I upgraded to 10.8 Mountain Lion several weeks ago, and I’ve been experiencing a couple of odd issues since then — perhaps some of you have, too.
Problem: In-Browser Blank PDFs
Solution: Install Adobe Reader
Occasionally, I’ll click on a link to a PDF to view it in my browser-of-choice, Safari (in this case, Safari 6.0). It has always popped up quickly within my window (provided the file itself wasn’t too huge). However, since I upgraded to 10.8, I kept getting a blank screen where my PDF should be. Really frustrating, especially since most of what I needed to access what work-related.
I would get around this by using either Chrome* or Firefox in the meantime, but as great as they both are, I wasn’t ready to give up Safari as my default. I had tried to see if there was an update to either Safari or Mountain Lion that would fix it, but no dice.
Finally, I came across a link that directed me to download and install Adobe Reader separately. I did that, and success! I’m not sure what the official reason for the problem was — whether it didn’t work as a result of a corrupted update or something else — but if you’re having the same issue, this should fix it.
*It’s a sound troubleshooting step to always check web oddities in another browser first before doing something more drastic.
Problem: App Store Connectivity Issues
Solution: Update DNS server numbers to Google’s
This has been a really perplexing one to me (and a lot of others, I find). There’s a known problem with Software Updates on some computers with Mountain Lion, in which you’ll see an error that the computer cannot connect to the App Store. This has been the case for me since 10.8.0, and many people found that it happened after the 10.8.1 update as well.
After perusing the Apple Support Communities for answers, I stumbled across a thread where the advice was to add Google’s DNS numbers in place of the default ones in Network Preferences. To do this, go to System Preferences > Network > Advanced… > DNS and press the “+” button to add the following: 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 (on separate lines).
Once I did this, I was able to connect again! The support article I referenced explained it thusly: “DNS Servers do translation, [so] think of them as Address Books.” See the thread here.
It’s worth mentioning that I’ve been using Google’s DNS servers for several years now on my personal machines, but I hadn’t entered any on my work machine. Heed the following warning if you’re using a work machine that may be configured in a different way:
*Note: Be aware that in some cases, changing to Google’s DNS numbers may upset some networking preferences, such as the availability of networked printers. If you find that you all of the sudden can’t print to a printer you’ve been using for a while, just go in and remove Google’s numbers.
Unfortunately, the above happened to me, meaning that to connect to the App Store, I need to use Google’s DNS numbers and to print to our networked printers, I need to use our network’s default numbers. Here’s hoping Apple addresses this issue in 10.8.2!