Horrendous problems with 4.5 today...

[Simon DTW]

After several years of (mostly) trouble-free useage I was not prepeared on a press day for the rubbish performance of 4.5, it never happens on a quiet day does it!! 

First PM quit when all I did was try and drop a folder of images (from a CD) onto the PM icon, then to add insult to injury the PM crash reporter also failed, locked, would not send a report and had to be force quit...

Second and even worse: PM quit for no reason whatever and has dumped years worth of stored 'cities' and caption names!!!!  Now I have to re-enter more than a hundred locations!!!! - and reset all the prefs.

Spitting with fury, give me an older version that was at least reliable!
Running Mac 0s10.8

[Kirk Baker]

After several years of (mostly) trouble-free useage I was not prepeared on a press day for the rubbish performance of 4.5, it never happens on a quiet day does it!! 

First PM quit when all I did was try and drop a folder of images (from a CD) onto the PM icon, then to add insult to injury the PM crash reporter also failed, locked, would not send a report and had to be force quit...

Second and even worse: PM quit for no reason whatever and has dumped years worth of stored 'cities' and caption names!!!!  Now I have to re-enter more than a hundred locations!!!! - and reset all the prefs.

Spitting with fury, give me an older version that was at least reliable!
Running Mac 0s10.8

http://www.camerabits.com/download/index.html

All of the older versions are there.

-Kirk

[Simon DTW]

They are- I reloaded 4.4.4.3 from my old software folder in the hope all the stored cities etc would be there
but they are not and I dont understand why.  What is the reason for this misbehaviour, you have not oferred an explanation?

Simon

[Kirk Baker]

Simon,

They are- I reloaded 4.4.4.3 from my old software folder in the hope all the stored cities etc would be there
but they are not and I dont understand why.  What is the reason for this misbehaviour, you have not oferred an explanation?

The lists of cities are stored in your preferences file.  I don't know why they were lost.  If you want more hands-on support, please call 503-531-8430.  Only so much can be done via these forums.  Our support staff is very knowledgeable and helpful.

-Kirk

[Simon DTW]

Given that I could track this folder down is there a way to re-load it into the program - I cannot see any import options? 

Thanks for the support number but I cannot afford to ring the states from England.

Simon

[Kirk Baker]

Given that I could track this folder down is there a way to re-load it into the program - I cannot see any import options? 

Thanks for the support number but I cannot afford to ring the states from England.

If you don't have a backup of your home folder, then it is likely lost.  In the Library/Preferences folder in your home folder is a file named com.camerabits.PhotoMechanic.plist and this is where your preferences are stored.

-Kirk

[Simon DTW]

Yes I have found this but they just contain the most recent prefs.  You would need to be running a script to back up your home folder every few minutes to catch the prefs and it would not be needed if PM didnt crash and burn them in the first place.

simon

[Kirk Baker]

Simon,

Yes I have found this but they just contain the most recent prefs.  You would need to be running a script to back up your home folder every few minutes to catch the prefs and it would not be needed if PM didnt crash and burn them in the first place.

I am sorry your data was lost.

-Kirk

[dbrouse]

Simon-

I feel your pain...I lost (2) hard drives in January (nothing to do with PM) but I lost ALL my data.  Anyway, it caused me to implement a full back-up plan where I now do an incremental back-up EVERY night to an external Hard Drive.  I use SuperDuper

http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescription.html to accomplish this...

While a crash and burn at any time is a horrible thing, we can't blame CameraBits for our own lack of a back-up strategy.  It's our responsibility to make sure that we have multiple copies of those things that are valuable to us.  In this case, your preferences were valuable.  I know this is "after the fact", but it's the truth.

Good luck...

Delane



 

[Photo_op]

Delane-

Would you be willing to share your settings for the backup procedure you use with SuperDuper. I currently use it to backup my entire disk in the event of a total failure, but would be ineterested in your procedure for an incremental backup of photos.

Thanks in advance,

Dave

[dbrouse]

I have an 160GB hard drive in my MacBook Pro and a (160 GB) external drive as well. 

I just use the SuperDupers "Smart Update", it makes the external drive identical (and bootable) to my start-up drive....it's schedule for EVERY day at 1:50 AM...Smart Update mimics "Erase, then copy" but typically takes only a fraction of the time (it's an incremental backup)

Did this answer your question?

Delane

[jjlists123]

You would need to be running a script to back up your home folder every few minutes to catch the prefs and it would not be needed if PM didnt crash and burn them in the first place.

Simon, I understand the issues you are having, and this is exactly why everyone says to backup your computer data EVERYDAY.
It's not a PM issue, it's an digital data issue.  Think what would happen if your lost your drive of JPG files?  Even with perfectly 100% stable software, you run the risk of hardware failures. Hard drives only last a few years.

Yes it's a time consuming pain... but full backups are the only way to keep your computer data safe.

[Junebug]

Not caused by PM but by two hard drive failures at different times.

Both times I was very lucky.

Two Mac programs saved me.

1. I used SuperDuper to back up a failing drive in a Powerbook and it worked.

2. A program called DejaVu has been my biggest life saver and insurance. It backs up different folders or work areas on different drives "Daily, Weekly and Monthly" per parameters that you easily set up.

I'm sorry about your loss too.

Jb.

[danielmiller]

Similar to Mr. White, I have also recently started to see PM 4.5 randomly crash immediately after dropping a folder of images on the dock icon. Luckily the crash reporter has worked every time (roughly 4x) and I suffered no loss of preferences. At this point it's simply an annoyance to have to re-launch the app.

I believe the problem started after the recent Quicktime and Security Update 2007-004 (PowerPC) 1.1 updates.

12" 1.5GHz Powerbook
1.25GB DDR
MAC OS X 10.4.9

Hope this helps.

-Daniel Miller
University Photographer
The University of Toledo

[Kirk Baker]

Daniel,

Similar to Mr. White, I have also recently started to see PM 4.5 randomly crash immediately after dropping a folder of images on the dock icon. Luckily the crash reporter has worked every time (roughly 4x) and I suffered no loss of preferences. At this point it's simply an annoyance to have to re-launch the app.

I believe the problem started after the recent Quicktime and Security Update 2007-004 (PowerPC) 1.1 updates.

12" 1.5GHz Powerbook
1.25GB DDR
MAC OS X 10.4.9

Please try the 4.5.1 beta, it should solve your crashing issue.  Visit the Announcements section for the download link.

-Kirk