If Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) is behaving strangely for you, you’re not alone. Per CNET, a number of users have reported that Mac OS X 10.6 (as well as 10.6.1) will spontaneously log out of their account in the middle of using applications. The issue does not appear to be related to specific applications running as users have reported it happening while using Excel, Word, Safari, Photoshop, and Filemaker Pro among others. Most guesses have the problem related to Rosetta running on the new operating system, though an official fix has yet to be reported.
Over on the Apple Support Discussions, forum poster “Stu Baker” writes:
“I am having spontaneous logouts while I am in Snow Leopard. This is happening a couple times a day and it is very annoying. When it logs out it instantly goes to a blue screen and then the login screen appears. When I log back in all my apps have quit and it is like I am logging in for the first time. I did have this happen in Leopard too, but very rarely.”
One forum poster suggested a complete erase and install of Snow Leopard. If you’re going to attempt this, make sure you have all your data backed up to a safe location, if not a Time Machine archive on an external disk to make setup that much easier after the OS is installed.
If you’ve seen this issue on your end, please let us know.
12 replies on “Some Snow Leopard Users Complain of Spontaneous Logouts”
Yep. I think it is a crash of the OS but instead of locking up the entire system and having to do a hard restart it crashes and logs you out.
It is way better than a hard restart.
this happened to me at work for awhile, under leopard, and the problem seemed to be a bug with MS Entourage (big surprise there).
It happens to me and I was able to pin it down to Entourage.
I’ve been using Leopard since the first week it came out, and Snow Leopard since the first day.
I’ve not seen this issue at all. As a matter of fact, it has worked flawlessly since being installed, and I installed Leopard as an erase and install. Snow Leopard was an upgrade.
Seen the same problem on our Mac Pro since we upgraded to Snow Leopard. Has happen with Word 2004, Excel 2004, Photoshop CS2.
I use SL on a MacBook Air.
This problem happens frequently when I use AppleWorks.
If I do a save using the keyboard keys (command + S), I have the problem frequently.
However, this doesn’t happen when I save from the top menu.
GO FIGURE…
this happened to me trying to update scanner drivers for my hp all in one
Happened to me for the first — and, hopefully, only — time yesterday. I was downloading the 9.0.1 update to iTunes. I think the power went off and SL logged right out. Interestingly enough, when I logged back in and ran Software Update, it said all my software was up to date even though the iTunes 9.0.1 had not even downloaded completely. Then, when I started Firefox, I got a message saying a copy of Firefox was already running and that I could only run one copy at a time. When I clicked “OK” on the message, Firefox quite. Relaunching Firefox gave the same message. I shut down the computer and restarted and Firefox worked just fine.
Have had this problem occur quite a few times since upgrading my Mac Mini to Snow Leopard.
its almost like the original apple ad, where I was editing that great Excel spreadsheet with complicated formulas, then poof it was all gone! complete reset, it ate up my work :(.
Yep happend to me 3-4 times while using Microsoft excel. all native 10.6 apps seem to be fine.
I had the logout problem, but it hasn’t reoccurred since I uninstalled Kensington Mouseworks software. I’ve seen related threads on other sites that link the problem to Excel. It is a nasty problem when it occurs because you lose what you were working on.
The problem is also exacerbated by the system’s inability to report the problem to Apple. The crash report cannot be sent.