Isolating Software Trouble
Let’s say you’re typing away in your favorite word processor and you suddenly see the wait cursor, known fondly as The Spinning Wheel of Death. The application crashes, and you lose about an hour’s worth of work because you forgot to save your document. Or, perhaps you are making a bank transaction in your favorite web browser when it freezes and you find out that your transaction was lost in the process. What do you do if you have an application that just won’t behave? Following are some questions and tips for troubleshooting a software issue:
Have you installed the latest updates for your software? If not, visit the website of the application developer and see if there are any updates.
Did the issue occur only after you installed an update (either for an application or Mac OS X)? Check with the application developer for any known issues with the update or to explain the issue you’re experiencing.
Do you experience problems with only one document? There may be an element in that particular document, such as a font or graphic, that is corrupted and causing the issue. Try creating a new document, copy and paste elements from the old document into the new ...
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