Apple today released OSX 10.6 nicknamed Snow Leopard.

Preface: A Brand New OS Has No Place in a Production Environment

Capture Integration’s general guidance is to avoid using Operating Systems immediately upon their release on any production computer. As with any update large-or-small to a production computer we recommend you proceed only when 1) it is clear that there are no major bugs 2) you have a backup of a known-good state and 3) you have several hours to thoroughly test the new system. While Snow Leopard seems on-the-surface to be a minor OS update there are ALWAYS issues with new OS. We will be doing our own hands-on testing of Snow Leopard in the coming weeks and will report on this blog our findings. However, we know that some of you will want to try out this operating system. So here is an initial report on Capture One 4.8.2 and Snow Leopard.

Compatibility Summary

Capture One 4.8.2 is NOT compatible with Mac OS 10.6 Snow Leopard. However, the next release beyond 4.8.2 will be. In the meanwhile we can provide the following workaround.

Workaround for Experimenters

When starting Capture One for the first time on Snow Leopard (if software has not been activated and no session file exists on the computer),
If you try to go into either Standard or Pro trial mode as the first action it will crash. It will continue crashing every time you try to start the application, after the License window is dismissed.

To get around this you must first go to DB mode so that the Session file can be initialized, and then back into Trial mode. So, to break it down into easy steps:

  • Install Snow Leopard.
  • Start CO. In the License dialog choose “Use Capture One DB”, and click the “Use” button.
  • Capture One will crash. This is unavoidable. Restart it – you will start in DB mode, without seeing the License dialog.
  • Go to the Capture One->License… menu item. Choose “Try Capture One Pro” (or whichever trial mode is desired), and click “Try”.
  • Capture One will relaunch, and start in Trial mode.
  • There will be an error message about being unable to verify the license code, every time you start in Trial mode. Ignore this.

Notes:

  • Switching from Standard trial to Pro trial does not relaunch, and always starts in the original mode, always requiring another prelaunch.
  • You must switch to DB and then to the other trial mode to change.
  • You can activate the software with your product key, this works without any issues.
  • This method does not require a Phase One back. The DB software option can be started on any computer regardless of whether the owner has a Phase One back. As stated above you only need to launch the software into DB mode as a workaround to get the software to launch. After that you can run in whichever mode (Normal or Pro) you desire.

Other known issues

  • Non-image (or unsupported image) files appear in the browser. To see this in action, simply browse to the Preferences folder – all the plists are visible.
  • Process progress bar in the Process Summary tool has corrupted graphics.

If you notice other specific Snow Leopard issues you can email them to info@captureintegration.com and I will place them here once verified. However, bare in mind that Phase One KNOWS 4.8.2 is not compatible with 10.6 and the next version of Capture One will be.