reformating guys, it's bad advice to be issuing so early on in the troubleshooting process. There shouldn't be a need to reformat except for *extremely* rare occassions.

[RooneyX]

Originally posted by iJed:
That would be a major mistake to piss-off your developers like this. They will want to upgrade to 10.3.1 too and they pay for the OS with their developer accounts. The biggest mistake Apple could make is to annoy its developers.

But wasn't it developers who leaked the builds all over the net?

Of course, developers could be sent a full version of 10.3.1 later on.

[Dale Sorel]

Originally posted by korn:
Are you sure you have a genuine 7b85? I'm pretty sure there are "home-made" versions around the net.

[RooneyX]

I found a bug in 10.3.

OK, so launch a Word document. Command-P to print it, choose fax. Now in the To: box click on the man icon to launch your address book and choose recipient.

The address book opens, it's not the app just a window, and sometimes you can choose a recipient and other times the window is just frozen and you can't click on any names at all.

[parsec_kadets]

I agree with you that sometimes the Network portion of the Finder is messed up, especially with Windows shares. But I've never had a problem seeing other Macs.

As for your speed problems, I don't experience those myself. A couple things that nobody has suggested yet is using the Disk Utility to repair the permissions and verify the disk. Just launch Disk Utility from the Utilities folder in your Applications folder. Then select your partition and click Repair Permissions. This has been known to solve lots of little quirky problems like the ones you're having. If that doesn't work, then insert your install CD and boot from it. Once the installer starts up, look in the menus for the Disk Utility. Then you can select your partition and click Repair Disk. You have to boot off the CD because you can't repair the disk you have booted off of.

Now you said you were going to do a erase and install. I'm pretty sure that will solve your problems for sure, and you've probably done it already. I offer the above advice for those who may be having similar problems.

P.S. I obtained my copy of 7B85 the same way you did. My friend bought a select ADC membership and gave me one of his three seed keys. I too have been accused of stealing (not here, on other boards), so I know how it feels. However, we are violating our NDA (which we agreed to when we signed up for ADC) but discussing 10.3 I figure the cat is already out of the bag though and I personally haven't revealed any "secret" that people didn't already know about. It's not like I'm going around saying "Hey look, you can hack into 10.3 by doing X," on every forum I can find.

[scb]

I had a bad 512Mb memory card that seemed to work fine in 10.2.8 but randomly locked up my machine in Panther.

1.25 GHz AlBook.

[Cipher13]

Originally posted by Badwisdom:
no i wont be going back to windows, but probably to 10.2.8 and wont be spending $129 for panther. I have no qualms using this 'illegal' copy if you can call it that, as i was ready to buy it when it came out. I wanted to try it out on my machine beforehand, and my friends ADC account allowed me to do so.

I did a fresh install on a completely empty and formatted hard drive. Ill probably try and install it again, but if it still under performs like this or randomly works then back to 10.2.8 i go until all these issues have been addressed.

You say your 17" is stock? Upgrade the RAM.

[iJed]

Originally posted by RooneyX:
But wasn't it developers who leaked the builds all over the net?

Of course, developers could be sent a full version of 10.3.1 later on.

Yes it probably was a developer who leaked the build. This however does not change the fact that developers are Apple's most precious resource. Developers create applications and applications create Mac users. Therefore Apple should go out of its way to make things as easy for developers as possible and sending them some special OS version will just infuriate them. I know that if the 10.3 I get in the post is crippled in some way I'd not bother to re-subscribe to my developer account. Mind you, if Apple strarted doing this, I probably wouldn't want to use a Mac anymore...

[RooneyX]

Originally posted by iJed:
Yes it probably was a developer who leaked the build. This however does not change the fact that developers are Apple's most precious resource. Developers create applications and applications create Mac users. Therefore Apple should go out of its way to make things as easy for developers as possible and sending them some special OS version will just infuriate them. I know that if the 10.3 I get in the post is crippled in some way I'd not bother to re-subscribe to my developer account. Mind you, if Apple strarted doing this, I probably wouldn't want to use a Mac anymore...

But developers also make money from the apps they code for the OS. Apple is the one giving them those customers and the opportunity to sell the apps they develop.

Some could say some cheeky developers are spreading copies of of the OS so there will be more potential customers for the apps. But that's another thing.

But what would be wrong with the developer seeds having a time limit and then the developers get a hefty discount on the final release version?

Again, you say that developers code the apps that make people want Macs. That's only part of the picture. Apple is giving you the customer user base, and if you don't develop the apps then someone else will see the niche in the market and replace you.

[BigYellowMonkey]

Originally posted by Badwisdom:
Could anyone out there time how long it takes them to lauch the following apps using Panther 7B85? It would help me determine if my system really has a problem or if im just expecting too much :

- imovie (6 secs)
- mail (5 secs)
- safari (5 secs)
- iphoto (4 secs)
- iTunes (6 secs)

Please give me times of first launch only. Thanks a lot. (my times are the ones in parenthesis)

Computer has been running for about 10 hours without a reboot. Blue&White G3 w/ Sonnet G4/500 ZIF, 384MB RAM, Radeon 7000 (not that it matters for launch times).
imovie: 3.75 secs
mail: 1.75 secs
safari: 2.5 secs
iphoto: 1.75 secs
itunes: 1.5 secs

Seems like yours is running a little slow. My computer is pretty low-end compared to the other machines capable of running panther (blue&white G3's are the slowest machines capable of running it).

-Biggie!

[forcelite]

If 7b85 is Gold (which no one really knows) then there will be an update shortly after the 24th.

If its not, then many of the common issues will be fixed in the shipped version.

Either way the argument to wait a month or two is fairly invalid, unless stability is absolutly critical (business or security reasons)

[barbarian]

I think people's milage on Panther may vary. My guess is that the kinks won't be worked out until 10.3.1.

I did a clean install on an ibook, a powerbook 400mhz, and a G5.

No problems on the G5, but like the first poster I had lots of problems on the ibook and on the powerbook. And just to be frustrating the problems weren't consistent. Many apps felt faster, but some, especially iphoto, were stuck with beachball-itis.

Many of the problems were cured on the powerbook with a "repair disk permissions" performed from a CD.

Nothing has helped the ibook. It is no faster than Jag at anything except startup, classic launching, and 2nd app launches.

I would not pay 129 for this if the ibook were my only machine. Happily I get it for $20 w/ the G5.

In my office we have been testing Jag with our apps to see if it is worth an officewide upgrade and so far the answer is inconclusive. It really seems to help the duals and the G5s, but not so much love on older ibooks and imacs. i was surprised by this as everyone has been saying that it really speeds these machines up. My guess is that the "speedup" is mainly perceptual... moving windows around and stuff, and that the gains for things like file transfers over a network are minimal. Could be wrong and we will test more this week (we just got the ADC release) to be sure...

This is my feeling... if you are a Mac junky, you will upgrade, that's a given (everyone on this forum probably qualifies). But if you are an average user and your system runs fine, then it would probably be best to wait until 10.3.1 and the truth is unless you are dying to use Expose or live under a Windows network (panther plays much more nicely with windows), you probably don't need the upgrade.

-----
As an addendum, if you have panther, you shouldn't ever need to relaunch apps. Just launch your apps and leave them running. Unless there is some weird problem and they take up lots of cycles just let them sit in the background.

[Severed Hand of Skywalker]

Originally posted by barbarian:
i was surprised by this as everyone has been saying that it really speeds these machines up. My guess is that the "speedup" is mainly perceptual... moving windows around and stuff, and that the gains for things like file transfers over a network are minimal.

That is what I said from the beginning. 10.3 isn't much fast at all and these people saying it is faster then OS9 and 10.2 are on goofballs.

[Zadian]

Originally posted by barbarian:
i was surprised by this as everyone has been saying that it really speeds these machines up. My guess is that the "speedup" is mainly perceptual... moving windows around and stuff,

From what I've read about the "speed gain" in Panther, i always had the impression that the "speed gain" results mainly from the GUI responsiveness that was speeded up.
10.2 isn't that slow, it just seems slow because of such things as menu drop down time and other interface things.
Just as Mac OS 9 isn't fast, it just has a more responsive GUI.

If Panther really has a more responsive GUI and the perceived speed is better than in Jaguar, I will be quite happy.

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally posted by besson3c:
If applications are launching slow, you can try re-running the prebinding scripts... download Cocktail from Versiontracker.com to do this.

Since 10.2, prebinding is automatically updated every time an un-prebound program is run. If prebinding fails in this situation, Cocktail isn't going to make it happen, either.

Pointless.

Originally posted by besson3c:
What startup apps do you have running? Check the "Startup Items" tab in your System Preferences under "Accounts". If you have any Norton stuff running, I wouldn't be surprised if this was causing your problems.

Word.


On the reformatting issue: Again, he'd mentioned having a previous developer release installed. In that case, reformatting is not just an option; it is required for the system to run stably. Hence the suggestion.

Otherwise, you are correct: The last time I had to reformat and reinstall a Mac was after a catastrophic hard disk failure, in around 1992. Been using OS X since the public beta.

-s*

[Anand]

Originally posted by Zadian:
From what I've read about the "speed gain" in Panther, i always had the impression that the "speed gain" results mainly from the GUI responsiveness that was speeded up.
10.2 isn't that slow, it just seems slow because of such things as menu drop down time and other interface things.
Just as Mac OS 9 isn't fast, it just has a more responsive GUI.

If Panther really has a more responsive GUI and the perceived speed is better than in Jaguar, I will be quite happy.

The speed improvements with panther depend alot on the machine you are using. On faster machines, the difference is less noticable. On slower machines (like a FP 800 iMac) the difference is much more appartent. On my 1.6 Ghz G5, it does not seem that much faster but alot of the anoying pauses are gone.

[FlatLyna]

Badwisdom, sorry to hear of your troubles with Panther.

The percieved speed increase on my iBook 700 was nice, definately snappier so I'm shocked to hear of poor performance on your spec of machine!!

Some thoughts on the matter...
Is you mac network connected when the beachball shows? I've known of odd pauses and freezes when DNS servers or other network resources aren't available. An obvious candidate might be if you're logged into your iDisk, that always made my finder seem like a snail.
Also turn of Appletalk, file sharing etc if they arent needed at the time.

On my G4 DP 1.25 I occasionally see the beachball if my 2nd harddisk is spun down and needs to spin up again. Perhaps if you have aggressive power savings set with Energy Saver, then the beachball is when your harddisk needs to spin up.

Hope this may help,

Nick

[besson3c]

Originally posted by Spheric Harlot:
Since 10.2, prebinding is automatically updated every time an un-prebound program is run. If prebinding fails in this situation, Cocktail isn't going to make it happen, either.

Really? How interesting.. I did not know that. Thank you!

On the reformatting issue: Again, he'd mentioned having a previous developer release installed. In that case, reformatting is not just an option; it is required for the system to run stably. Hence the suggestion.

Maybe I read that wrong... I thought he had only *seen* a developer build, but was not running it on this particular machine.

[parsec_kadets]

Originally posted by RooneyX:
But developers also make money from the apps they code for the OS. Apple is the one giving them those customers and the opportunity to sell the apps they develop.

Some could say some cheeky developers are spreading copies of of the OS so there will be more potential customers for the apps. But that's another thing.

But what would be wrong with the developer seeds having a time limit and then the developers get a hefty discount on the final release version?

Again, you say that developers code the apps that make people want Macs. That's only part of the picture. Apple is giving you the customer user base, and if you don't develop the apps then someone else will see the niche in the market and replace you.

You're both wrong and you're both right here. The relationship between Apple and developers is a symbiotic one. They rely on each other for their survival. In that case Apple needs to do the best it can to keep the developers happy and the developers need to keep Apple happy. There really wasn't much excitement in the developer community a few years ago, and part of the reason was because developers felt Apple wasn't treating them fairly. Apple finally noticed and gave the developers what they were asking for. If Apple were to start pulling some scheme where developers had to pay $500/year or $5,000/year to get a broken copy of the Mac OS there would be a huge outcry and a lot of negative press. Now on the other hand, if there is one developer and/or company that is consistently leaking OS X builds to the Internet, then that developer will find that Apple will no longer allow him to receive developer builds. Finally, keep in mind that not even Microsoft pulls some the heavy handed tactics that have been suggested here, not with its developers anyway. If you want to piss off your developers, making them pay twice for an OS update (no matter how cheap it is) is probably the easiest way to do that.

[korn]

Originally posted by Dale Sorel:

It's easy to make 7bxx look like it is 7b75. It has been done before thru the "usual" channels.

[DannyVTim]

This thread has some fairly embarressing responces. But, you have to take into account that many of the people here are fairly young and imature.

BTW, things like zapping PRAM and formating your disk isn't going to make a bit of a difference. These are suggestions that the Apple help line use to give out for years and people still suggest these as solutions.

Try an archive and install instead of formating and installing. Also, make sure that the permissions are repaired which in my experience has been the biggest slow down for X. Also, try starting into single user mode and forcing a FSCK.

Chalk up some the more obnoxious responses to immaturity.

BTW, in my time with Panther, I tended to notice the speed over several weeks rather than all at once. Some things are obvious, but it takes time to realize the overall difference like how much fast text rendering is etc.

[coolmacdude]

Originally posted by DannyVTim:

BTW, things like zapping PRAM and formating your disk isn't going to make a bit of a difference. These are suggestions that the Apple help line use to give out for years and people still suggest these as solutions.

Try an archive and install instead of formating and installing. Also, make sure that the permissions are repaired which in my experience has been the biggest slow down for X. Also, try starting into single user mode and forcing a FSCK.

If formatting and installing didn't work, archive and install certainly won't. And you are wrong to say that formatting "isn't going to make a bit of difference." Installing a stock system on a clean hard drive most certainly will fix many many problems, certainly the same if not more than an archive and install would. However, it is a rather extreme solution that certainly isn't necessary in most cases where simpler fixes will work fine.

[swiz]

Originally posted by Dale Sorel:
OK...one more time...

7B85 IS the retail version

Carry on

I could careless who says this is the retail version, until I see it come out of the black retail Panther box its not the retail version therefore any bitching is premature.

[DannyVTim]

Originally posted by coolmacdude:
If formatting and installing didn't work, archive and install certainly won't. And you are wrong to say that formatting "isn't going to make a bit of difference." Installing a stock system on a clean hard drive most certainly will fix many many problems, certainly the same if not more than an archive and install would. However, it is a rather extreme solution that certainly isn't necessary in most cases where simpler fixes will work fine.

I didn't say archive and install would work better than formatting. I was saying that archive and install is as far as one needs to go and that formatting wasn't necessary. So, if archive and install doesn't work formatting will hardly help. Archive and install fixes any problems with the FS and checks the surface of the drive. No, formatting will not fix all problems with the FS and it's files; it will eliminate the file system and files. However, that is hardly the same as fixing the filesystem and files themselves.

[Back-to-Mac]

-Badwisdom,

I'm sorry that you have met with some flaming here. I really hope that you are not put off by the Mac community.

To answer your questions, I have found similar problems after installing Panther on top of Jaguar. the way I cured it was to completely reformat my HD and install Panther there after. After that, no more problems. As you can apreciate it is pain going the extra mile to reformat your HD but I would recommend it.

I hope you continue to visit MacNN and indeed continue to enjoy your Macintosh experience.

[Robo-X]

The limited testing I have done of 7B85 didn't look that good. I tried it on a 400Mhz G3 Powerbook (Lombard) and it was crashing with a garbled screen when trying to repair permissions. It have exactly the same problem 10.2.8 (build 6R65) had. It worked better with only 1 RAM module installed but much slower as HD was accessed alot.

//Rob

[Spaztik]

My main problems with Panther are just Interface Glitches... I don't really see instablility here.

http://homepage.mac.com/justspaztik/panthergui/