Mac OS X Update 10.2.4 Resets

Oculus Habent writes "It may just be me, but 10.2.4 reset a number of settings on my computer, including icon sizes, window positions, and dock size and contents. Minor annoyances, but completely unnecessary. Is anyone else experiencing this?" As for me, Apple re-added some apps to my Dock and overwrote all my changes to httpd.conf (though it did back it up first) to add mod_rendezvous_apple. But those problems pale in comparison to some others: Anonymous Coward writes "If you upgraded your Mac desktop to 10.2.4 last weekend, check your date and time. Many users have suddenly found it to be 4:00 PM, December 31, 1969 again. Apparently, this happens whenever they are shut down or restarted, and resetting the motherboard and/or the PRAM doesn't fix it. Complaints have been piling up at Apple.com and prices for batteries have been skyrocketing - but relax. It's not your battery!"

Comments

zero problems for me

[Anonymous Coward]

Everything worked fine for me. Nothing reset, no changes to the Dock. I don't know if it makes a difference but I downloaded the tar file directly and ran the update later, rather than using Software Update.

Haven't seen any time/date changes, but my clock is set by NTP anyway.

PS: One thing I like to do before any major update is run something like "find -s / > /tmp/filelist" to get a list of all files and dates. Then run it again after the update and diff the two lists. That will show you httpd.conf changed, for instance. Also it's just interesting to see what files change on the machine as I learn about the OS. You can also get lists of files from the archive itself or from the "bill of materials" file ("man lsbom") after installation.

PPS: does anybody know what the file /iNode12022737 is for? I keep seeing files like that in the root dir...

It happened to me!

[Visigothe]

I thought it was rather odd as well. I had icons for iChat, the addressbook, and some other applications that weren't on the dock pre-update. My time wasn't affected to my recollection, but some of my other prefs were.

Know what I did? I removed the icons, and fixed my prefs. Then I promptly forgot about the whole thing and got on with my life.

I did find it strange though... That sort of thing has never happened to me before

Protecting your OS from changes

[kruetz]

I'm guessing the installer/updater plays along with the *NIX user system, right? So what about "chmod a-w httpd.conf" for protecting your httpd settings? If you don't want your settings modified by Apple, use the power of *NIX against it!

Or does this not work?

Re:Protecting your OS from changes

[Visigothe]

I'm guessing the installer/updater plays along with the *NIX user system, right? So what about "chmod a-w httpd.conf" for protecting your httpd settings? If you don't want your settings modified by Apple, use the power of *NIX against it!

That won't work, as in order to update the system, you must supply the admin password. The admin [root, but not exactly] can do anything.

Re:Protecting your OS from changes

[jim3e8]

Root can do anything; the permissions are advisory only, and can be ignored. Otherwise, that mode 000 file would become a permanently inaccessible paperweight.

There ARE problems with this update

[Nexum]

Hi all,

Firstly I have to say unfortunately there are inherent problems with this update, and the one about the clock resetting to Jan 1 1970 (plus or minus a few hours depending on your time zone) is absolutely true as I am experiencing it myself.

It does however only seem to be affecting fual processor G4's though, so that may explain the mixed reaction.

If you are still in doubt, check Apple's discussion board here where there are a total of 66 replies to my original post complaining of the clock issue (hopefully link will work, if not, check out the OSX area under discussions on Apple.com).

It seems that a large number of people are having this trouble, and although there is no way I would ever switch to another platform after using OSX, it is disappointing that Apple allows these things through the net.

Although OSX is vastly superior to Windows XP, I simply can't imagine MS distributing an update for Windows that would have this fundamental effect. I think that Apple should make sure they concentrate also on the mundane routine stuff in checking as well as the super-cool revolutionary stuff they are so uniquely good at (Rendezvous, Bluetooth integration, iApps etc etc).

Here's waiting for a fix VERY soon.

-Nex