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Apple Seeds Sonata Beta 7 After Beta 6 Corruption Bug

Apple pulled beta six of Mac OS 9.0, code named Sonata, from their private developer seeding site last week after discovering a serious bug in the release that could cause data corruption in some cases. The bug stemmed from issues with the version of the file manager included with the release, and dampened any hopes of shipping the OS upgrade in an earlier time frame.

While development of Sonata is by no means behind schedule or estimates, the release has suffered from a number of issues in its later development stages. With all due respect to the developers who've worked long and hard on Sonata, it seems as if the release packs too many new features and enhancements for its own good and stability.

While virtually all of Sonata's features have already been covered in previous reports and compiled into ourMac OS 9.0 Information Archive, there are a few incompatibilities users should expect.

As of beta 7, Adobe Type Manager no longer functions. Apple is currently working with Adobe on a revised version of ATM to be made available upon the release of Sonata. Similarly, the latest version of Suitcase 8 and Aladdin's Stuffit Engine are also incompatible with Sonata. Booting with these components will reportedly result in a type 119 error.

Error type 119 is a new error added as of the Sonata release, which flags applications that access unsupported file system data. It's important to note that error 119 does not indicate a bug in Sonata, but rather an incompatibility with third party applications. It will be up to the third party developer to alter their applications, not Apple.

Nevertheless, the excitement surrounding Sonata continues to build. "Get ready for Multiple User functionality, get ready for Keychain, and get ready to see a ton of copies of Mac OS 9 roll off the store shelves!," Tim Holmes, Mac OS Technology Manager at Apple, recently told developers. From now on, all we can do is wait.