Major bug in 10.6?

[alevasseur14]

It looks like there's a bug floating around that's pretty easy to reproduce. From what I understand, all one needs to do is log into the guest account on a machine, log out, and then log into a regular user account. At this point it's like a completely new account. All settings are reset and most importantly, all user data is GONE!

I only saw instances of the bug striking if you upgraded from Leopard to Snow Leopard - it seems like clean installs are OK.

Has anybody had this happen to them or anyone they know?

Use your Time Machine disks, people!

Article

 

[TheStu]

Originally posted by: alevasseur14
It looks like there's a bug floating around that's pretty easy to reproduce. From what I understand, all one needs to do is log into the guest account on a machine, log out, and then log into a regular user account. At this point it's like a completely new account. All settings are reset and most importantly, all user data is GONE!

I only saw instances of the bug striking if you upgraded from Leopard to Snow Leopard - it seems like clean installs are OK.

Has anybody had this happen to them or anyone they know?

Use your Time Machine disks, people!

Article

This has not happened to me or anyone I know. No one i know uses Guest accounts.

Also, at least on 10.5 the Guest account isn't even active by default, and I don't think it is on 10.6 either. So, I mean, I would imagine this is only happening to so many people.

How is the data completely gone? In the time it takes for the account to log in, it isn't like the disk could have had those areas wiped. I mean, my Home folder is like 40GB since my music library is in there.

 

[Kmax82]

Still kinda scary that this happens at all. Definitely something Apple should've caught.

 

[TheStu]

Originally posted by: Kmax82
Still kinda scary that this happens at all. Definitely something Apple should've caught.

It appears to only happen on upgrades as the Guest account has somehow changed between Leopard and Snow Leopard. Not a defense, but it does then also cut down on the number of instances. I would love to see actual concrete stats on how many people have been affected by this, or any number of other issues.

I also wonder if this will be fixed in 10.6.2.

 

[alevasseur14]

I'm not sure exactly how it happens. I haven't been able to find anything really in depth on it.

I also can't see it being that big of an issue, I don't actually know of anyone that has ever used a guest account. But, the feature is there and I'm sure somebody does use it... It's scary that such a show stopped exists at all!

 

[Kmax82]

Originally posted by: TheStu

Originally posted by: Kmax82
Still kinda scary that this happens at all. Definitely something Apple should've caught.

It appears to only happen on upgrades as the Guest account has somehow changed between Leopard and Snow Leopard. Not a defense, but it does then also cut down on the number of instances. I would love to see actual concrete stats on how many people have been affected by this, or any number of other issues.

I also wonder if this will be fixed in 10.6.2.

Ok.. well I did a clean install, and I don't use my Guest Account.. however, I went and disabled it on my wife's machine, just in case. Hers was an upgrade.

 

[alevasseur14]

Another more in depth article

This one from MacRumors goes into a little more detail. Apparently even if you did the upgrade with the guess account enabled, all you need to do is go into preferences, disable the guess account and turn it back on and you're set.

 

[PricklyPete]

Originally posted by: Kmax82
Still kinda scary that this happens at all. Definitely something Apple should've caught.

Yeah...definitely scary...but typical of a feature that is rarely used...and therefore rarely tested/considered when new development takes place.