Mac OS X 10.3.7 Update

[JJTiger1]

10.3.x updater war story

QUOTE:
There I was ...
I was burning an iDVD to my external firewire DVD burner, surfing the web, reading the Mail, listening to my iTunes and building a GarageBand musical score while Software Updater was automatically downloading and installing 10.3.7.

All of a sudden, everything locked up. No response from the keyboard.

After an hour of nothingness, I held the power button to restart the computer.

Now the computer doesn't do anything except display what looks like the icon for a power button.

What should I do?
END QUOTE.
=-=
It's a war story.

Object of the story: Follow directions.

When you update the OS, do only that: Update the OS. Quit all other applications before you run the OS updater.
... and detach that firewire drive before you run the OS updater.

Detaching the FireWire drive before running the OS updater is no longer voodoo, it's a requirement. Apple says so.

 

[macnews]

yeah i get a simialr problem on my 1.33 12" powerbook. time to get more memory? (i have 256)

I have 1GB of RAM. If that is not enough, I don't know what is.

Oh, and someone asked what camino is - it is a web browser powered by mozilla.

Mail is slow, web is slow. Did all the prebinds, clean ups (daily,weekly, monthly). I am running out of ideas but this most definetly sucks. 10.3.5 gave me a big performance boast, guess my luck ran out. Up till this update had no problems.

 

[MacBandit]

QUOTE:
There I was ...
I was burning an iDVD to my external firewire DVD burner, surfing the web, reading the Mail, listening to my iTunes and building a GarageBand musical score while Software Updater was automatically downloading and installing 10.3.7.

All of a sudden, everything locked up. No response from the keyboard.

After an hour of nothingness, I held the power button to restart the computer.

Now the computer doesn't do anything except display what looks like the icon for a power button.

What should I do?
END QUOTE.
=-=
It's a war story.

Object of the story: Follow directions.

When you update the OS, do only that: Update the OS. Quit all other applications before you run the OS updater.
... and detach that firewire drive before you run the OS updater.

Detaching the FireWire drive before running the OS updater is no longer voodoo, it's a requirement. Apple says so.

Boot into Single User mode. You do this by holding Apple-S when you first hit the power button. Once it boots up it will look like a DOS prompt. Type, "FSCK -f -y", without the quotes. If it goes through the process and says something was fixed run the command again. Keep running the command until it doesn't fix anything.

I doubt this will fix it but it will repair the hard drive if there was a problem. You need to do this before trying to fix the software. Most likely what happened is the installed failed half way through leaving your system only partially installed. In this case what you could do is if you could start off another hard drive you could try running the updater again. If you don't have a way to start up off another drive then you will probably have to start off the original install disks and reinstall your system. Do an archive and install and choose the option to copy old settings over. This will install a new system without losing any of your old prefs. Also the old system will be archived in case you have 3rd part features such as screen saver or Quicktime Plug-Ins installed so you can then copy them manually to your new system. Once you have your system up and running again you can run the updater.

This time close all open apps and run a program like Yasu prior to installing and don't touch the computer until it's done updating.

 

[MacBandit]

I have 1GB of RAM. If that is not enough, I don't know what is.

Oh, and someone asked what camino is - it is a web browser powered by mozilla.

Mail is slow, web is slow. Did all the prebinds, clean ups (daily,weekly, monthly). I am running out of ideas but this most definetly sucks. 10.3.5 gave me a big performance boast, guess my luck ran out. Up till this update had no problems.

Have you tried a FSCK? Also try dumping caches and prefs.

 

[solaris]

Installed 10.3.7 yesterday, on my 1.5GHz PowerBook.
No problems so far, everything running smooth. Only change I noticed is that Mail starts up a lot faster and dont loose its email passwords randomly.

 

[deputy_doofy]

QUOTE:
There I was ...
I was burning an iDVD to my external firewire DVD burner, surfing the web, reading the Mail, listening to my iTunes and building a GarageBand musical score while Software Updater was automatically downloading and installing 10.3.7.

All of a sudden, everything locked up. No response from the keyboard.

After an hour of nothingness, I held the power button to restart the computer.

Now the computer doesn't do anything except display what looks like the icon for a power button.

What should I do?
END QUOTE.
=-=
It's a war story.

Object of the story: Follow directions.

When you update the OS, do only that: Update the OS. Quit all other applications before you run the OS updater.
... and detach that firewire drive before you run the OS updater.

Detaching the FireWire drive before running the OS updater is no longer voodoo, it's a requirement. Apple says so.

Yeah, I was just as dumb. I wasn't burning anything but I was still on iChat and web-surfing while 10.3.7 was installing.
I got the gray screen of death - you know, the one that says to press down the power button in 5 languages. It did that once 10.3.7 was installed and I pressed the restart option.
I was a bit worried, but it started up ok, and I even went so far as to do a second shutdown/restart to make sure it was a 1-time fluke in the shutdown process. So far, so good.

 

[MacBandit]

Installed 10.3.7 yesterday, on my 1.5GHz PowerBook.
No problems so far, everything running smooth. Only change I noticed is that Mail starts up a lot faster and dont loose its email passwords randomly.

I had this problem a few months back. Reinstalling the system cured the issue, so I don't think it was a fix with 10.3.7.

 

[macnews]

Have you tried a FSCK? Also try dumping caches and prefs.

I ran cache x to dump the cache, not difference. Not sure if it takes care of prefs. haven't tried fsck but will try that. how do you dump prefs? I know many prefs located throughout the system.

 

[MacBandit]

I ran cache x to dump the cache, not difference. Not sure if it takes care of prefs. haven't tried fsck but will try that. how do you dump prefs? I know many prefs located throughout the system.

Prefs are located in two places. User/library folder and the HDD/Library folder. You could try Preferential Treatment. It's an app that scans your pref files for problems. Since pref files in OS X are written in XML there's a built in UNIX tool for scanning them to see if the XML coding is correct. Preferential Treatment is a GUI for that tool.

Also try an all in one system maintenance program. I find Yasu to be the best one as it's a clean little app that's not bloated with system hack options.

 

[JJTiger1]

I ran cache x to dump the cache, not difference. Not sure if it takes care of prefs. haven't tried fsck but will try that. how do you dump prefs? I know many prefs located throughout the system.

Caches:
I am using the latest Cocktail (v3.5) to dump a variety of caches, and to do other stuff that could be done within Terminal.

Terminal UNIX command line scares me to death. Cocktail is worth the shareware fee, and peace of mind.
=-=
Preferences:
I'm using Preferential Treatment (v1.1.1) to check for corrupted preference files.

Dumping preferences .plist files at random could be shear folly.

If you, like me, experience Safari and/or QuickTime unexpected quits:
trash the following:
com.apple.quicktime.plugin.preferences.plist
com.apple.QuickTime Player.plist

... new .plist files will be generated the next time that you launch the app's, and then the app's will be stable until the next OS/Safari/QuickTime updater.
=-=
JJ

 

[MacBandit]

Caches:
I am using the latest Cocktail (v3.5) to dump a variety of caches, and to do other stuff that could be done within Terminal.

Terminal UNIX command line scares me to death. Cocktail is worth the shareware fee, and peace of mind.
=-=
Preferences:
I'm using Preferential Treatment (v1.1.1) to check for corrupted preference files.

Dumping preferences .plist files at random could be shear folly.

If you, like me, experience Safari and/or QuickTime unexpected quits:
trash the following:
com.apple.quicktime.plugin.preferences.plist
com.apple.QuickTime Player.plist

... new .plist files will be generated the next time that you launch the app's, and then the app's will be stable until the next OS/Safari/QuickTime updater.
=-=
JJ

You can dump all the preference files without issue. I don't recommend deleting them though as they may not be the problem and if not you can then restore them saving you the time of resetting all your program prefs.

Yasu does all the maintenance tasks that Cocktail does except for free in a simple uncluttered interface.

 

[macnews]

what the #$#$^#$%??? some how fixed mail

First, I want to say thank you for those who listed the shareware apps to take care of the prefs. I also use cocktail and it is a good little program.

I didn't run fsck yet (at work so not a good time) but some of your posts made me think I should try rebuilding my mail boxes. So, one by one, I went through and rebuilt all my mail boxes - including folders set up for mail rules (sub folders can be rebuilt by just selecting the parent folder). Didn't take much time and figured it couldn't hurt. After I tried did all this no difference - right away. Matter fact, it took a good hour before I noticed anything happening. During a call I had mail open in the back ground and noticed something was happening for a rather long time. Thinking it was checking email and running in to problems I looked at it and noticed it was indexing EVERY mailbox. I just let things run...

I just got out of a meeting, start up mail and BAM! One bounce and the window appears! Again, all I did (please see previous posts up to this point) was rebuild the mail boxes, left mail open for a few hours and it indexed itself. This seems to have fixed my mail issue. Camino is still slow to open a web page, but faster (than before, still slower than where I was at before the update at 10.3.5) at actually getting a window up. This is not a "feel" it is measured in seconds by me, so yes, actually faster. Don't know why or understand how this got faster.

Hope this helps someone.

 

[MIKX]

New G5 reduced to treacle

Initially I praised the 10.3.7 update as some things are definitely
faster, better but three days after upgrading and running every conceivable
OSX maintenance application available I judge 10.3.7 to be a FAILURE and a letdown for Mac owners. I am going back to 10.3.6 which by comparison, worked pretty well for me.
This upgrade makes me feel that Apple engineers simply run the upgrade on a brand new 2.5 Ghz with 8 gig mem and the latest graphics card.

I have a three month old Dual 2 Ghz G5 with 3 gig of mem. Not cheap.

Why? After upgrading is my startup time longer by 30 seconds?
Why do my finder icons appear first - sluggishly - as the Finder loads?
Why does Mail take so long to connect to my server to check mail?
Why is Safari so much slower than Firefox after this upgrade?
Why is it that sometimes when clicking on Mail or Safari in the Dock... nothing happens unless more clicks are applied?
Why is my new wireless mouse acting strangely? It never has before.
Why - occasionally - don't folders instantly open when I double click on them?
Is it a co-incidence that my external USB drive got trashed?

Now I face about 6 hours re-installing to 10.3.6 and replacing thousands of backed up files.

Please, anyone who has a direct pipeline to the Apple team, please forward this and some of the other pointed posts.
We deserve better. Our Macs deserve better.

 

[macnews]

bluetooth upgrade?

After I updated to 10.3.7 I then got a bluetooth firmware update notice. I updated my bluetooth but haven't tested it yet. Did anyone else get this? Was this independant of 3.7?

I have to agree, 10.3.7 not the best update. I held off on 10.3.6 because of problems on another machine and many other posts noted similar problems. I thought 10.3.7 would be the fix and all would be right - guess not.

Kind of funny but here has been my own personal experience with the entire OS X upgrade cycle. You tell me if you see a pattern:

10.2.0 - 10.2.5 no problems
10.2.6 - some slight problems, took some maintenance runs to fix.
10.2.7 - no problems
10.2.8 - uggh, need I say more. I still hate this version of Jaguar and wished apple would keep some older versions like 10.2.5 or 10.2.7 out there for the few Jaguar machines in my lab.
10.3.0 - 10.3.5 no problems
10.3.6 - problems with connecting to servers, dns, no fixes. Did this on a lab machine and went back to 10.3.5
10.3.7 - updated on my laptop and feels like i'm back at 10.1.5! At least mail is fixed. Wish web pages were fixed. Both safari and camino run slower on my 1.33Ghz, 1G ram laptop than on my 700Mhz iMac with 756MB ram. And the version of camino is an older, slower version at that! The windows pop up but pages take forever to load!

so 10.x.0 through 10.x.5 have all run great for me. Why is it 10.x.6-10.x.9 all suck? My theory - apple wants you to hate it so you are eager to upgrade to the next 10.x. Thank God Tiger is supposed to be the last for a while.

 

[arogge]

The 10.3.7 Combo update deleted Mail instead of upgrading it, leaving a 4 KB file in place of the application. Previous updates have caused kernel panics and lockups. This is why I have the patch files downloaded locally and install them only on systems that are backed up and can afford a night of downtime.

 

[elgruga]

10.3.5 - and thats as far as I am going

10.3.5 is great on an older TiBook, but anything else stinks.
I reverted from 10.3.6 and .7 sounds even worse.

 

[wrldwzrd89]

After I updated to 10.3.7 I then got a bluetooth firmware update notice. I updated my bluetooth but haven't tested it yet. Did anyone else get this? Was this independant of 3.7?

I have to agree, 10.3.7 not the best update. I held off on 10.3.6 because of problems on another machine and many other posts noted similar problems. I thought 10.3.7 would be the fix and all would be right - guess not.

Kind of funny but here has been my own personal experience with the entire OS X upgrade cycle. You tell me if you see a pattern:

10.2.0 - 10.2.5 no problems
10.2.6 - some slight problems, took some maintenance runs to fix.
10.2.7 - no problems
10.2.8 - uggh, need I say more. I still hate this version of Jaguar and wished apple would keep some older versions like 10.2.5 or 10.2.7 out there for the few Jaguar machines in my lab.
10.3.0 - 10.3.5 no problems
10.3.6 - problems with connecting to servers, dns, no fixes. Did this on a lab machine and went back to 10.3.5
10.3.7 - updated on my laptop and feels like i'm back at 10.1.5! At least mail is fixed. Wish web pages were fixed. Both safari and camino run slower on my 1.33Ghz, 1G ram laptop than on my 700Mhz iMac with 756MB ram. And the version of camino is an older, slower version at that! The windows pop up but pages take forever to load!

so 10.x.0 through 10.x.5 have all run great for me. Why is it 10.x.6-10.x.9 all suck? My theory - apple wants you to hate it so you are eager to upgrade to the next 10.x. Thank God Tiger is supposed to be the last for a while.

My experience has been very much unlike yours. I started using Mac OS X when it reached 10.1.0, and have stayed with it through 10.3.7, downloading and installing every single update. I have had no major problems with any of the OS updates, and, most of the time, no minor issues either - this includes 10.3.7, which has been trouble-free for me so far.

 

[Scorched X]

Which is the better method of installation, standalone or Software Update?

So far, I've seen Yasi, Onyx, and Cocktail suggested as maintenance tools. I know Yasi and Cocktail do prebinding, but does Onyx's system optimization do prebinding also? And which one of the three is considered the "best"? Thanks.

 

[wrldwzrd89]

Which is the better method of installation, standalone or Software Update?

So far, I've seen Yasi, Onyx, and Cocktail suggested as maintenance tools. I know Yasi and Cocktail do prebinding, but does Onyx's system optimization do prebinding also? And which one of the three is considered the "best"? Thanks.

It's "Yasu" (short for Yet Another System Utility), not "Yasi", it's freeware, and it's extremely simple to use. The hardest part about using it is remembering to restart your Mac and hold down Shift to do a "Safe Boot" before running it, then restarting normally after it's done. Disclaimer: I've never used Onyx or Cocktail - could someone that has give some feedback?

 

[Romanesq]

Help my System ain't working rite!

Well I have to tell some folks what helped a great deal. After 10.3.5, my system went to all hell on my 15" AL 1.25 pb. I had some many system freezes and crashes it was driving me crazy. Reinstalls didn't help either as the system would soon bug out.

It got to the point I just didn't worry about the new updates. I would wait a little and then do the install knowing it can't get any worse.

Then I got Panther Cache Cleaner. Ran the first step on the left for the prebindings. Wow, no more crashes. Everything is groovy. No more crashes of almost every single app to send Apple groovy useless info.

Then I also went and did the "light" cache cleaning.

I haven't had a system freeze or any application crash since. It reminds me of those wonderful days when I first got the new PB just over a year ago and things just ran great ad infinitum.

So for all those people who get through these posts after the fact, when you are down on your luck, PCC and some of the other software folks are mentioning here like Cocktail can be the simple solution for maintaining the system.

Why doesn't Apple create or buy this stuff and just put it in the utilities folder?

Good luck y'all.

 

[MacBandit]

The 10.3.7 Combo update deleted Mail instead of upgrading it, leaving a 4 KB file in place of the application. Previous updates have caused kernel panics and lockups. This is why I have the patch files downloaded locally and install them only on systems that are backed up and can afford a night of downtime.

Did you move the Mail app to a different folder on your hard driver rather then having it in the main application folder?

 

[MacBandit]

Initially I praised the 10.3.7 update as some things are definitely
faster, better but three days after upgrading and running every conceivable
OSX maintenance application available I judge 10.3.7 to be a FAILURE and a letdown for Mac owners. I am going back to 10.3.6 which by comparison, worked pretty well for me.
This upgrade makes me feel that Apple engineers simply run the upgrade on a brand new 2.5 Ghz with 8 gig mem and the latest graphics card.

I have a three month old Dual 2 Ghz G5 with 3 gig of mem. Not cheap.

Why? After upgrading is my startup time longer by 30 seconds?
Why do my finder icons appear first - sluggishly - as the Finder loads?
Why does Mail take so long to connect to my server to check mail?
Why is Safari so much slower than Firefox after this upgrade?
Why is it that sometimes when clicking on Mail or Safari in the Dock... nothing happens unless more clicks are applied?
Why is my new wireless mouse acting strangely? It never has before.
Why - occasionally - don't folders instantly open when I double click on them?
Is it a co-incidence that my external USB drive got trashed?

Now I face about 6 hours re-installing to 10.3.6 and replacing thousands of backed up files.

Please, anyone who has a direct pipeline to the Apple team, please forward this and some of the other pointed posts.
We deserve better. Our Macs deserve better.

Here's a tip from the www.xlr8yourmac.com website that might help you.

New Network Location Tip for 10.3.7 problems -
"I installed 10.3.7 on a QS 2002 G4 (OWC 1.33 cpu upgraded) from 10.3.6. Initially, the re-boot was very slow to ramp up through Finder load, and web sites were very slow to load. After reading various threads at Apple support, I created a new location in Network settings, making sure that my IPv4 was set to DHCP, IPv6 configured to automatic and specific DNS entries were deleted. Re-booted and Finder and speed of browsing are better than 10.3.6.

Of course, I had run the usual maintenance routines as well (Permissions, DiskWarrior). Also, I'm using a Graphite ABS in bridged mode to a MacSense Xrouter Pro to Comcast.
Richardson "


Someone else reported the new location tip helped until he re-entered DNS settings for a VPN. That previous report is on the 10.3.7 feedback page. (I'm really behind on things this week due to my father passing but have posted a page with reports, notes etc. with most of the 10.3.7 feedback received as of this morning. Including some other problem reports, but also more notes on improvements - including more 3d/opengl performance reports (LW3D as well as games, except for a report from an xplane user.)
Very rushed this morning and I will be offline for several hours today unfortunately taking care of urgent matters.

 

[Floyd WHO]

Up and Running

So far on my Old & Slow everything works. Mail is a little faster, Safari about the same. So far so Good

 

[wdlove]

My wife's 15" PowerBook was updated without any problems. I noted that when I updated our iBook G3 500 MHz, it took about 3 minutes 4 seconds to reboot. Ran the repair permissions prior.

 

[Mike Teezie]

Installed the updater.

My G5 took much longer to boot than it normally does, but everything seems to be in order.

I'm afraid of jinxing things after my last Powermac just freaking died on me.