Issues after upgrading to OS X Lion

I ran into a few issues after upgrading to OS X Lion that I thought might be useful to share with others.

1. VMware Fusion: Partition table has changed

I could not start up my Windows 7 boot camp partition after the upgrade. The error message I got was something like this:

Cannot open the disk ‘/Users/torkil/Library/Application Support/VMware Fusion/Virtual Machines/Boot Camp/Boot Camp.vmwarevm/Boot Camp.vmdk’ or one of the snapshot disks it depends on.

Reason: The partition table on the physical disk has changed since the disk was created. Remove the physical disk from the virtual machine, then add it again.

I found the solution to that issue on the VMware Fusion blog comments:

“That means to go into the Virtual Machine library and delete the entry. Then, create a new Bootcamp based VM. Your VM wouldnt be damaged as it is running bootcamp and just using that info. If that still doesnt work, boot using bootcamp itself.”

2. MAMP and OS X Lion

The popular MAMP (Mac Apache MySQL PHP) software needs to be version 2.0 for Lion compatibility. An upgrade is all it takes. See the MAMP download page.

3. NAS (Network Attached Storage) issues with AFP/remote Time Machine

I am trying to connect with AFP to a fileserver on our network at work. I am getting this error message after installing Lion:

There was a problem with trying to connect to the server. The version of the server you’re trying to connect to is not supported.

This is also a problem for people using TimeMachine to do backups to Synology’s file servers. The problem is that Synology’s firmware ships with an older version of Netatalk, not compatible with Lion. Synology already has a DSM 3.2 beta which fixes the problems for many people it seems. Synology has also said that they are releasing version 3.2 at the end of July 2011, and that this version will fix the problems.

Smallnetbuilder.com has an article on the topic, with a link to a workaround that Alexander Wilde has dug up. I have tested his solution now, and I can confirm that it works.

4. Lion install failed — Boot Camp issue

Max OS X can’t be installed on the disk Macintosh HD, because a recovery system can’t be created. Visit www.apple.com/support/no-recovery to learn more.

I ran into this problem on my wife’s Macbook Pro. The help article on apple.com suggests I format the entire computer and reinstall Snow Leopard and then install Lion again. Seems like too much work, so I’m going to try another recipe:

Download and install Winclone
Make a backup of my Boot Camp partition on my OS X harddrive with Winclone
Backup OS X to Time Machine
Use Boot Camp assistant to remove the Windows partition
Backup to Time Machine again (paranoid!)
Install Lion, hopefully without problems
Recreate the Boot Camp partition and use Winclone to recreate it like it used to be

Thanks to Macworld tip on Backup and restore Boot Camp partitions.

I’ll report back when I’ve tried this, and hopefully succeeded.