Snow Leopard Guest Account Bug

UPDATE 11 November, 2009: Apple states that the update to OS X 10.6.2 fixes the potential problem noted below.
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When a user has been experiencing flaky behavior in a DEVONthink application I sometimes advise logging into a Guest account to see if the problem goes away in the absence of extensions that had been installed into the User account.

This is a warning note that the Apple forums are reporting instances where all the data in the regular User account may be deleted after logging into a Guest account that had been previously established.

See appleinsider.com/articles/09 … _data.html

Apparently, this problem is triggered only when a Guest account has been previously enabled. The solution recommended by some is to deactivate any existing Guest account before logging into a new one.

Still another reason to have backups of your computer data, such as Time Machine. :}

It seems to only affect guest accounts that were enabled at the time the system was upgraded from Leopard to Snow Leopard. It seems that disabling and re-enabling the guest account fixes the problem.

According to reports the 10.6.2 patch (currently a developer feed, will be released soon) fixes the problem.

Backup IS a good idea. Multiple backups! Time Machine is nice … until you actually need to restore. I strongly recommend also having another form of backup, like SuperDuper!

I’d think you could unsticky this given it was fixed like 9 months ago, eh?

I was going to delete it a few weeks ago, but then got a Support message from someone who had just installed the OS and ran into the bug.

Probably will take it down pretty soon, though. :slight_smile: