Apple Revises Snow Leopard Security Update and Pulls 10.7.3 Delta Update

[macsmurf]

How?

It is possible. Some software applications require a rigorous testing. Software for the military, for medical applications and flight control systems must be bug free.

If not, something like this can happen:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIM-104_Patriot#Failure_at_Dhahran

You're wrong.

You can prove that a certain program has certain properties. This is fairly time consuming but it can be done for relatively small programs. Usually you don't prove the correctness in the actual programming language you're using so you'll need to translate it. That can introduce errors.

Then you need to compile it. Unless proven correct, the compiler can have errors that change the behavior of the program.

The compiler produces a program in machine code, that you need to run. You need to run it on an operating system. If the operating system is not proven correct, that can change the behavior of the program.

Finally, errors in the micro code or architeture of the CPU can change the behavior, such as the infamous Pentium bug some years ago.

That being said, for some usages very rigorous software testing is used, such as military software, medical equipment, space shuttles, CPUs etc. If your willing to pay 10 times more for your mac and accept that substantial new features will be decades in the making it would maybe be economically feasible for Apple to actually start proving the correctness of part of the OS.

That being said, Apple could definitely use some more resources on quality assurance. It's not like this is the first time.

 

[linuxcooldude]

It is possible. Some software applications require a rigorous testing. Software for the military, for medical applications and flight control systems must be bug free.

If not, something like this can happen:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIM-104...ure_at_Dhahran
Quote:
Originally Posted by chrono1081
Its not like every person has these issues, its a select few.
Only a few soldiers were killed. No problem for Apple defenders.

I've worked with many systems in the military that uses software. I've seen it fail before, several times. Thats why the military uses backup systems, that don't necessarily use software, just for that reason.

Only a few soldiers were killed. No problem for Apple defenders

So now Apple is responsible for the failure of the Patriot missile? Save the theatrics for the movies.

 

[OllyW]

It's so funny that suddenly all the messed up point releases of Mac OS X in the last 8 years have all been forgotten and now only this one matters. As if Apple didn't have bigger fallouts before.

I got burned by a OS X point update 7 or 8 years ago which left one of my external hard drives inaccessible. Since then I've always waited a day or two and kept an eye on the MacRumors forums before I deem it safe to update.

It's not just OS X which has issues with updates. There was an early update to iOS 3 which left a lot of iPhone 3G owners with an unstable phone. That took over 3 weeks to fix and Apple never officially acknowledged the problem so just over 24 hours to act on these latest problems is a great response.

 

[chrono1081]

For a company that takes pride that it's products 'just work', I expect much better. I agree that mistakes do happen, but they should never happen on this scale. I feel that Apple's Q&A department needs shaking up a bit. All of this could have been prevented.

What scale? A few people had problems, not everyone. I didn't on any of my machines, neither did my parents, sister, her husband, friends, etc.

If it was so wide spread I'm sure one of them would have had an issue.

Again, testing cannot catch everything, this is common sense in the software development world I don't know why it isn't in the consumer world.

Not to mention everyone is making way too big of deal over it. It was fixed in 24 hours, please find me some other company that is that quick with a patch. You'd be very hard pressed to.

 

[zemoleman]

Combo Update Sloooow

Never seen an Apple Mac OS Combo update take so long to mount, to get to the install window after "launching" it, etc. Tried this on numerous machines (8 core Mac Pro, new i7 15" MacBook, variety of iMacs). First misstep of 2012.

 

[jackc]

If you're not prepared for the occasional bug, do what I do -- let the first wave of downloaders test it. I wasn't in any rush to update, still waiting.

 

[MrNomNoms]

I can tell that no none commenting has ever worked with software development.

Mistakes happen, its impossible to test for every single system. Its not like every person has these issues, its a select few. You can test all day in the lab but until something is released in the wild the developers will NEVER be able to know if more bugs are present in their code or not.

But it does go back to what I keep saying, 'combo update all the time, every time'. Apple should just release one update, the combo update, and leave it at that because quite frankly I don't think the time, pain and agony are worth the price for the sake of a few hundred megabytes in the day and age of broadband internet in most developed countries.

 

[roadbloc]

What scale? A few people had problems, not everyone. I didn't on any of my machines, neither did my parents, sister, her husband, friends, etc.

If it was so wide spread I'm sure one of them would have had an issue.

Again, testing cannot catch everything, this is common sense in the software development world I don't know why it isn't in the consumer world.

Not to mention everyone is making way too big of deal over it. It was fixed in 24 hours, please find me some other company that is that quick with a patch. You'd be very hard pressed to.

Doesn't matter. Especially when you're developing for such a small range of hardware, bugs created by the recent updates shouldn't happen. Microsoft as of recent few years have been able to provide updates to their OSs without creating stupid GUI bugs or breaking program compatibility, and they cater for a hell of a lot more hardware than Apple.

I don't think it is acceptable. Being a customer of Apple since 2003, I have become accustomed to pretty much perfection when it comes to bugs and updates and it kills me that over the past few years they have let a number of stupid bugs slip into their software. As much as I applaud Apple for their quick response, this should never have happened. Lets hope they don't slip up again.

 

[kas23]

And, again, the turn around time for a fix was phenomenal. Yes, a mistake happened but they fixed it extremely fast.

The turn around time for a fix was phenomenal? They haven't released any fix. They've just pulled the delta and are telling people to download the combo. I would say they've recognized their error fast (something that is actually refreshingly new in the Tim Cook era, btw), but certainly have not "released" a fix. They're only directing people to the combo update.

But it does go back to what I keep saying, 'combo update all the time, every time'. Apple should just release one update, the combo update, and leave it at that because quite frankly I don't think the time, pain and agony are worth the price for the sake of a few hundred megabytes in the day and age of broadband internet in most developed countries.

Said perfectly. Let this be a lesson learned for everyone, old and new, never download anything but a combo update. This is certainly not the first problem Apple has had with a delta update and certainly won't be the last.

What scale? A few people had problems, not everyone. I didn't on any of my machines, neither did my parents, sister, her husband, friends, etc.

If it was so wide spread I'm sure one of them would have had an issue.

Again, testing cannot catch everything, this is common sense in the software development world I don't know why it isn't in the consumer world.

Not to mention everyone is making way too big of deal over it. It was fixed in 24 hours, please find me some other company that is that quick with a patch. You'd be very hard pressed to.

If this problem wasn't widespread, then why did Apple pull the update?

And, again, Apple has not released a patch. If so, link it here.

 

[manu chao]

Oh, I guess you got me there. Very witty. Regardless, a combo update is much safer to install than the delta update. This is a widely held belief here and you're naive to believe otherwise. And, no doubt, Apple must even agree with this sentiment considering their combo update is still available.

Why in your estimation is the combo updater the safer option? Do you have any other reason than the one I brought up?

And of course for people installing Lion on an empty disk, the combo updater just makes things a lot easier than applying all point updates one by one and that could be reason alone for Apple to offer them.

Applying the combo updater is one of those fairly painless 'maintenance' activities but would you also declare everybody who does not repair permissions every week is 'asking for trouble'?

----------

But it does go back to what I keep saying, 'combo update all the time, every time'. Apple should just release one update, the combo update, and leave it at that because quite frankly I don't think the time, pain and agony are worth the price for the sake of a few hundred megabytes in the day and age of broadband internet in most developed countries.

Do you have any technical explanation why getting the combo updater right is easier than getting the delta updater right? Both represent a delta, just with different reference points. Shouldn't logic tell us that the smaller the delta, the easier it is to get things right?

 

[Gambuchi]

Apple nay sayers...

Name one company, just one that that takes better care of it's clients/customers...

Apple does a fantastic job considering everything they have on their plate... Their financial success alone depicts a company that is 'doing it right', and the consumers that are ardent Apple fans have good reasons for sticking with the company and it's products...

Anyone who thinks coding software is a 'no brainer' or something any 'geek' can do is living with their head in the sand. Just consider for a moment the hundreds of thousands of lines of cryptic code that must be written to get a software product the size of OS X to market... and those who say that you cannot possibly test for every given situation are dead on target...

I applaud Apple not only in it's business acumen but most definitely in it's hardware and software products.

sincerely,

denny

 

[Azathoth]

Well the update didn't fix the nvidia graphics freezing that many people are having

And FWIW, the 5GHz wifi wake from sleep bug is still there too...

 

[ixodes]

I think Apple needs to hire some more/better programmers to test their OSX software rather than iOS.

I don't disagree.

Yet it's entirely possible that Apples pushing them to rush the update to market without sufficient time spent testing & debugging before release.

If there's one thing this highlights, it's Apples slide on the OS X side of the business.

iOS is well documented as Apples new focus. It's the cash cow thats everything Apples hoped for. I can see the handwriting on the wall. OS X as a computer operating system is not long for this world.

 

[Eraserhead]

Do you have any technical explanation why getting the combo updater right is easier than getting the delta updater right?

Because it includes the full version of any files changed - that is always going to be a more reliable version of the software - if the binary files have got corrupted on your machine somehow, either because your hard drive has been slightly damaged or because you installed some software that changed the version of the file then only changing the changed parts of the binary file will be risky - and there is no good way to guarantee that that is OK.

You are right that the download process introduces the risk of mistakes - and that the larger the file the more likely this is, but that can be checked by doing a 'hash' of the result against the value on the website - e.g. for http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1484.

 

[Joe-Diver]

I don't beta test updates. I always wait at least a day or two to update, keeping an eye on the forums for problems.

I still haven't applied this update. Is it safe yet?

 

[RenoGuy]

I was one of the unlucky ones!

As a software developer I do agree with you for the most part, but Apple took 24 hours to simply pull the update. Given that we knew about 30 minutes after the update was released that it was majorly flawed, its pretty poor that it took them that long to pull it.

Normally I use the combo updaters, but as luck would have it this time, I did the delta update with 10.73 from a stable 10.72! Man, was it UGLY! CUI errors with EVERY function!

I guess I was one of the 1st, and do have Applecare on my 2011 iMac running Lion 10.72. I called for support within a few hours of the "mess" and went up the ladder....Apparently, no one at support level 2 knew anything about the "issue" at that time.

I WILL SAY THE APPLECARE REP WAS QUITE KNOWLEDGEABLE, AND REALLY TRIED TO HELP! (Ya just gotta get past the level 1 people!)

Net result was I restored a working 10.72 Time Machine Backup. Weird as it may sound, After the successful restore (created just before applying the update and after repairing permissions, Safari's hang bug resurfaced! Logic would tell me it was not related but?????

BTW: I fixed Safari's Hanging by deleting the Safari cache file in ~users/library/caches folder and all was/is well again!

I am old and experienced enough (Not as much as I should be with Apples) To Know better than 1) be an early adopter and 2) apply a delta update.

Sorry for the long post, but perhaps the Safari fix might help some that have that issue.

As for 10.73; I downloaded the combo update yesterday, but have NOT applied it as yet. I will probably wait a few weeks, since I am now burned once....NOT LOOKING FORWARD TO ANY MORE PROBLEMS THAT MAY OR MAY NOT SURFACE!

Sorry for those that had the problem with the delta and no TM recent B/U! I WILL NEVER OPERATE ANY ONE OF MY 3 MACHINES WITHOUT BACKUPS AVAILABLE! Learned that when Tape was the B/U media of the day! (currently own 2 custom built Win 7 PCs and my on my 4th iMac!)>I find that I need both platforms....oh well!

 

[Macman45]

As a side note, I thought all had gone fine, until today when I noticed my MBP had wifi issues....Same ones that are posted all over, dropouts, slow etc.

Downloaded and installed the combo, fixed. Boy somebody screwed up somewhere. Weird thing is my MBA is fine on the first (now pulled) release through SU.

 

[drorpheus]

Just for clarity, your theory is that if you make large enough profits, you can eliminate software bugs?

I think his theory is that when you have massive stock piles of profit cash parked in offshore accounts, you can afford to spend a couple million dollars on programmers to help the quality control process, as opposed to firing out "show stopper" updates with near no quality control, especially when you have no problem wasting hundreds of millions on patent lawsuits. Apple has enough money where they could still support PowerPC architecture not just Rosetta and it wouldn't put a pimple on there bottom line, but instead they use that couple million to open another factory in a third world country.

 

[Harmush]

Could this be why I have been having Kernal panics out of the blue? Problems with updates, now I think about it, it did only start happening after I applied the last update...

 

[macpeach55]

And FWIW, the 5GHz wifi wake from sleep bug is still there too...

I never applied the Delta update and went straight to the Combo update, and since then on awaking from sleep my iMac does not automatically connect to the 5GHz net. Before, it was fine. Go figure.

 

[pdjudd]

I had a interesting problem - wouldn’t properly wake up from sleep - the monitor won’t power on at all. Video playback has been weird with mp4 files. I re-applied the combo update and things have been smooth. I think one problem is that I need a new battery...

 

[iBug2]

And, again, Apple has not released a patch. If so, link it here.

The patch is running the combo update. It's a fix. Why release another fix when there's already one?

----------

I think his theory is that when you have massive stock piles of profit cash parked in offshore accounts, you can afford to spend a couple million dollars on programmers to help the quality control process, as opposed to firing out "show stopper" updates with near no quality control, especially when you have no problem wasting hundreds of millions on patent lawsuits. Apple has enough money where they could still support PowerPC architecture not just Rosetta and it wouldn't put a pimple on there bottom line, but instead they use that couple million to open another factory in a third world country.

It's not about hiring more developers. You can't create all kinds of randomized working conditions inside Apple. You need outsiders to report the occasional bugs, because most bugs result from 3rd party software. So the more people test OS releases outside Apple, and actually report the bugs, the better.

What Apple can do is make the developer seeding program free.

 

[JHankwitz]

I can tell that no none commenting has ever worked with software development.

Mistakes happen, its impossible to test for every single system. Its not like every person has these issues, its a select few. You can test all day in the lab but until something is released in the wild the developers will NEVER be able to know if more bugs are present in their code or not.

I've worked with software engineers for more than 25 years, and they've never released 100% bug-free software. If they wanted to publish software with absolutely no know bugs, it would never get released. You can only minimize bug impact. The number and degree of bugs that get addressed are controlled by other facters such as Marketing and product release schedules. Heck, if we demanded total bug-free software, we'd be lucky to be running Tiger on Power PCs.

 

[thejadedmonkey]

Just for clarity, your theory is that if you make large enough profits, you can eliminate software bugs?

I think it's more along the lines of "They're the biggest company in the world, they can afford to beta test their software to make sure it doesn't have common, show stopping bugs".

Heck, even MS does better than this!

 

[Thomas2006]

You do have to realize that Apple is an extremely tight ship and work isn't exactly split to various teams throughout the company evenly. From what I've heard, an entire dev team will be working on one project then move to another project altogether. Sometimes, that team will have a more important project come their way while they're in the middle of another and they will have to dump the current project and work on the new one to completion. Then and only then will they return to the old project.

While this approach allows the programmers to be nimble and have a good understanding of the Cocoa frameworks, there is a downside, and that is projects stagnate until management gives them priority. Think about where FCPX and the other Final Cut Studio applications would be if there was a team dedicated to working on them. How about Logic Studio? Where is the next version of iWork, for the Mac? I would ask about Quicktime X Pro, but I am guessing FCPX is how Apple expects people to edit video now. It is no longer an application, but a media technology inside Mac OS X Snow Leopard and Lion.

Maybe after iCloud goes live we will see new versions of iWork and iLife. No doubt they will be iCloud-centric since that seems to be where Apple wants people to be.