Snow Leopard Bug Responsible for Loss of User Data Gaining Notice [Updated]

Major bug in Snow Leopard deletes all user data

Reports have been cropping up on the Apple Support forums that users have been losing all their data due to a nasty bug in Snow Leopard, Apple's latest Operating System. Many users are reporting that all settings are being reset and most data is gone, according to iTWire.

The problem, can easily be reproduced when a user logs into the 'guest' account, either on purpose or by accident, and when they log back out of the account and back into their normal one, they find that their account has been fully reset with all data wiped and lost - the account is like a brand new one. The home directory still exists under "/Users/username" but is completely empty.

Users are reporting that the data is unrecoverable and cannot be found anywhere on the hard drive, and the only way to restore it is if the user has been performing backups on a separate hard-drive. Apparently the problem has been present since a few days after launch, as the forum post dates back to 12th September, but as of yet, Apple has been silent.

It seems the only work around at this stage is to disable the Guest account, or at least disable it and then re-enabling it so that it's a native Snow Leopard account. Another suggestion is to create a new account and enforce parental controls, if you really need a temporary account.

It's not clear how many users are affected, but it seems like any user who had Leopard before the upgrade, and had the guest account enabled are affected and are at risk.

News source: Neowin.net

How did that bug slip past Apple's QA, and why hasn't it been fixed yet?

tested on my own machine (10.6.1). Files are still in tact.

*********. That's not good :eek:

There's no reason for anyone to go any where near a guest account on my system, but I'm gonna make sure it's disabled anyway.

Can you imagine the outcry if Windows was doing this?

I'm sorry I'm going to have to call BS on this one, or else extremely isolated. Not only can I not reproduce the problem on either snow leopard machine I have in front of me but I'm sure we would have seen something on engadget or macrumors much earlier.

Machine: 17" MacBook Pro - first model introduced with Intel
• I installed Snow Leopard and my hard drive icon disappeared off the desktop.
• Then I noticed degradation of performance of routine tasks (click and drag, opening files)
• next programs started to lock up; machine turned to molasses
• text entry for anything (email, Word, etc.) limited to 6-8 characters then lockup for 15-30 seconds, sometimes longer
• searched for applications folder and it was missing
• went into time machine: apps folder missing
• went back as far as I could (11 months) and found only original apps file, but could not restore them by any means, starting with simple Time Machine restoration
• AFter three failed attempts at Time Machine restoration, I blanked the drive and reinstalled Leopard 10.5.8 and restored some of my programs, but now my iPhoto has gone missing.
• reinstalled twice, same result
• basic functions of other programs and operating system okay, but with iPhoto disappearing, I'm more than a little uneasy.

Question: what now?
:confused:
teekayess

Machine: 17" MacBook Pro - first model introduced with Intel
• I installed Snow Leopard and my hard drive icon disappeared off the desktop.

Just a feature. If you'd have taken a look around, you'd have noticed you simply have to turn that back on from the Finder's preferences.

• Then I noticed degradation of performance of routine tasks (click and drag, opening files)
• next programs started to lock up; machine turned to molasses
• text entry for anything (email, Word, etc.) limited to 6-8 characters then lockup for 15-30 seconds, sometimes longer
• searched for applications folder and it was missing
• went into time machine: apps folder missing
• went back as far as I could (11 months) and found only original apps file, but could not restore them by any means, starting with simple Time Machine restoration
• AFter three failed attempts at Time Machine restoration, I blanked the drive and reinstalled Leopard 10.5.8 and restored some of my programs, but now my iPhoto has gone missing.
• reinstalled twice, same result
• basic functions of other programs and operating system okay, but with iPhoto disappearing, I'm more than a little uneasy.

Question: what now?
:confused:
teekayess

The rest of that sounds like a failing hard drive, though it doesn't explain the backups not being there (assuming they really weren't there and that you weren't just not finding them). It would make sense with the failed restore from backups as well.

jW

Thanks for the tip on the "feature" . . . but if the apps were there, then clicking the icon for something, say a Word file, would still produce the program, yes? Five days ago the apps file was visible, as was my hard drive icon (though not after second Snow Leopard installation).

But the degradation got to the point where nothing would even mount.

All I got was a string of question marks in my dock, no apps file, and nothing would work. When I would click on a Word document or photoshop document, I would get a message saying: No application designated for this action (or something along those lines), so I would search, and no applications were available. After Time Machine restore at three different dates (one ten days ago, one three months ago, and one from the beginning eleven months ago--in that order) no apps, nothing would work.

DAta files, however, seem to be intact (unlike those of several friends who have lost everything). Except of course for iPhoto files which have disappeared.

Any other suggestions?

As you can see I"m a user, not a tech person, and I am sitting in Bangladesh, several thousand miles from able technicians in Singapore (in spite of the "authorized Apple reseller" here in Dhaka).

cheers,
teekayess
17" MacBook Pro, 2.16 GHz, 2 GB 6p67 MHz DDR2 SDRAM, etc.

One of the articles I read alluded to the problem being related to an upgrade and not a clean install.

Such that the guest account was not a "native Snow Leopard account."

http://www.neowin.net/news/main/09/10/11/major-bug-in-snow-leopard-deletes-all-user-data

As always, users should be backing up their data. If it's not important enough to backup, it's okay for it to be deleted.

Thanks, this is great to know. Just disabled guest account though it has never been used and I did a clean install and have two backups but it would be another few hours if my data will get deleted