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I've updated to Mac OS X 10.4 "Tiger" and it's become clear that Tiger has a number of "issues". To minimise the chance of incompatibilities I wiped my hard drive and did a clean install, restoring documents and re-installing applications from a backup. Some of the issues are easily overcome, others a bit more concerning. I'll add to this list as I encounter new issues, and document any fixes as I become aware of them.

Shared iCal calendars

Under Panther you have the option to publish to .Mac (which creates a publicly-accessible web page) or to a WebDAV server. Under Tiger you have the option to publish to .Mac or to a private server. You can still enter the same .Mac URL as previously—provided you made a note of it (which I didn't!):

Unable to wake from sleep

This issue seems popular. Fix: set Never as the sleep option in the Energy Saver preference pane.

Unable to revert to QuickTime Pro 6

I don't want an extra codec at a cost of $US30, having paid for several previous QuickTime Pro licenses and the MPEG-2 licence. Apple won't let me "downgrade" to QuickTime 6 Pro under Tiger. The QuickTime 6.5.2 installer says:

The QuickTime 6.5.2 re-installer (apparently for Mac OS 10.3.9 only) says:

Bruce says: "Bugger!"

Adding a signature to a .Mac account in Mail 2.0

Under Panther I used aliases to protect my .Mac e-mail address. It turns out that in Mail 2.0 you cannot associate a signature with aliases to your .Mac account unless your also list you "real" .Mac e-mail address under Account Information. Doing so then shows .Mac as an account to which you can drag your signature:

Adding a digital certificate to a .Mac account in Mail 2.0

Following my success in using digital signature authentication with Mail under Panther, I re-downloaded my Thawte certificate and successfully imported it into Keychain Access. However, I do not get the option to sign or encrypt messages created with the .Mac account associated with the certificate. Perhaps it is significant that the certificates are imported into Certificates and not My Certificates?

Finder bugs

Intermittently I can no longer use the keyboard in the Finder. For example, I am unable to rename files by clicking and editing them. Fix: Force a Finder re-launch.

I've seen the spinning beach-ball in the Finder while using the arrow keys to back up a level in column view; this required a forced quit.

Menu bar issues

Intermittently the menu bar of the front-most application (sometimes the Finder) is blank. There's just nothing there. Keyboard commands (e.g. Command-N to open a new BBEdit window) still work. A restart is required to bring back the menu and allow mouse control:

Alternatively, here is Mail with iPhoto's menu (very frustrating—remember, this was a clean install):

Online update bugs

Photoshop 7 and RealPlayer 10 become unresponsive when checking for online updates. Fix: force quit then disable update checking.

HP d135 printer

I'm still recovering from the shock that my HP d135 printer drivers appear to work; this is such dodgy software I consider this a miracle.

Update 09.04.06: The HP software won't even install under 10.4.5 or 10.4.6 on an Intel Mac; it just hangs and has to be killed with a Force Quit. HP Support's response amounted to "Go away".

Missing Sync for Palm / iSync 2

I had no problems setting up and initially synching my Palm T3, once I found the iSync conduit is no longer installed separately, but rather is enabled from the iSync Devices menu:

However, iSync creates a calendar in iCal called "Unfiled" which appears to contain no events. If I delete it and sync it's gone; if I sync again (without making changes to iCal or Palm Calendar) then it re-appears!

In iSync I have specified new events on the Palm to go to "Bruce", which is the only calendar I sync. Support at mark/space say:

The only other thing I can think of is that this is a bug with either the iSync conduit or Tiger. iSync was changed quite a bit in Tiger so it's possible that is where the bug was introduced.

Too often HotSync doesn't work at all (fix: reboot and sync immediately).

Let me know if you've encountered these issues - and particularly if you overcame them!

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