Apple Releases Mac OS X 10.3.9 Update

OmniVector writes "Right after the Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger announcement just a few days ago, Apple has released an update to version 10.3.9 for Mac OS X and Mac OS X Server (both available via Software Update). The changes mostly include bugfixes with Stickies, Safari, and the Finder." The Server update also addresses issues with Open Directory, cyrus, AFP, and SMB, among others. Apple also updated iMovie, iPhoto, iDVD, and iSight this week.

Comments

Trackpad

[BigZaphod]

It seems as if this update fixed the sensitivity problems with my PowerBook trackpad. I have a 1.67Ghz PB with the new trackpad that supports the vertical/horizontal scrolling stuff and it has always been far less sensitive than my old PB -- until I rebooted after this update. Cool!

Although the Safari upgrade re-added Apple, Amazon, eBay, etc. links to my bookmark bar. That was sort of annoying, but easy enough to fix.

Java broken now?

[MasterofSpork]

Hey has anyone else found that java apps stop working. I can't get Eclipse or FurtherNET to start.

Are any of you getting a segfault when running java from the Terminal?

Anyone have this problem and found a fix? I'm out of ideas.

Re:Java broken now?

[evilskull]

Azureus is broken now, segfaults into a long error message.

Ambient light sensor works again

[MasterofSpork]

The light sensor in my Powerbook isn't going nuts changing my screen brightness anymore. Maybe this issue has been fixed too. I'm not in fluorescent lighting to give it a good test though.

Network Browsing from Finder messed up

[Zaurus]

Um, wierd. I just installed 10.3.9 on my 1.67GHz PB, and now in the finder under the network browser it shows:

Applications
Library
Users

...all of which appear to be empty, instead of the regular:

Local
Servers
WORKGROUP

Anyone know how to get the network browsing back to normal?

Re:I'm worried about one of the security updates.

[remahl]

I discovered this vulnerability, and i can confirm that Apple is indeed starting to think in zone separation paths...

I have written a detailed advisory about the problem (Apple conveniently "forgot" to link to it). Apple allows XMLHttpRequest more privileges when running from a file: URL than from http:. This created a problem combined with the fact that disk images are automatically mounted with predictable paths and that Safari did not enforce separation between the http: and file: zones.

Apple took the approach of separating the zones instead of limiting XMLHttpRequest access from file: URLs.

Note that Konqueror is already separating zones, and also allows file: URLs to use XMLHttpRequest to access local resources.

I don't know if there are any other instances where the local zone is given higher privileges than the Internet zone. That's something for future research. If you haven't already updated, feel free to test the demo exploit on the advisory page.

Re:Vindicated, yes!

[Maserati]

I work in one of the most pro-Apple commercial shops in North America. We're stuck recommending Firefox for an HR section of the Intranet because the SSL support in Safari is so damn slow. Fixing that before we have to roll Tiger out will be nice.

I still need to double check that we've got a current Firefox on the standard build.

Re:Hopefully not like the last 10.2 update...

[dmarcoot]

conspiracy theories such as this are just plain stupid. In Apple's history, having buggy systems never has contributed to people buying "fixed" system updates. Quite the contrary, system 7.5 and 7.5 probably lost apple more market share than any thing else in their history.

Apple is in a fragile enough place without purposely sending out bad software under the impression they will encourage software sales. they are just as likely to lose people who go to windows under that strategy and would suggest marketing people are telling engineers to make thing go bad. sounds implausible at best given that lead on OS X has was guy who developed Next and Steve Jobs in infamous for demanding things work the first time.

Apple as small market, is under more pressure to makes things work well because they dont have the crutch of a monopoly to hold them up until they fix their shit. one of reasons most apple users are repeat customers.

the more likely answer, they fucked up, makes a lot more sense.

but because apple sells updates, rabid Linux zealots see conspiracy in anything they do.

WebCT Fix

[edibleplastic]

Not that this will affect many people but for some reason in the past when I would surf to my school's WebCT page Safari would beachball right after I logged in. This seems to be fixed with the new update. Good job!

Re:WebCT Fix

[GrahamCox]

Ah, WebCT. What a crock of poop that is. I always have to force a WebCT page (any editor view, content is OK) to refresh manually by tweaking the browser window size to get it to display in Safari. I hope that's fixed too.

Safari Feature degredation.

[macmurph]

When I right-click an image in Safari, I am no longer able to specify which folder I want to save it to. The only option is "Save to Safari Downloads".

This does streamline things... but I think I miss the customization options that a save dialog provides.

Re:Safari Feature degredation.

[pmdboi]

Yeah, that is kind of irritating. However, dragging images from Safari to the Finder still works, so another thing you can do is navigate to the folder you want to download to in the Finder, go to Safari, start dragging the image, hit Expose if necessary, and drop the image in that folder. A little convoluted, but it works. (If Safari is in the background, you can drag stuff from it without bringing it to the foreground by holding the Command key while doing so.)

Unfortunately, it looks like you can't drag images from Safari to folders in the Dock.