Yep, same thing happened to me, ended up downloading the combo update and doing it that way. I have to assume his trick is outdated from an earlier version of OSX
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Apple Releases macOS High Sierra 10.13.3 With Fix for Messages Bug
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You have made some progress; don't be too quick to make conclusions, though. That PDF files render correctly in safe mode suggests that the problem is not macOS 10.13 per se, but perhaps with an incompatible login, user-installed font or other feature that is excluded by safe mode. Check these two Apple Support articles:
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201262
https://support.apple.com/kb/PH25614?locale=en_US
The second article explains how to remove all of your login items. After you do that, re-boot and re-check your PDF files in the Preview App. If the blurry file problem is resolved, then re-install your login items one by one (re-booting each time) to find which one caused the problem.
To be even more thorough with isolating the problem, make sure you check with different types of PDF files (i.e., from different sources). Use some PDF files from your own scanner, some created in your Mac by using the "Export as PDF" function or the "Print" then "Save as PDF" function in Safari, some downloaded from other sources, etc.
Another clue to solve your problem is seen in this forum thread. Several users state that they have no problem with PDF files under High Sierra (macOS 10.13). I am in that category as well - my PDF files now render perfectly in Preview in my two Macs - a late 2014 iMac Retina 5K and a late 2010 MacBook Air, both running macOS 10.13.2. It appears that the problem you are having must be due to some specific issue with your setup. Maybe an incompatible login or installed font, as discussed above, or a corrupted macOS installation or other incompatible or corrupted software installation.
BTW, I share your dislike of Acrobat Reader. When I last used it several years ago, it was slow and a pain to keep updated. Preview has become much better in recent years with its added functionality. I hope that Apple will continue to improve and add features to Preview, but I'm not holding my breath.
Good luck ...
Those running Bitdefender, it's recommended to uninstall before updating to 10.13.3; restarting in safe mode and then restarting normally to re-test that it's been removed. Here's the link for instructions to uninstall:
https://www.bitdefender.com/support/how-to-uninstall-the-new-bitdefender-antivirus-for-mac-1687.html
https://www.bitdefender.com/support/how-to-uninstall-the-new-bitdefender-antivirus-for-mac-1687.html
Thank you so much for the time that you had taken to help me out to troubleshoot a problem that should not be. I really appreciate that, that's very valuable for me in this times, it indicates that great human beings are outside. Thank you!
The only "login item" that I have is the utility Coffee Buzz, I followed very carefully each step in the procedures without success and Preview keeps rendering blurry PDFs; for less then a second Preview renders the Pdf sharp and clear, then is blurry again... I can see that the software is trying but for some reason can't render, it's like it goes out of focus at the last moment.
I did the procedures many times without success. For this reason alone this MacBook Pro was running Sierra until the Meltdown and Spectre vulnerabilities were discovered and to protect the system I had to upgrade to High Sierra. I really like High Sierra for it's speed, but I have no other option to reinstall Sierra, it's a pity that I will have to do it just for a PDF.
Before downgrading to Sierra I'm going to connect my scanner and install it's software as you indicate, that's my last hope.
Thank you!
Run etrecheck and post the results here.
As Safe mode renders the PDF perfectly this isn't a problem with the OS - otherwise it could not render it correctly under any circumstances - but a problem, somewhere, with your user account setup.
Apart from Safe Mode, if you temporarily create a new, seperate user account, does that account render pdf's correctly?
Thanks for your time replying Camelia
I'll try it once more.
How much time did it take to finish the update?
Thank you for your help.
I just created another account to see if that works but the result was the same, blurry PDFs. After doing all this troubleshooting I noted that the system fonts of High Sierra are sharp y crystal clear, amazing... Macrumors website is crystal clear. It seems that the problem is not only the PDFs but the whole system.
Two hours of waisted time, I'm going to install what works out of the box: Sierra. Excess of love for something is bad, and I'm a fan of Apple, but it's important to recognize when something is broken or does not function as advertised, MacOS High Sierra is Beta software, I have installed many times just to check if a bad installation is the cause, but I always get the same result. Sometimes to use bluetooth I have to re-start the system, the same thing with happens with wireless, and who knows how many more problems or security issues High Sierra has that we are not aware of.
I'm done with this, going back to Sierra until MacOS 10.14.
Thank you for your help!
May I ask where this procedure came from? I've had Bitdefender installed for quite a while and have never seen anything like this before. Does 31.3 present a problem for Bitdefender??
Nowhere in the link you provided is there any mention of uninstalling Bitdefender before doing the 10.13.3 update. Where did you find out about the "recommendation? OBTW, 10.13.3 installed on all my macs with nary a chirp from Bitdefender.
I installed from 10.12.6 straight to 10.13.3. It took about 30 minutes. I'm happy to say it seems to be working fine, fast boot up, fast shut down and it just seems snappier (I know - I know).
I came across this issue regarding Bitdefender and the 10.13.3 update on the Apple Support forum:
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8253116
I double-checked with the developer, and they did recommend uninstalling Bitdefender prior to updating, and then reinstalling afterward
Thanks, I will take this into consideration the next update. i did have issues when installing but since Bitdefender hadn't protested, I didn't think it was a problem. But note, I did get 10.13.3 installed without deleting Bitdefender.
So the "messages bug fix" is not fixed at all. It was better during the first few days, but now it's back to being confused, systematically putting messages at the wrong order.