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Over the last year I have upgraded both my Macs and have transferred VRPC to the new computers, and now have some months of experience of use on both, so I thought I would let others know what I have found, and highlight the major problem for me.

I have a new MacBook Pro 13.3 laptop with 2.7GHz core i7 CPU and built-in Intel graphics running OS X 10.6.8 for the moment and this seems fine and gives little trouble so far. (I'm delaying my upgrade to Lion until it has had plenty of use, feedback and solved glitches!) I have a bluetooth four button mouse with scroll wheel and have that set up to give the correct three buttons in RISC OS as well as using the fourth button set to 'Alt-Enter' so I can use it to transfer between window and full screen, and the scroll wheel pages up and down - not a true scroll I admit but it works fine for me. So this computer and VRPC works fine as far as I'm concerned.

I have also changed my base computer to a newer Mac Mini 2.4GHz core 2 duo CPU - the last with a DVD which I wanted in preference to the latest that has done away with the DVD drive. This also runs on OS X 10.6.8 for the same reason as above. Both computers run VRPC with RISC OS 4.39 This computer has an nVidia 320M graphics card using up to 256MB of main memory; and I also use a bluetooth mouse with this computer. This computer has caused me a few headaches as VRPC tends to freeze or crash a lot, even worse than I had with the old Mac computer. I always used to have VRPC start up straight into full screen, but when it freezes during start up, I get a totally black screen and nothing I do will get me back control of the computer. At first I tried 'Alt-Enter' to put it in Window mode thinking I could then at least shut it down from the Mac Menu, but that simply does not work, so I tried various keystrokes for both Mac and RISC OS commands but nothing worked and the only recourse was to force a computer shut down and then re-boot it.

Consequently I have taken to starting up VRPC in Window mode now, and then at least if it freezes/crashes, I can get at the Mac Menu and shut VRPC and restart it. The fact that it won't respond to 'Alt-Enter' or any other typed commands suggests the keyboard is not being recognised or is blocked? Is there anyway to check this? When VRPC is running and it freezes, again nothing on the keyboard works, but sometimes the mouse still works and I can go to shut down VRPC with that, but as if proving something is not right, when you click on 'Off' button in the TaskManager shutdown dialogue box, it then freezes and if it is in window mode I can shut it down from the Mac Menu; but if I am in full screen mode, again I would have to force the computer off by holding the power button down, since it will no longer go back to window mode (Alt-Enter) or respond in any way.

So whilst the Mac Mini and VRPC works it is not reliable and I have to save things regularly every minute or so, since I have no idea when it will next freeze or crash. When it works it is fast and is great to use but this problem certainly spoils it on this computer.

Roy

Apologies for the delay in replying I needed to have a think.

One one machine VirtualRPC is behaving correctly. On another machine it is not. As it stands we don't know if it's the VirtualRPC or the Computer itself that's causing the problems, so:

Burn a copy of the VirtualRPC install (the 'VirtualAcorn' folder in 'Applications') from the MacBookPro to a DVD (not a CD).

Slap the DVD in the Mac Mini and copy the 'VirtualAcorn' folder to a suitable location on the harddisc. Make sure that you don't overwrite the current install on the Mac Mini.

Unlock the new install on the Mac Mini using the exisiting VirtualRPC unlock code used by the copy of VirtualRPC already installed on the Mac Mini.

Now, try making the new copy of VirtualRPC (the one copied from the MacBook) crash in the same way that the pre-existing install does.

We should now know if the fault is related to the existing VirtualRPC on the Mac Mini, or if the problems are with the Mac Mini itself.

Sorry about the extremely long delay on answering this, but I have been seriously ill this year and the last thing on my mind was this topic.

I forgot to say that when I set up VRPC on the two new computers they were identical, since I had copied my Data file (the Hard Disc 4) from the back up on my time capsule to both new machines, so they are identical and I try to keep them that way.

I have just started using it again and yesterday whilst in 'full screen' mode it locked again - total freeze, no mouse control, and since Alt-Enter would not work, there was no way to get back to the Mac OS X to shut down the frozen VRPC, so the only recourse is to force the computer off by holding the power switch in, and then reboot.

Since the laptop and Mini are on the same network and set up for screen sharing, I even tried to see if I could access the frozen computer from the laptop, but it simply would not connect.

So the problem is that not only does VRPC freeze randomly, but that Alt-Enter does not work to get you out of full screen mode so that you can use OS X to shut down VRPC. I could put up with the freezes if I could get back to OS X to shut it down, but since I cannot, I have to use window mode all the time, to give me that option. That means using an odd screen size, smaller than my native 1280x1024, which is a nuisance at times.

Roy

Whilst the HardDisc4 folders might be identical other components might not. So it's worth trying my earlier suggestion so we can see if the problems are related to the machine or the VirtualRPC.

I have now copied the application across as you suggested and so far the freeze problem has not occurred in window mode. I have not yet tried in full screen mode as I wish to give it a good long test in window mode first (where I have some control if it does freeze). So far it is looking good.

Consequently I was interested to find out what is different about one installation to the other. When I compared the files within the applications and with both original DVDs, I have found that the Contents/MacOS/VirtualRPC and Contents/Plugins/HostFS.bundle files are different and have later file time stamps. The only thing is that I don't know where they came from. Both my Virtual RISCPC installation DVDs (800416 and 541) have the same VirtualRPC and HostFS.bundle files dated 30th December 2007 and 13th April 2008 respectively, and it was these files that were on the Mac Mini that kept randomly freezing. The Virtual RPC and HostFS.bundle files on the MacBook Pro are dated 24th July 2008 and since the MacBook Pro is a February 2011 laptop they cannot be original DVD files modified by the installation date. These July 2008 files are now on the Mac Mini which is so far proving more reliable. However, when I look at the Virtual Acorn website, I cannot see any MacOS or HostFS.bundle upgrade for the Mac, so where did they come from? The only update I've done was to the original Internet.bundle on the first installation.

Roy

To follow up on my previous post - after a month of using in Window mode, often leaving Virtual RPC running continuously even minimized when not using it, I have only had one freeze up, which is far superior to what it was before. So I will now try running it in full screen mode again, to see if it is also reliable that way.

However, I would point out that when it did freeze, it was exactly as before and you have no control - Alt-Enter does not work, nor anything else and the only way to exit is by closing it from the Mac menu, and if you are in full screen mode you cannot get access to this since it will not respond to Alt-Enter to get you out of full screen back to window mode.

Roy

Well trying to start VRPC in full screen mode is now a definite 'no, no'!

As soon as I reset the preference to opening in full screen mode, shut the application and tried starting VRPC again it causes a kernel panic. After clicking the VRPC icon to start it, the screen goes totally black, you hear the RISC OS start up beep, but the screen stays totally black and it does not respond to Alt-Enter (or anything else). After a minute it announces 'You need to power down this computer and restart it' in five different languages. When you restart the computer it shows you had a serious fault and the kernel panic details which you can send/report to Apple.

I have tried this several times, just to check it, and it does it every time. It also comes up with the warning 'You must power down etc.' even if you touch or do nothing at all after trying to start VRPC in full screen mode. So I have had to go back to Window mode again. There is definitely something wrong here.

I have saved the kernel panic details of the last two failures if you wish to check them. Thanks.

Roy

O.K. I could not start up VRPC in full screen mode, so I reverted to starting up in Window mode and then switching to full screen mode with 'Alt-Enter' which seems to work fine. So I've tried using VRPC in full screen mode for the last week, and I have to say that it is still not good. It generally freezes at least once every day, and once frozen you cannot get back to OS X to shut it down as 'Alt-Enter' does not work. In fact nothing works except powering down and rebooting the computer. I doubt the freezing is caused by any of the applications I normally use, since sometimes the freeze happens just after VRPC has loaded and been switched to full screen mode, and I have not loaded any of my apps at that point.

Also if VRPC is working O.K. and I am in full screen mode, and use 'Alt-Enter' to return to OS X, roughly fifty percent of the time I end up with the lower half of the OS X screen totally black. Sometimes if I go back to full screen and then back to OS X the OS X screen is fine sometimes it remains black at the bottom section and I have to use the OS X display preferences to get the screen to redraw properly or do a reset.

So there appears to be some problem with VRPC and the graphics card/control in OS X. The Mac Mini that it's working on has an NVIDIA GeForce 320M card with 256MB VRAM.

I have reverted to working in Window mode full time again, since the daily freeze gets annoying and unless you save everything every couple of minutes you can loose so much work.

One further thing I have just remembered, if VRPC has been running for some time, but I have not been using it, so it is minimised usually, I have found that when I click on it to use, although the window comes up, it is already frozen. Since I am in OS X I thought I could easily shut it down from the OS X menu, but this is the odd thing - whilst the VRPC window is still open, the Mac also has problems. If I click on any of the icons on the top menu bar, such as the display or keyboard icons which should allow me to go straight to the relevant preferences, with many off them nothing happens. Even clicking the Apple icon top left sometimes has no effect and again the only way out is to force a power down and reboot.

Roy