Mac OS X 10.3.5 #3: Positive experiences; fixes; new features; problems

Today we continue our coverage of the Mac OS X 10.3.5 Update, which has brought the expected influx of reports from readers, some good, some bad.

Many users report postive experiences Often lost among the myriad reports of major and minor issues that we cover when a major update is released are the experiences of users whose updates have been pain-free. It's important to point out that we've received a significant number of positive reports from readers over the past few days; in fact, as we mentioned on Tuesday, so far 10.3.5 appears to be one of the best -- in terms of the amount of problems experienced overall -- in recent memory. Below are a few representative quotes from MacFixIt readers:

• Robert Gruber Have upgraded my G4s today: a DP 450, a 466/1.4 with OWC-card, a 466/867 (Apple processor swapped); every model has a aftermarket Radeon 9000 card added. All of the three machines work just perfect, before and after the upgrade. I notice great improvements in overall response especially on the dp 450, faster surfing experience with safari and especially faster network copy from/to my 10.3.5-server.
• Prashant Joshi Upgrade is running fine for me on a Titanium 1 GHz powerbook, and on a G4 AGP (Sawtooth) upgraded to a 1 GHz processor. Network activities are definitely snappier. Windows shares and Appleshare volumes mount a lot quicker and document opening from servers is likewise faster. Browsing files and launching files from a USB drive (using USB 1.1) also seems faster for some reason. I ran Disk Utility from the startup DVD, fixed permissions, ran the Combo updater, and then fixed permissions again when installing the update on both machines.
• Paul Watson Updated my TiBook 800 last night, and my eMac (1.25 Ghz) this morning with no apparent problems. Repaired permissions before & after the upgrade on both.
• Yosef Bar-On Used your procedure recommendations. Installation went smoothly and so far no problems at all.
• Thomas Frogh I upgraded my Quicksilver G4 867 with ATI Radeon 8500 video card this morning. I used the combo updater and have had no trouble.
• E.J. Yellen All is well so far on my Rev A Dual 1.8 G5 after doing the 10.3.5 combo update last night...very smooth.

One MacFixIt editor has installed the update on three Macs (one PowerMac G5 and two PowerBooks) without incident, and a number of members of PowerList -- a PowerBook/iBook-centric email list -- have even reported increased battery life after installing the update.

10.3.5 Update "fixes" issues from 10.3.4 We also continue to receive positive reports from readers who have discovered that the 10.3.5 Update appears to fix issues that could not be resolved under previous versions of OS X. For example, reader Robert Wallace notes that he's now able to create a bootable "clone" of OS X, which didn't work under 10.3.4:

"I have had a question on the MacFixit Forums now for several weeks...entitled 'When is a Clone not a Clone?' There have been many valuable suggestions as to why CCC, SuperDuper, and DataBackup would produce a clone but that clone refused to boot. One such was to use the system updater, in that case for 10.3.4, after the cloning process finished. Nothing worked. The latest of many attempts was two days ago. Today I downloaded the combo updater for 10.3.5 and applied it to the clone. IT WORKED!! In fact I am typing this from the clone. So it seems that my initial suspicion that the culprit was 10.3.4 appears to have been correct."

Michael Sneider found that 10.3.5 fixed an issue with graphics cards using 256MB of VRAM apparently causing problems with certain types of volumes mounting:

"I can confirm that after installing the 10.3.5 updater, my G5 issues with disk images and CDs failing to mount in the Finder with a 256MB Radeon 9800 Pro Mac Special Edition video card have been fixed. The issue was clearly with the 256MB nature of the card, as swapping the card back and forth with the stock 64MB Radeon 9600 and a borrowed standard retail 128MB Radeon 9800 Pro [showed that] the problem (failure to mount disk images and CDs) occured only when the 256MB board was in. 10.3.5 resolves this issue. Disk images and CDs now mount normally."

New Bluetooth remote capabilities According to the MobileWhack website, one of the new features of Mac OS X 10.3.5 -- evidently included in the broad description of "improved Bluetooth compatibility for Apple Wireless Keyboard and Mouse and Bluetooth phones" -- is the ability to use supported Bluetooth phones (such as the Sony Ericsson K700i) as a "remote control" for your Bluetooth-enabled Mac or laptop. This functionality appears to be similar to the third-party utility Salling Clicker in that it allows you to control the mouse cursor ("Desktop" mode), iTunes/iPhoto ("Media Player" mode), or Keynote presentations ("Presentation" mode). On the other hand, the $20 Salling Clicker offers significantly more functionality and supports many more phone models.

Reminder on update procedures We continue to urge readers to use our recommended update procedures; anecdotal reader feedback -- as well as our own experiences in-house -- indicates that following these procedures may avoid many of the issues reported by readers. The procedures are as follows:

1. Make sure your hard drive is in good shape: Boot from the Mac OS X Install CD and run Disk Utility's Repair Disk function. (If desired, also use a third-party drive utility such as DiskWarrior or TechTool Pro.)
2. Boot from the volume containing Mac OS X and then run Disk Utility's Repair Disk Permissions function.
3. Install the update. (As with previous OS X updates, we recommend using the Combined ("Combo") Update, as it will replace any and all components of OS X that have been updated since OS X 10.3.0, which may be helpful in "fixing" minor issues with these files.)
4. After rebooting, again run Repair Disk Permissions.

There is some debate among users as to whether or not these procedures are necessary. Our position is that at the very worst, your drive will be healthier than before; at best, these procedures may prevent or repair problems that occur during installation of the update (or that already exist but are revealed by installing the upate). In other words, there is no downside (unless you're an advanced user who has assigned custom permissions to system-level files that would be reverted by "repairing permissions," in which case you know either not to use this function or how to change those permissions back after using it).

Update updates moved applications? Whether or not an OS update will update Apple-installed applications that are moved from their original locations has been a longstanding issue for OS X users. Early updates to OS X would only update such applications if they resided in their original locations. Apple claimed to have fixed this bug for good with one of the updates to Mac OS X 10.2, but we've had reports of newer updates exhibiting the older behavior. Reader Joshua Ochs reports that the 10.3.5 update appears to update Apple-installed apps even if they've been moved (our apologies for using the term "update" a record number of times in that paragraph):

"I updated my iBook/G3 running 10.3.4 to 10.3.5 using the combo updater downloaded from Apple's website. Before installing, I looked at what applications were going to be updated, and dutifully returned them all to their default locations -- except Safari, which I kept a copy of in its original location (I had modified it to remove brushed metal). After updating I launched the "clean" copy that I thought had been updated, but it still registered as 125.7 (1.2.2). Imagine my surprise when I discovered that my modified copy located at /Applications/Internet/Web/Safari.app had been updated instead! I'll have to wait for the next major update to see if this really does work on all applications, but it certainly updated the moved copy of Safari here. There were also messages in the installation log that made reference to locating where the items were to update -- I don't recall the exact terms. Just check the verbose log while updating."

Must install on current startup drive? On the other hand, we've received a report from one reader that even though the 10.3.5 Update allows you to select a non-boot drive to be updated, doing so may result in a problematic installation. Pierre Godin writes:

"After more than 25 hours trying to install 10.3.5 combo upgrade and getting it to boot on my external firewire 400 drive to no avail, I found the problem and solved it. You must boot from the external drive to install the update on the external drive and from internal to install on internal. I had to reinstall 10.3.2 (original disk) [to the FireWire drive] and then apply the upgrade after booting from the now functioning FW drive...[R]epairing permissions, approximately 25,000 permissions were then repaired. I had used DiskWarrior 3.0.2, and showed no problem. SOS disk then showed a problem on both drives internal PB and external FW and repaired the same HFS issue. After installing 10.3.5 from the incividually booted drives, everything is tickety-boo."

We're not quite sure what the phrase "tickety-boo" means, but we're assuming it's roughly equivalent to "hot-diggity-dog."

Power Mac G5 sleep issue We previously covered a number of reports of PowerMac G5 computers being unable to "sleep" after installing the update. We've since received a significant number of similar reports. Interestingly, every reader who has reported this issue is using a 1.8GHz Power Mac G5, and the suggested fixes we posted on Tuesday have been ineffective. Steven Massey's report is typical:

"I have a G5 1.8Ghz (single processor) with 512 megs of RAM and I installed 10.3.5 through software update today. Now when I sleep the computer, my G5 will remain on (the fans are spinning and such) but the hard disk and monitor sleep."

Reader Jay Condon points out two threads on Apple's Discussions forums (1, 2) dealing with this issue; it's apparently affecting a good number of users, especially those with 1.8GHz Power Mac G5 models.

Font issues We've received reports of a couple font-related problems since installing the update. Reader Gary Bernato reports an issue where certain fonts will no longer display:

"I have a very strange error occurring to several machines at my office. Both were just updated to 10.3.5 and now both will not display the Adobe Postscript version of ITC Zapf Dingbats. (Zapf Dingbats.dfont works fine if loaded.) The font will also not preview in Suitcase. The font will load and give no error but will not display if used in an application like Quark. I?ve trashed prefs for suitcase and put the ITC Zapf in the System/Library/Fonts folder to no avail."

Reader "Ralph" is also experiencing this issue, but it also happens with the Helvetica font:

"Since upgrading to 10.3.5, I have been having problems with InDesign CS displaying certain fonts (for me, it's Zapf Dingbats and Helvetica). InDesign sees them -- they're in the pull-down -- but cannot display them. Changing to a different font fixes the issue (but is not a fix per se since I need to use certain fonts for standard forms)."

Finally, reader Claude Cauwe reports an issue where disabling the Monaco font using the Font Book utility results in Terminal windows appearing very, very small -- showing nothing but the red "Close" button. There is apparently no way to "zoom" these windows to a normal size. Quitting Terminal and then enabling the Monaco font fixes the problem. (We haven't yet been able to verify with Claude whether or not this behavior only began with OS X 10.3.5.)

Managed Client issues Al McCoy describes a a problem using OS X 10.3.5 as a client under Mac OS X Server's Managed Client:

"An Apple System Engineer and I just spent half a day determining that 10.3.5 (client side) will not work under Managed Client with either 10.3.5 Server or 10.3.4 Server. Dropping the client back to 10.3.4 mostly worked with 10.3.5 Server, but we ended up rolling everything back to 10.3.4. And the [Apple System Engineer] was getting calls from other system admins about the same problem. (The problem looks like you have trouble getting Managed clients to work with a list login screen, and when you do get it to show the list, it usually crashes to a text login screen. Don?t remember if you could do anything useful from there.)"

Proxy authentication problems Andrew Treloar notes an issue with network proxies after updating:

"Since I updated to 10.3.5, applications that rely on the proxy settings in the Network [pane of System Preferences] are not working. If I look at the username/password settings in [Network preferences] the password is two characters too long. If I try to change it, it appears to work but has reverted back to the incorrect setting when I look at it next. I haven't got a workaround."

Printing issues We've also received a couple reports of an inability to print over IP or a network. Eric Magnusson writes, "After applying the update...I have lost the ability to print via IP protocols to my Samsung printer, which was working perfectly before. It will print with AppleTalk protocols, however."

Reader Borg Stein describes a similar issue with network printing over Ethernet: "Since applying the Combo updater (PowerBook G4 12?), I have been unable to use network printing via Ethernet. Using Printer Setup Repair and reinstalling the printer has no effect. Reinstalling the Combo update has no effect. USB printing works fine."

Other isolated reports We've also received reports of a few other issues that have, thus far, only been experienced (or at least only been reported) by a single reader each:

Startup problems We've had surprisingly few reports of startup problems after installing the update; one of the few comes from Sven Hagmeister: "Having installed the combo updater from 10.3 on a G4 mirrored door FW 800 1GHz, the system goes [into a] kernel panic after proper installation was done and restarting worked fine. 'Cannot find driver for PowerMac3,6' is what it says. Do not know what to do except clean install."

Intermittent Freezes Ross Baldwin is seeing periodic freezes: "Just upgraded to 10.3.5 from 10.3.4. About every fifteen minutes the screen freezes. It does not matter which software programme is running. In fact, it freezes even with a screen that has gone to sleep and without any active [applications]."

Finder freezes when copying Martin Snyder describes an issue where copying files causes freezes: "Ever since upgrading to 10.3.5, we have been experiencing Finder freezes when copying files to servers over our network. Force quitting the Finder results in the Finder not being able to relaunch, so a shutdown (using the power button) and restart is required."

Norton SystemWorks install problem Ken Toledo reports that Norton SystemWorks must be installed before installing the 10.3.5 Update: "Installing NSW 3.0 after updating to Mac OS 10.3.5 leaves LiveUpdate in a corrupted state that is unusable. If NSW 3 is installed before the update, it will continue to work after the update."

Drop us an email with your impressions of the update at Late-breakers@macfixit.com.

For more information on Mac OS X 10.3.5 problems and solutions, see our special report on the update.

Resources

PowerList

MobileWhack website

Salling Clicker

Combined ("Combo") Update

1

2

Late-breakers@macfixit.com

special report

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