Bug posts

Snow Leopard kills popular Mail plugin

by John Burke Sep 3rd 2009

The release of Snow Leopard has come with it's fair share of problems and compatability issues. Whether it's because the app does not run in 64-bit or is as simple as a few new lines of code, developers have been busy working up quick fixes and solutions. One such horror story comes from a popular Mail plugin called WideMail.

For those of you unfamiliar, WideMail offers a range of customizations for Mail including the ability to have messages appear in vertical columns as opposed to the default "over under" view we're used to. The plugin also offers custom display settings like altering the color of messages, choosing what text to display in your inbox and spacing our your messages for a less cluttered look.

During beta testing of Snow Leopard, the developer promised the app would work but unfortunately, the final release of Snow Leopard has totally disabled the incompatible plugin. The developer is working on a fix now and one should (hopefully) be available soon.

Tags: Bug, incompatibility, Mail, Snow Leopard, SnowLeopard, WideMail

Filed under: OS Updates, Windows, Microsoft

Showstopper chkdsk bug set to derail Windows 7 launch? Hardly.

by Lee Mathews Aug 5th 2009

Earlier today, reports were flying all around the blogosphere about a critical, holy-crap-its-the-apocalypse bug that had been uncovered in the Windows 7 RTM.

The bug happens when running chkdsk - which becomes RAM-hungry under certain specific circumstances, gets all crazy-like, then causes a BSOD (which I argue is more like a feature of Windows than a bug). Chris123NT posted the news yesterday on his blog, but it took a few hours for the sensationalism to begin. A post at InfoWorld said the bug "risks derailing the Windows 7 product launch."

Oh, crap! We're all in trouble! Or are we?

As it turns out, the only way this really qualifies as a "showstopper" is by virtue of the fact that Ed Bott had to stop what he was doing to show people why it's not. Here's a brief summary:

The bug only occurs when running chkdsk /R on a non-system drive. The /R? That's to recover data from damaged sectors and relocate it.
That being the case, single-drive, single partition systems (like 90% of those I repair on a daily basis) are immune to the bug.
To pull off the chkdsk /r you first have to run an elevated command prompt (which most users won't know how to do), then ignore the warning about the drive being locked, then allow the entire check to complete.
The InfoWorld post admits that the author "did not succeed in causing the systems to "blue screen" as others have reported." System did slow to a crawl due to lack of available RAM, but there was no Earth-shattering kaboom.
Reports of this happening when a removable drive is inserted have been greatly exaggerated. When Windows asks if you want to scan and fix? Nothing bad happens.

Tags: blue-screen-of-death, bsod, bug, bugs, chkdsk, errors, windows-7-rtm

Filed under: Security, Office, Adobe

Adobe Acrobat bug more dangerous than originally thought

by Lee Mathews Mar 5th 2009

The Adobe Acrobat vulnerability that was reported here back on February 20th remains unpatched, and it now appears that the risk the bug presents is even greater than originally thought.

Because of the way Adobe integrates into Windows explorer - to provide metadata information about PDF files - there is a chance that your system could become infected without ever opening a single file. Since the bug's code can be placed within a file's metadata, any action that calls that data could set things in motion. That includes something as simple as hovering your mouse over the file icon, according to Obsessable's Stephen Schenck.

In the original post, I suggested using an alternative application to read files, but that won't fully address the vulnerability. To be completely safe, you'll have to remove Adobe Reader (and presumably, Acrobat as well) from your system for the time being and reinstall it once Adobe has developed a patch.

[ via Obsessable ]

Tags: adobe-reader, bug, danger, error, vulnerability

Filed under: OS Updates, Windows, Microsoft, Beta, Windows x64

Installers and updates crashing in Windows 7? Here's your fix.

by Lee Mathews Jan 20th 2009

Despite all the shouting about Windows 7 being good enough to run as an every day OS, here's another reminder that there's still work to be done.

Many users are reporting crashes during install operations, including Windows Update. Rafael Rivera of Within Windows has found the issue arises from a problem with the Software Quality Management Client. How ironic.

The problem only seems to occur when machine throttling is enabled in the registry and when the Customer Experience Improvement Program is running.

If you've experienced this problem, Microsoft has a workaround. Open regedit, navigate to HKLM\Software\Microsoft\SQMClient\Windows\DisabledSessions and delete anything other than the default value.

If you don't see the MachineThrottling value, run gpedit.msc and click Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > System > Internet Communication Management > Internet Communication Settings and double click Turn off Windows Customer Experience Improvement Program. Tick enable and click on OK.

Don't forget to submit your bugs via the Send Feedback tool. If you're excited about the Windows 7 beta you've been using, you may as well take a few seconds now and then to help improve it!

[ via NeoWin ]

Tags: bug, crash, msi, windows-7, windows-installer, workaround

Filed under: Internet, Troubleshooting

Sitemeter bug takes down thousands of web sites (for Internet Explorer users)

by Brad Linder Aug 2nd 2008

Thousands of web sites are currently inaccessible to Internet Explorer 5.5, 6, and 7 users thanks to a new Sitemeter bug. Sitemeter is a free web analytics service used by many popular blogs and web sites including Lifehacker, Gizmodo, and Consumerist. They all appear to be affected as of this morning. It's worth noting that the bug only affects Internet Explorer users. The web sites load just fine in Firefox, Safari, and Opera.

It's likely that the bug is due to tracking code changes Sitemeter has been rolling out. Visitors to web sites using the code who are using IE will see the page start to load, and then get an error message. When you click OK to make the error message go away, the entire site goes with it. Nice.

If your site has been affected it looks like you have two options. You can either remove the code altogether until Sitemeter gets its act together, or you can try modifying your code by using the plain HTML version instead of the Javascript version. If you take the latter route, your counter won't show up thanks to another bug, but at least it will continue tracking visits to your site.

Thanks Darren Paul!

Update: It looks like the bug has been fixed.

Tags: bug, crash, outage, sitemeter, web-analytics

Filed under: Security, Utilities, Linux, Mozilla

SSL Blacklist Extension 1.0 for Firefox

by Drew Olanoff May 29th 2008

There's been a lot of discussion about a Debian bug going around.

The bug affects SSL certificates on servers, which means visiting a compromised server could leave your info in the open, without you having the faintest idea.

Here's a quick rundown:

"All RSA & DSA keypairs generated with OpenSSL on affected systems (any Debian-based system between roughly Sep-17-2006 and May-13-2008) are trivial to guess. The fix is not so simple. After updating OpenSSL on an affected system, you need to figure out if any of your crypto keys are affected." [...] "You need to regenerate all such keys and replace your SSL certificates as well. "

That's all very techy, but if you're running a Debian server, you know exactly what's up.

Now there's a handy Firefox extension that will alert you when visiting a potentially compromised site. The extension works a little magic in the background to determine if the SSL certificate you're trusting to keep your transaction safe is one which could be dangerous, thus giving you a little added protection from the rough and ragged world of cybercrime.

You can download it here.

[via codefromthe70s]

Tags: bug, debian, extension, firefox, linux

Filed under: Internet, Security, Blogging, Open Source, Social Software

Wordpress 2.3.2 released to squash "Urgent" bug, adds a new feature

by Jason Harris Dec 31st 2007

The hard working folks at WordPress.org have not taken the holidays off. In fact, news broke on Friday of a bug that allowed a would-be hacker access to future, draft, and pending posts.

But WordPress.org has unleashed WordPress 2.3.2 and has labeled the update an "Urgent Security Release". If you are the purveyor of a WordPress blog, we'd suggest you run right out and update. To get the latest version of WordPress, head over to their download page and install the update.

As an added bonus, WordPress 2.3.2 allows you to define your own custom Database Error Page. At last. No more canned page that screams "I don't know how to configure MySQL"!

We say thanks to WordPress.org for responding quickly to bugs reported just a few days ago!

Tags: bloggiing, bug, security, wordpress

Filed under: Fun, Internet, Unix

The world ends on January 19, 2038: thanks Unix!

by Danny Mendez Dec 23rd 2007

If you thought the Y2K bug had a lot of world ending potential, you might want to skip this post right now. If we don't blow ourselves up by 2038, the end of the world is going to have little to do with nukes and a lot to do with Unix because Unix systems can't keep track of the date past January 19, 2038.

According to Y2K38.info, Unix keeps track of the date and time using a four byte integer that represents the number of seconds past January 1, 1970. The integer can only get so big before having to restart from zero. If a machine can't restart it's time, which may be the case for many Unix systems, it will crash. Hackosis confirms this problem has the potential to affect Linux boxes too. Unfortunately, machines running on *nix operating systems act as the backbone for much of the cyber-world, meaning we may see anything from planes falling out of the sky to the internet shutting down when this hits.

Are you scared yet? Probably not, and neither are we. 2038 is far, far away, and it's very unlikely that we'll be using the same technology for pretty much anything when the year comes. Also, there's way too much money to be lost to a simple little bug, and no company's going to stand by and let that happen. Finally, keep in mind that Y2K38.info has been around since before the year 2000, meaning the author wrote much of the content on the site without seeing the results of the Y2K bug. However, the site is still up, so the author must believe it's still a problem. For those interested, the site is headlined by a countdown timer in binary, decimal, and date forms, which are definitely worth checking out if you're into ones and zeros.

Tags: bug, end of the world, EndOfTheWorld, trojan, unix, virus, world's end, World'sEnd, y2k, y2k38

Filed under: Office, Microsoft

Microsoft fixes Excel 2007 calculation bug

by Brad Linder Oct 10th 2007

Call us silly, but one of the things we've come to expect from spreadsheet applications is accurate math. But a few weeks ago a number of users started reporting that there was a bug in Microsoft Excel 2007 that caused the number 100,000 to pop up any time you entered an equation that should have equaled 65,535 or 65,536. For example, 850 x 77.1 = 100,000.

As it turns out, if you perform other functions on that cell, Excel will spit out the correct numbers. But on-screen it displays the wrong number.

Two weeks later, Microsoft has issued a fix for Excel 2007, and the 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Excel Services 2007. The update will eventually be pushed to Excel 2007 users through Windows Update. But if you want to download it now, you can download the appropriate update from Microsoft.

[via Digital Inspiration]

Tags: bug, excel, spreadsheet

Filed under: Office, Microsoft

Excel 2007 can't do math (unless 850 * 77.1 = 100,000)

by Brad Linder Sep 25th 2007

While some members of the Download Squad team may be math whizzes, some are lucky if they can find the Windows calculator. But once it's up and running, we're pretty sure that when you multiply 850 by 77.1, the answer should be 65,535. But for some reason when you perform the same calculation using Microsoft Excel 2007, you get 100,000.

Now, 100,000 is a nice round number. Generally speaking, we like it. But in this particular instance it's wrong. And that's not something we like to see in a spreadsheet application. As it turns out, any time you enter an equation that should result in 65,535, you'll get 100,000.

Microsoft has been made aware of the problem and is developing a fix. But it's a bit surprising that the software's been on the shelves as long as it has been without anyone discovering this flaw. Anyone find any other calculations that come up wrong?

[via AppScout]

Tags: bug, excel, excel-2007, multiplication

Filed under: Business, Internet, Video, Web services, Apple

QuickTime vulnerability patched

by Chris Gilmer Jan 30th 2007

Woops, seems like our friends at Apple had left a back door open for hackers to enter through QuickTime. It seems like no matter what companies do, hackers always find a way to penetrate and drop harmful code in. Don't worry, Apple has it fixed now with a patch, but the issue in question stemmed from a concern about a buffer overflow. When QuickTime processes a Real Time Streaming Protocol URL it directs the player to a streaming file, and allows the user to play and pause the file. During the buffer overflow, a hacker could have penetrated through a malicious RTSP URL embedded into a web page that would open a door to run code on the user's machine.

You can grab the patch now at Apple's download page, or through the Apple Software Update service.

Tags: apple, bug, downloads, hacker, itunes, rtsp, streaming, url

Filed under: OS Updates, Security, Windows, Microsoft, Commercial

Hackers: 6, Vista: 0

by Jordan Running Dec 27th 2006

About a month after the business release of Windows Vista, and a month before its consumer release, hackers and security researchers have uncovered at least six major security flaws in Microsoft's brand new operating system, the New York Times is reporting. Among flaws discovered are one that allows malicious sites to install malware on a victim's computer and one that allows user permissions to be altered on a corporate network, which could allow malware to be installed without authorization. In addition, one Japanese hacker is offering to sell Vista security flaws for $50,000.

I'm not sure whether Microsoft will have a chance to update Vista before it ships to consumers on January 31, or whether they will package fixes as mandatory updates that will be installed as soon as a new Vista PC connects to the internet. Or whether they'll just plug their ears and continue to proclaim that Vista is the most secure OS ever.

[Via Monkey Bites via Street Tech]

Tags: bug, bugs, microsoft, security, vista, vulnerability, windows, windows vista, WindowsVista

Filed under: OS Updates, Security, News, Windows, Macintosh, Apple, Microsoft, Commercial

January 2007: Month of Apple Bugs

by Ryan Carter Dec 22nd 2006

I hate to be the one to bring down fire and brimstone from Apple users upon my head, but I must venture under the torrid sky for a few moments. Through some carefully placed corporate propaganda in no small number of places, Apple has tried (rather successfully) to convince its users that Mac OS is impervious and invincible, while the company we love to hate (Microsoft) continues to wallow in its own filth and bug-infested software. Apple has been painting a very pretty picture of late, but their rose-colored glasses may start to turn a shade of orangish-pink come 2007. In January, two security researchers plan to reveal a bug in OS X or in an OS X application every day of the month that has previously been undocumented. Now, before you all put on the spandex suits and burn this blog down with your flame-throwers, this is honestly a good thing for Apple and Mac ~~users~~ lovers everywhere. My tiny little point here is that Macs are NOT perfect, and that Apple is over-selling the idea just a bit too much. Anyone who really knows a Mac can tell you that there are vulnerabilities in a Mac. They most likely won't tell you that, lest Mr. Steve have their head on an Apple-logo laser-etched platter. NO matter what brand of non-sense you buy, it will be interesting to see how Apple responds to these guys and their security research sanctioned fault-finding. That is if Apple doesn't throw them under a bus first. If and when these guys find the vulnerabilities they claim are there, it will make OS X better for all Macdom. It will be interesting to see how well Apple does damage control, since Microsoft is usually the one doing that. I guess you could call it "a-bug-a-day."

Tags: apple, bug, microsoft, operating systems, OperatingSystems, OS X, OsX, steve jobs, SteveJobs, windows

Filed under: Developer, Internet, Windows, Macintosh, Web services, Microsoft, Mozilla, Browser Tips

Firefox and its little bug

by Chris Gilmer Nov 7th 2006

It's not very often that you hear of a bug attack with Firefox. A new little bug popped up in the newly released Firefox 2.0. It's only the second one though, so no biggie, it is a new version, and little things like this can happen. The newest Firefox bug can cause the browser to crash if the webpage a user is visiting has been intentionally coded to target the bug via JavaScript. The initial bug in Firefox that was found also caused the browser to crash when an extremely large document loaded into an iframe. There has been no release from Mozilla stating when a fix will be in place. Firefox 2.0, and IE7 have been under the microscope since their recent launches, with bystanders waiting patiently at the sidelines wondering which new browser they should test the waters with first.

Yes, that is an actual picture of what a Firefox bug looks like when code is zoomed up on at 598,005,002 X.

Tags: 2.0, browser, bug, code, firefox, ie, ie7, javascript

Filed under: Developer, Internet, Web services, Microsoft, Browser Tips

CSS changes in IE7

by Chris Gilmer Oct 27th 2006

My biggest issue with Internet Explorer has always been the way that it renders CSS. Like come on! Why does it have to have so many issues? On a side note, thanks for having so many issues, because I would have never found Firefox. Anyway, I know Microsoft must have known about the issues, and I know that they knew about web standards, and of course the W3C CSS standards, but why not just put a fix into place? It took this recent release of Internet Explorer 7 to fix the whole CSS thing. There have been a number of great fixes from Microsoft in CSS, here is a list:

Peekaboo Bug
Internet Explorer and Expanding Box Problem
Quirky Percentages
Line-height bug
Border Chaos
Disappearing List-Background bug
Guillotine Bug
Unscrollable Content bug
Duplicate Characters Bug
IE and Italics
Doubled Float-Margin bug
Duplicate Indent bug
Three pixel text jog
Creeping Text bug
Missing First letter bug
Phantom box bug

For a complete list of CSS fixes, check out the MSDN blog. I'm impressed with their move to be more standards compliant.

Tags: browser, bug, css, fixes, ie7, internet explorer, InternetExplorer, microsoft, msn, w3c

The World's Hardest Game 2.0 - Time Waster

So, just how good at time waster games are you? Think you've got the stuff? Well, The World's Hardest Game 2.0 doesn't think you do. Yes, amazingly, it's possible to have a sequel to a game called "The World's Hardest Game". It doesn't seem logically possible, since if the first one was actually the world's hardest, how could another one come along and share the moniker? It made me doubt the name in the first place. That is, until I tried the game. The mechanics of the game are very simple. You are a small red square, ...

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