BETA
This is a BETA experience. You may opt-out by clicking here

More From Forbes

Edit Story

Typing Eight Characters Will Crash Almost Every OS X 'Mountain Lion' App

This article is more than 10 years old.

Apple prides itself on quality, and 10.8 'Mountain Lion' is the company's flagship operating system, described as 'the world's most advanced operating system.' So it comes as a bit of a surprise that apps can be crashed by typing eight characters into an app.

The bug was first reported on OpenRadar, which lists the eight characters as:

File:///

It must be typed exactly like that, including the capital "F" at the beginning. And the operating system must be OS X 10.8 'Mountain Lion' -- other versions are immune to this.

Want to test this? Type an iMessage to someone containing these characters. Or an email using the Mail app. Or a Spotlight search.

Each time, the app will crash, without fail.

The bug seems to reside in 'Mountain Lion's' Data Detectors feature which that lets apps recognize dates, locations, and contact data, making it easy for you to save this information in your address book and calendar.