Genealogy Chat

Hi all. Are there any other Mac users out there feeling more and more disgruntled with GR? I used to love it (I first joined in 2004), but lately, it just makes me cross. The subscription has doubled for a start, but I wouldn't mind that, if the service had improved, but it seems to be getting worse. A few months ago, I found I could no longer add photos. I tried it using Internet Explorer (which Microsoft no longer supports for Mac anyway, so no point in continuing to use it), Safari, Netscape and Firefox and none of them worked. I contacted the Support Team and they were no help at all and their answer was, effectively, get a PC. I'm convinced that the problem appeared immediately after GR issued an update, but I get the distinct feeling that Mac users don't matter, because we're a minority. There's also a problem with viewing large trees. I'm tempted to switch to Ancestry, the only thing stopping is me, is that I found that some dates had been transposed when I imported a Gedcom file, eg 5th April had become 4th May: US date format presumably. If I can sort that, I'll be off. Sorry for the rant, but it's good to get it off my chest.

Hi, I am a Mac user. Just read your message so tried to put a photo on my tree and it said Error. I did try a while ago and could not get a picture to come up , just got 'Error' each time but thought it must be me forgetting how to do it. There was a time when all my photos suddenly came up too big even though they were OK when I put them on in the first place and I had to delete them. I will get my Mac expert son to have a go but have a feeling he will not get on any better. Regards, Gill

You could try using TribalPages Take a look at my open site there http://sweffling.tribalpages*com/ C

You know, Marian, I've had just the same problem. I started off with Safari - Safari crashes on here. I tried Internet Explorer for Mac - it scrambles the tree to the point where you can't make any sense of it. I tried Firefox - it crashes periodically for no reason and recently went through a phase of loading the page but not responding when I clicked the buttons. I'm now on Opera which - fingers crossed - is OK so far. I think you're right - I often try to use features on MSN's site and get the message 'Your browser does not support the content on the page'. I did work experience about two years ago at a PR company and watched their web designer at work. When he had finished a site, he opened and tried it out on every browser he could think of - and he must have had four or five loaded onto that Mac of his. I seriously think this idea of testing is beyond some web designers - I think they just check it on Internet Explorer and then get it online.

Thanks for the replies. I have another copy of the file elsewhere just in case and I'll give Opera a try and have a look at Tribal Pages as suggested. Kate, I think you're right: if it works on Internet Explorer on a PC, it must be fine and s*d the rest. However, as I understand it, Internet Explorer being Microsoft is riddled with bugs, which is why Firefox is often recommended for PC users and Safari for Mac users.

I've had exactly the same experience - photos won't load. I asked for advice from GR's support desk and was told they'd "get back to me". They never did, so I mailed again a month later. This time the dismissive one-line reply was "try using IE".

As we all know (but they obviously don't), IE is obsolete for the Mac and is no longer supported by Flash, so I can't even get the tree to load, let alone photos.

The impression I get is the tech people at GR don't know s*** about Macs and frankly don't care. Marian, rant away! Looks like I'll be joining you at Ancestry.

John