Mac users please advise.

My new tenant has been having horrendous problems with crashes, lag, and inventory loss for the last 3 days. I have spent 22 hours online trying to advise her. I tried everything I knew and asked for advice from very expereinced SL-ers, even had a live chat with lindens (who suggested that she remove all her Huds, clothes, shoes and hair.)

I have just logged off, very frustrated, as she just told me that her Mac has a magnetic connection to the socket in the wall, which keeps falling off. I never heard of such a silly connection. Is this likely to be a genuine problem please? Every other problem has baffled me but I am faintly annoyed about this one...
Best wishes from Ainee Kohime

The power cable sticks to the socket on the computer magnetically instead of the traditional push-in connector. It falls off when you pull on it, instead of bending and breaking like a traditional connector. It does not have anything to do with her problems.

Ok, so is it likely to have been coming loose or falling off every 30 mins or so? And every time it does, it crashes her? I really would like to understand if this could have been causing all the lag, losses, and crashing. Thank you for replying!

Best wishes from Ainee

Unless she is moving the computer around, it shouldn't be coming loose at all. Perhaps she needs an extension cord? If it just falls off sitting there, she should call Apple about getting a replacement power supply.

I can't imagine why that would cause her MacBook to crash. Does the battery hold a charge? She might want to look into the Macbook & Macbook Pro Battery update program:

http://www.apple.com/support/macbook_macbookpro/batteryupdate/

They'll replace defective batteries if that's a problem.

Which MacBook is she using? An older MacBook or MacBook Air is going to lag badly becuse if the crappy Intel graphics they use.

I assume she's cleared the cache and tried backing up then deleting the Second Life files in the Application Support folder?

Well, that is the type of connection on some of the newer MacBook or MacBook Pro *laptops*. A desktop system has no magnetic connection, but rather has the same type of power cord as on a Windows PC.

Normally, that magnet is VERY strong, and it would never just "fall off". The power cord would have to be under stress, or the magnetic connection may have been damaged. While she should take the Mac to an authorized repair center, it is extremely unlikely that this, by itself, would "crash her", as the laptop's battery should take over seamlessly. So it sounds like her battery also needs to be replaced.

There are several known problems with some of the older MacBooks, and with certain graphics cards in certain models of Mac laptops. Get her system specs: Have her start SL, and on the Help menu, choose "About Second Life" and copy the block of text in the top half of that dialog, which will give us specifics to work with about the version of SL she is running and the specs for her Mac model, memory, graphics card and drivers.

Also have her choose "About this Mac" from her Apple menu, and note down the Mac OS version, Processor, and Memory information that displays.

Have her make sure her draw distance is set to the minimum, 64.

I think my little magnetic plug is pretty darn cute, never had any problem with it. The magnet is strong and makes a strong secure connection, unlike standards plugs that can wiggle loose.

She might wanna take her MacBook to an Apple store and have it looked at. I know two people who had similar problems and while I was in the Apple store the other day, someone else came in with this type of thing too. He had even looked at it all himself, being a techie, and couldn't figure out why.

I have a Mac and this doesn't happen to me with SL, I do get crashes/freezes but that's more to do with not enough RAM, after a while anything I run does that, not only SL. I do get the shadow-av problem though, which seems common for the vid card most Macs use.

HTH

Thank you for all your advice. I have heard back from my tenant, and she says:

(responding to: Also have her choose "About this Mac" from her Apple menu, and note down the Mac OS version, Processor, and Memory information that displays.)

processor 2.4 ghz intel core 2 duo
memory 2 GB 667 MHZ DDR2 SDRAM
Mac OSX version 10.5.6
Model Name: MacBook Pro
Model Identifier: MacBookPro3,1
Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed: 2.4 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache: 4 MB
Memory: 2 GB
Bus Speed: 800 MHz
Boot ROM Version: MBP31.0070.B07
SMC Version: 1.16f10
Serial Number: W874400UX92
Sudden Motion Sensor:
State: Enabled

...and the cord comes out when i move to answer my telephone totally my fault- and I often fail to notice until the battery goes down- normal battery life.
I don't understand how to back up second life.

I do not know the answer to the last query myself, but I do hope that you will be able to help her!
Best wishes from Ainee Kohime

Her MacBook Pro laptop specs sound a little faster then mine. Which runs SL fine.

Is she using Airport wireless to connect to the internet? I do so all of the time (even though LL doesn't recommend it) and do not experience the kind of problems you described unless I have a very weak wireless connection. i.e. I get too far away from the Airport base station. I normally show about 3 bars of signal strength on the little icon in the menu bar, 4 bars is the maximum.

Otherwise I'd be inclined to think she has a poor connection through her internet provider.

It sounds like "crash" means "I keep disconnecting the power cord from the computer, then run the battery all the way down, and the computer shuts off". That doesn't sound like a Macintosh problem. Lag might be due to network problems, since her computer is fully capable of running SL; maybe she is just barely getting wireless service from her neighbor's house or something sometimes? (Does she know how to connect to the network she's supposed to be on?) Inventory loss is a normal feature of Second Life, but perhaps she's just confused about how to use SL and is "losing" her objects in the folders?

Doesn't sound like a Macintosh problem...

I've met people who have a laptop with wireless and didn't understand that you need a service to go with it. They just figured it was in the air most places they went, and honestly did not realize it was people's networks. They thought buying a laptop with wireless was like buying a phone, and that the service was included. After all, it costs a lot!

Is she using the very latest SL client? I just switched to it and noticed a significant improvement right away, faster rezzing of textures and less lag. The client will lower the default suggested graphics quality to "mid" from "high" because of the reality that these MacBooks can't handle the SL graphics as well as they should. The only setting I have overridden this time around, so far, is the draw distance, and then only to 128.

Has she updated to the latest OSX? She should be running 10.5.6 (or the latest 10.4.x build).
There is an issue with 10.5.5 that makes SL almost unusable - at least that was my case (with an earlier SL client).

And, lastly, she might want to install this: smcfancontrol
http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/23049

This app will boost the fan on the PowerBook, keeping the computer cooler. I cannot recommend this enough.

Apple calls it "MagSafe". It's a Lindenesque hysterical overreaction to Apple's previous connector, which was a concentric pair of barrels that was notoriously fragile. Instead of going to a conventional single barrel connector like everyone else in the world, Apple decided to do something that was "cool".

My Macbook Pro has one. I've never broken the power connector on a laptop, nor have I ever pulled my laptop off the table by the power cord, but have I had the "Mag Unsafe" connector come loose? Oh boy have I ever.

Damn, I wish I could legitimately run OS X on a Thinkpad.

I use both a MacBook Pro and an iMac desktop. One runs 10.5.6 and the other runs 10.4.9. Regardless of which OS I'm using, I am constantly disconnected from the servers. This is a freeze, not a crash (I wish people would specify more clearly; to some, everything is a "crash".) The problem has been around ever since I joined SL 2 years ago and the last few days, since I updated to the new client, have been even worse. I'm lucky if I can stay online more than an hour or so. My friends have got used to me disappearing without warning. Yesterday I froze immediately on login.

I put the blame partly on Comcast, who throttles the bandwidth connection as soon as they believe you are downloading too much data. The other blame is probably on the SL Mac client, which doesn't seem to handle a loss of connection very gracefully. A longer time-out would be useful (is there some way to set that?)

I have searched the knowledgebase and these forums several times and could never find a good solution to the problem. The knowledge base explains what the problem is but offers no way to resolve it. Comcast, of course, is completely unresponsive and unsympathetic, and in our neighborhood we have no other broadband options. They are a monopoly here.

It's very frustrating. It would be a good idea to find out from your tenant whether she's really experiencing a crash, or whether the problem is the disconnect freeze. There's a big difference. I have only had the SL client actually crash once or twice, and that was over a year ago with one of the much older Mac clients.

Thank you all! I think Paladin may have pinned it down, as she is visibly freezing, not disappearing offline as though she was 'really' crashing. I shall pass on all this helpful advice, and leave her to sort it out, lol! She just told me that she does not like to bother doing research, and I replied, rather tartly, that for some things, you really DO have to do it yourself!

I must admit, all this has NOT made me want to rush out and buy a Mac.... No doubt Mac's faithful defenders will rush in now, with swords waving, LOL!

Best wishes from Ainee Kohime

I use SL on both PCs and Macs, and have no trouble with either platform.

You'll probably find exactly the same proportion of horror stories from PC, Mac and Linux users.

Why buy a Mac (or, more appropriately these days, MacOS) when you can have Linux for free?

Because you can run UNIX software on the Mac, but you can't run Mac software on Linux.

People buy computers to do things, not to win the megahertz sweeps. I'm a UNIX geek from the dark ages before TCP/IP was invented, and I use a Mac because I just don't want to have to care about loading the right versions of 37 obscure libraries and recompiling any more.

Because you want something that works and isn't proactively user hostile?