Mac OS X 10.3.8 Out, Security Update Released

Richard_at_work writes "Get it while its hot, or -- if you are less brave -- wait and see if there are any issues. From the download page, the two top points of this update are 'improved OpenGL technology and updated ATI and NVIDIA graphics drivers' and 'improved file sharing and directory services for mixed Mac and PC networks'. More information."

Comments

No need to fear.

[trudyscousin]

Downloaded via Software Update and running great on my dual G5 box. Works great.

Re:No need to fear.

[Seoulstriker]

I'm actually quite surprised by its performance in X.3. It performs just like it did when I first got the machine in '99 running OS9. The eye-candy is all there, and simple tasks run really well. It does suffer quite a bit though when trying to use hardware acceleration for anything. The ATi Rage 128 just doesn't cut it for OS X. It never did.

Expose exposing the desktop with two windows open gets probably 1-2 frames per second. When I press F11, I see 1 or 2 frames before the windows disappear. :-( Still, the machine does everything I want it to satisfactorily with 768mb of ram. I'm really considering getting a mini or a laptop and ditching this dinosaur. If I hadn't loved my mac so much, I would have just trashed it and kept using my WinXP box. The beauty of OSX keeps me coming back for more.

Uh oh

[MrAndrews]

Don't know if it's just me, but my wife's dual-USB iBook stopped booting after we installed this one. It just spins the loader on startup and never gets to the login screen. Yeep!

Works fine on my Al pBook, tho.

This may fix an annoying problem...

[vocaro]

Upgraded successfully on my G4 PowerBook. No problems so far.

Of particular interest to me is this item in the list of enhancements:

Addresses an issue in which a PowerBook G4 computer would, on rare occasion, wake from sleep with a black screen and not respond to any keyboard, mouse, or trackpad input.

I've been experiencing this problem on and off ever since I switched to the Mac last April, and it bugs the heck out of me. I'll unplug my laptop from my Cinema Display, take it home, flip open the lid, and nothing happens. The computer powers on -- I can hear the fan and hard drive spinning -- and the screen is lit, but it's all black. It ignores keyboard and mouse input, and I'm forced to do a hard reboot, losing any unsaved data. (It wasn't happening all the time, but at least every three weeks or so.)

I talked to an Apple "Genius" at an Apple Store about this wake-from-sleep problem, and he said I shouldn't let the PowerBook go to sleep. Instead, I should shut down the computer completely before unplugging it, then power it back up when I got home. Ah, what genius! Patient: "Doctor, it hurts when I move my arm like this." Doctor: "Then don't move your arm like that." Seriously, the sleep feature is vital for most laptop users, and I can't believe the solution is not to use it.

Eventually, I discovered that if I click the Apple menu and select Sleep to do a manual sleep (as opposed to just unplugging the laptop from its display), then the frequency of the problem goes down, but it still happens. Hopefully this update will squash the bug once and for all.

Re:This may fix an annoying problem...

[103to8]

I similarly hope this can fix the problem you describe.

I have a Powerbook 12" 1.33 and at home I usally plugged into my Dell 19" LCD via DVI. As other reader's mentioned, when I first closed the Powerbook lid and then unplugged my DVI cable and USB cable (to my USB keyboard), when I went back to work, my keyboard will be frozen even though I can still hear the fan running. At first I suspect it was the num lock on the Powerbook keyboard, then I thought it was DoubleCommand or SideTrack kernel extension. But this unpleasant experience still hapenned when these kernel ext were not loaded in the startup. I finally decide to FIRST unplug my DVI cable, press F7 to sync the display BEFORE closing the Powerbook lid and the "keyboard frozen" problem disappeared.

Hope the 10.3.8 update will fix the problem.

Re:This may fix an annoying problem...

[3cardtrick]

I've had this happen many times and been annoyed with it. All I did was close the lid again (so that the machine would sleep) and wait another 5 seconds, open it again and it starts up perfectly. Give that a whirl next time and see if it does the trick. Cheers, 3cardtrick

Re:This may fix an annoying problem...

[Anonymous Coward]

I used to have troubles with this as well. Try unplugging your display before you put your powerbook into sleep. What is happening is that if you sleep the powerbook then disconnect the display, the powerbook will wake up. But since you've closed the lid, you won't know and the kernel will do a partial-shutdown after a few minutes.

hope that helps

Disk Utility

[madsenj37]

As always, use Disk Utility to repair permissions before and after you update. This avoids most problems.

Re:Disk Utility

[the pickle]

As always, that advice is a load of horse hockey.

p

Re:Disk Utility

[Ilgaz]

I believe APPLE CORP http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=257 51 instead of some 2 self acclaimed geeks and some Slashdot poster who thinks he is über cool by calling people names who only tries to help.

Sorry for 1 line, the latest security update had better circus going on.

Jan 31 12:17:22: Disk Utility started.

Repairing permissions for "Ilgaz"
Determining correct file permissions.
Permissions differ on ./Library/Fonts/Arial, should be -rw-rw-r-- , they are -rw-r--r--
Owner and group corrected on ./Library/Fonts/Arial
Permissions corrected on ./Library/Fonts/Arial
Permissions differ on ./Library/Fonts/Arial Black, should be -rw-rw-r-- , they are -rw-r--r--
Owner and group corrected on ./Library/Fonts/Arial Black
Permissions corrected on ./Library/Fonts/Arial Black
Permissions differ on ./Library/Fonts/Comic Sans MS, should be -rw-rw-r-- , they are -rw-r--r--
Owner and group corrected on ./Library/Fonts/Comic Sans MS
Permissions corrected on ./Library/Fonts/Comic Sans MS
Permissions differ on ./Library/Fonts/Courier New, should be -rw-rw-r-- , they are -rw-r--r--
Owner and group corrected on ./Library/Fonts/Courier New
Permissions corrected on ./Library/Fonts/Courier New
Permissions differ on ./Library/Fonts/Didot.dfont, should be -rw-rw-r-- , they are -rw-r--r--
Owner and group corrected on ./Library/Fonts/Didot.dfont
Permissions corrected on ./Library/Fonts/Didot.dfont
Permissions differ on ./Library/Fonts/Futura.dfont, should be -rw-rw-r-- , they are -rw-r--r--
Owner and group corrected on ./Library/Fonts/Futura.dfont
Permissions corrected on ./Library/Fonts/Futura.dfont
Permissions differ on ./Library/Fonts/Georgia, should be -rw-rw-r-- , they are -rw-r--r--
Owner and group corrected on ./Library/Fonts/Georgia
Permissions corrected on ./Library/Fonts/Georgia
Permissions differ on ./Library/Fonts/Herculanum.dfont, should be -rw-rw-r-- , they are -rw-r--r--
Owner and group corrected on ./Library/Fonts/Herculanum.dfont
Permissions corrected on ./Library/Fonts/Herculanum.dfont
Permissions differ on ./Library/Fonts/Times New Roman, should be -rw-rw-r-- , they are -rw-r--r--
Owner and group corrected on ./Library/Fonts/Times New Roman
Permissions corrected on ./Library/Fonts/Times New Roman
Permissions differ on ./Library/Fonts/Trebuchet MS, should be -rw-rw-r-- , they are -rw-r--r--
Owner and group corrected on ./Library/Fonts/Trebuchet MS
Permissions corrected on ./Library/Fonts/Trebuchet MS
Permissions differ on ./Library/Fonts/Verdana, should be -rw-rw-r-- , they are -rw-r--r--
Owner and group corrected on ./Library/Fonts/Verdana
Permissions corrected on ./Library/Fonts/Verdana
Permissions differ on ./Library/Fonts/Zapfino.dfont, should be -rw-rw-r-- , they are -rw-r--r--
Owner and group corrected on ./Library/Fonts/Zapfino.dfont
Permissions corrected on ./Library/Fonts/Zapfino.dfont
Permissions differ on ./Library/Fonts, should be drwxrwxr-x , they are drwxrwxrwx
Owner and group corrected on ./Library/Fonts
Permissions corrected on ./Library/Fonts
Permissions differ on ./Library/Keyboard Layouts, should be drwxrwxr-x , they are drwxrwxrwx
Owner and group corrected

Re:Disk Utility

[Ilgaz]

I am not american but Apple is, if its a concern for you.

Apple article also doesn't mention Macromedia and Microsoft installers fsck up the install.log rights.

Does latest security update article say "It will rape all of your permissions after install, one random day, in one point you can waste hours of productivity because of an application not working right?"

I think one of the best features of OS X since day 1 is the automated permissions repairing which is done with user intervention since companies like Macromedia and Microsoft messes with some very critical permissions which will create problems with UPDATE INSTALLATIONS. I can't imagine you or the other über cool flamebaiter helping an end user which can't install his latest game because of some random update he gets from Apple fscked up his home directory rights.

We are stupid mac users wanting hassle free system and we don't like to mess with god damn chown etc while working.

I love to see permissions repaired. I hope similar tool will be donated to Linux/FreeBSD community by Opendarwin coders.

The system , Apple Installer is one of the MOST DANGEROUS apple code in planet btw. Ask any developer about it. Also updater has been updated itself and does PATCHING work.

Are you ok now? I'd suggest that for your nerves, stay away from apple.slashdot.org ... Bunch of end users here anyway.

Re:Snappier, for sure!

[hunterx11]

I hate to be the one to break the bad news. Perhaps you should sit down, sir. There's no easy way to say this, so I'll just say it. YHBT. YHL. HAND.

It's not that Apple hasn't made speed improvements in the past; I just enjoy irony is all.

Connecting to Samba a lot faster

[Nice2Cats]

I have no idea if this is actually in the list of features, but one thing that is seriously faster on my little iBook is connecting to my Linux Samba server -- like, wham! It is just there, while before it seem to take some time before OS X made up its mind if it really wanted to reach out and touch another computer.

So far, no (new) problems. Life is good.

Re:here we go

[WMD_88]

Apple recommends you have FW HDs unplugged during and after reinstall. It's right on the page...

Re:Snappier, for sure!

[Anonymous Coward]

Very funny :) You actually got an Informative mod.

To everyone else - please note the parent should be modded FUNNY.

He is playing off the comments that always appear when a Mac update comes out, that the system feels faster and more responsive.
(Why do people have to be told?)

Okay on G5 Powermac

[kitzilla]

No kinks so far after loading the update on my dual 1.8 G5 Powermac. Also seems fine on my older G3 iBook.

Finder Insecure File Creation Vulnerability

[Kusunose]

It seems Mac OS X Finder Insecure File Creation Vulnerability isn't fixed.
The vulnerability has been confirmed in Finder version 10.3.2 on Mac OS X version 10.3.7. It's rated as 'less critical'.

Re:Strange Fan speed

[snero3]

Ignore me I found this on apple's website which would explain it.

Resolves an issue on certain Power Mac G5 computers where a fan cycles erratically at unexpected times, such as when Seti@home software is running.

Myst IV Revelation works

[prionic6]

Myst IV crashed on 10.3.7 for me, works with 10.3.8. Cyan said it was a problem with the graphics driver.

Blew my vnc away

[pprboy]

Get a "incompatible version" error when I try to vnc back in from 2 different workstations. Guess I need to dig out the keyboard and mouse and hook the monitor back up to see what happened. Glad its only across the room.

Re:Blew my vnc away

[yabos]

No problems here. Using OSXVNC server.

Insane

[thatguywhoiam]

So I installed it through Software Update, the usual, hit restart. (This is a new stock dual 1.8Ghz G5.) I'm sitting there waiting, and I though man I must be zoning out because I swear I didn't see a progress bar for the boot cycle there.

So I restart again, and yes, its true - this update has increased the boot cycle on my machine to such speeds that the actual fucking progress bar is gone. The 2nd time I thought I saw a very brief flicker of the progress pane with the bar at half but it was really fast.

My CRT monitor boots slower than my Mac. Never thought I'd see the day.

(I even timed it. From chime to login window: 25 seconds.)