14 DAY TRIAL // A nasty bug in Apple’s latest Mac OS causes almost any app that supports text input to crash on the count of typing File: followed by three slashes.
Originally posted on the Open Radar community bug reports page, the bug appears to reside in Mountain Lion’s Data Detectors feature, which ties dates, locations, and contact data to the address book and calendar.
It’s so easy to reproduce; you can simply paste File:/// in any app that supports text – Mail, Messages, TextEdit etc. – and the app will crash without fail. I tested it in web browsers and while Firefox doesn’t crash, both Chrome and Safari will crack under the command every time.
Since both Chrome and Safari are WebKit-based, perhaps this is also a good starting point for Apple to try and address the issue.
The glitch is so annoying I can’t even type it as I’m writing this blog post. Luckily I have good old Firefox by my side to help me polish up the text before publishing.