Dude, who keeps posting all these stupid Mac OS Rumors. If we want to read that crap, we'll go to the website. No need to clutter up here with this garbage.
And Anand, I feel your pain. Teachers seem to just feel the need to pile on tons of extra work just before Spring Break (next week for me). Good luck and we hope to hear from your again soon. Blogging from a PC, of course. ;)
10.3.3 reader report mega-update: We've compiled an exhaustive collection of early and current reader reports regarding the Mac OS X 10.3.3 Update in the submitters' own words. Without further ado....
"Asger" from Denmark writes: You notice it straight away when you use the scroll wheel on the mouse to zoom in. Before 10.3.3 it was a stuttering experience - now it zooms in very smoothly (-:
My iBook G4 800 suddenly became an OK machine for War3.
Daevad writes: Installed on a G4/450-upgraded B&W and all is fine. Subjectively, startup seems faster than ever.
Brian Connors writes: Just installed the 10.3.3 update on my 800 Mhz G4 Powerbook. The primary gripe I've had - startup time - with every update since 10.3 is gone. Start up time averages about 55 seconds. Prior to this update it was 84-90 seconds. Big and very welcome improvement!
Mark Nernberg had one of the nastier experiences: The update is running great.
Except for the loss of EVERYTHING in my home folder! Everything. All my downloaded music (ok, and some porn), data, everything. I have the important stuff backed up, but this is ridiculous. Have to reset preferences in every program I use. This sort of catastrophic loss sucks!
Russ Tolman writes: I have a Xerox Phaser 3450b that had the usb printing Broker when updating to 10.3.2. That has now been fixed. I have not tested it through a USB 2.0 hub yet.
Allan Sanderson experienced some gaming problems with UT2004: Now I don't know if this is typical of others experience, I'm running a 2GHz DP G5 where all was running well under 10.3.2, however after 10.3.3 I am unable to launch the UT2004 demo! UT2003 (full version) runs like a dream couldn't ask it to run faster or smoother, but 2004 will just not finish launch, and dies silently.
Looking in the Console log though shows this: ERROR: Could not open SkaarjPack.u for reading! ERROR: Could not open SkaarjPack_rc.u for reading! ERROR: Could not open BonusPack.u for reading! ERROR: Could not open SampleSkin.u for reading! WARNING: ALC_EXT_capture specification is subject to change!
alBuffer.c:1101: failed assertion `0'
This shows up for every launch attempt made. More disturbing was this entry in the system.log:
Mar 16 01:01:44 localhost kernel: AppleU3: WARNING: platform-chip-fault expected, but not found
Erm....? Excuse me? Any thoughts anyone? This shows up real early in the boot sequence, before even the ATA stuff....
This is new I just checked my old system logs and none of them contain this line, so this was introduced as part of the 10.3.3 updater.
This one also gets me a little jumpy upon reading, doesn't sound so serious, but well, it just doesn't make me feel comfortable either! All other apps look to be OK, I did the usual run of permissions repairs, before and after the install. Could just be an oddity in my system of course was just wondering if anyone else out there was having a similar problem?
David Harney is experiencing the major increase in fan activation/noise on a range of Macs, particularly PBG4s and G5's: On our Powerbook G4 1.33 1gig ram, the fan's nearly constantly cycling. Activity monitor shows nothing using CPU to speak of, although visualizer frames are higher in iTunes.
True, it is zippier, but I prefer the quiet and less odor of air moving as in 10.3.2 - I'll be re-installing later back to 10.3.2.
"Asger" from Denmark writes: It appears the Apple has still failed to address significant problems with OpenGL front buffer rendering - basically they don't follow the standard like every other computing platform does! Arrggghhhh!
Now you won't see this problem in games because they typically don't use Front buffer rendering however we do.
We produce what is probably one of the more sophisticated visualization systems commercially available on the Macintosh platform. This problem doesn't occur on SGI/Sun/Linux/Windows platforms but is purely a Macintosh problem and didn't occur until Panther was released.
The problem is described in detail in apple bug report ID #3549054 filed Feb. 4, 2004, although you can download a demo program to illustrate the problem along with source from our web page at http://www.ivs3d.com/applebug .
Fortunately it mostly occurs on the external monitor displayed from a laptop but it makes it hard to give presentations using the software as you might imagine. Initially we thought it was an OpenGL driver bug but it occurs with both ATI and NVidida cards. It's clearly an Apple OS bug. There are other examples of general Apple sloppiness when dealing with front buffer rendering but they can at least be lived with.
Adam Hodson writes: Disappointing results so far. Just did a quick points test with CocoaBench and found the overall score less that 10.3.2. I was getting an overall 24.5, and now it's about 23.5 File I/O seems to be the major issue. The machine is a Dual 1.25. Also, sonce installing Norton utils and firewall, the startup now takes MINUTES longer than it did prior.
Leander Hutton had some very typical mixed results to report. Mixed reviews here... My FW400 drives mount faster and boot up time is reduced. But IÕm not seeing any improvement in OpenGL games. In fact Elite Force II seems to runs slower, the frame rates have dropped significantly in EF II. No other problems thus far. Morgan Adams makes an important point about the number of negative reports you'll read here: Hi--Just a quick note to mention that your 20% negative reports you've been getting on 10.3.3 is certain to be skewed: people with a problem are highly motivated to report it--to vent, and to seek a solution.
People who are having no problems are far more unlikely to report anything. (But I'm waiting anyway.)
Larry G. DeVries wrote in with a very typical report: It worked well when I updated my G4 today to 10.3.3 from the prior version.
I always use Software Update. No problems and it does seem faster. Including faster Safari rendering of web pages.
Richard Lane's experience has been fairly similar to ours, with some initial delays in Finder startup times: I have noticed one interesting problem. After I installed I restarted my computer (without repairing permissions) and the start up seemed to hang at the screen where the Dock and the Menu bar appears. The background image popped up nicely and in a timely fashion but it took FOREVER for the Dock and the Menu to appear.
I was not sure what to make of it. I then ran permissions repair (it showed that I didn't need any) and I restarted. I had the exact same response at the same screen...I was worried becuase I had the spinning beach ball going for a lonnnnnnng time but it did eventually kick in. Once it kicked in I noticed no performance increases or decrease either way. I have a G4 Digital Audio 466MHz w/ 1GB of RAM.
Remy Theriault writes: Great update!!!
Now, both ways are able to correctly mount SMB volume on the desktop: by Network (Browsing network) or the menu (Connect to server)
This update made my day!!
Wynn Martin is clearly one of the happy ones. Count me among the uberhappy 80%! I'm a starving student running a crappy, donated B&W G3 into which I desperately crammed a $149 G4 upgrade and a heretofore useless ATI Radeon 7000 PCI....
so I almost can't believe the x.x.3 update's benefit today, especially in booting and application launch times; the update has done more than the hardware upgrades did. Plus, amazingly, windows in the Finder now drag fluid around as if they were in, um... Windows, god forbid. Or OS 9, even.
Expose still chops along in performance better rated in frames (3) than framerate and is more likely to induce seizures than the first season of Pokemon cartoons, but at least I can now tell what's *trying* to happen.
It's all enough to make me continue studying very hard, with the hope of maybe graduating next year, and one day buying a Mac.
Adam Huson, however, is not one of the happy ones at all. My G4 AGP has been running for months without any problem, just as soon as I applied the Panther 10.3.3 update, I restarted and the computer would not boot. It sat at a flashing icon screen until I restarted it. When I booted up off a disk repair utility, it couldn't see either of my two hard drives.
It seems now that the only way I can get it to boot from the main drive, is to shut the computer all the way down, otherwise it won't see any hard drives. (It doesn't even see the drives when at the boot device selection screen by holding down option at boot.)
It sounds odd, and not like something I would normally attribute to software, but nothing else has changed.
While most users experienced over-active fans and therefore cooler temps with 10.3.3, Johnathan Flower has had the opposite experience: Yes, the new update is snappier by quite a bit.
Two things happened on my machine (iBook g4 12") - the first is that I lost keyboard commands for shutdown, restart, and sleep.
I had to use the menu; a restart fixed that. The next and more alarming is that my ibook now gets really hot!!!
The fan does not seem to come on at all. My left palm and my lap now get sweaty. I had never ever experienced this heat in the past. Definitely because of the 10.3.3 update. I have reset the PMU to no avail. Wish me luck.
Sam Venning writes: If you save Mail attachments by clicking the "Save All" button files are saved with Owner Read & Write access. If however you drag Mail attachments to the desktop (anywhere in fact) the files are saved with Owner Read Only access. This is VERY, VERY frustrating - try editing a MS Word document.
I've been hassling Apple about this for ages now. I'm really surprised this hasn't been addressed in the Mac OS 10.3.3 update. I'm surprised that more people aren't complaining about this.
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52 Comments
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K1avg - Friday, March 19, 2004 - link
Dude, who keeps posting all these stupid Mac OS Rumors. If we want to read that crap, we'll go to the website. No need to clutter up here with this garbage.And Anand, I feel your pain. Teachers seem to just feel the need to pile on tons of extra work just before Spring Break (next week for me). Good luck and we hope to hear from your again soon. Blogging from a PC, of course. ;)
Gage - Friday, March 19, 2004 - link
that was more than we needed to know...Anonymous - Friday, March 19, 2004 - link
From MacOS Rumors10.3.3 reader report mega-update: We've compiled an exhaustive collection of early and current reader reports regarding the Mac OS X 10.3.3 Update in the submitters' own words. Without further ado....
"Asger" from Denmark writes: You notice it straight away when you use the scroll wheel on the mouse to zoom in. Before 10.3.3 it was a stuttering experience - now it zooms in very smoothly (-:
My iBook G4 800 suddenly became an OK machine for War3.
Daevad writes: Installed on a G4/450-upgraded B&W and all is fine. Subjectively, startup seems faster than ever.
Brian Connors writes: Just installed the 10.3.3 update on my 800 Mhz G4 Powerbook. The primary gripe I've had - startup time - with every update since 10.3 is gone. Start up time averages about 55 seconds. Prior to this update it was 84-90 seconds. Big and very welcome improvement!
Mark Nernberg had one of the nastier experiences: The update is running great.
Except for the loss of EVERYTHING in my home folder! Everything. All my downloaded music (ok, and some porn), data, everything. I have the important stuff backed up, but this is ridiculous. Have to reset preferences in every program I use. This sort of catastrophic loss sucks!
Russ Tolman writes: I have a Xerox Phaser 3450b that had the usb printing Broker when updating to 10.3.2. That has now been fixed. I have not tested it through a USB 2.0 hub yet.
Allan Sanderson experienced some gaming problems with UT2004: Now I don't know if this is typical of others experience, I'm running a 2GHz DP G5 where all was running well under 10.3.2, however after 10.3.3 I am unable to launch the UT2004 demo! UT2003 (full version) runs like a dream couldn't ask it to run faster or smoother, but 2004 will just not finish launch, and dies silently.
Looking in the Console log though shows this:
ERROR: Could not open SkaarjPack.u for reading!
ERROR: Could not open SkaarjPack_rc.u for reading!
ERROR: Could not open BonusPack.u for reading!
ERROR: Could not open SampleSkin.u for reading!
WARNING: ALC_EXT_capture specification is subject to change!
alBuffer.c:1101: failed assertion `0'
This shows up for every launch attempt made. More disturbing was this entry in the system.log:
Mar 16 01:01:44 localhost kernel: AppleU3: WARNING: platform-chip-fault expected, but not found
Erm....? Excuse me? Any thoughts anyone? This shows up real early in the boot sequence, before even the ATA stuff....
This is new I just checked my old system logs and none of them contain this line, so this was introduced as part of the 10.3.3 updater.
This one also gets me a little jumpy upon reading, doesn't sound so serious, but well, it just doesn't make me feel comfortable either! All other apps look to be OK, I did the usual run of permissions repairs, before and after the install. Could just be an oddity in my system of course was just wondering if anyone else out there was having a similar problem?
David Harney is experiencing the major increase in fan activation/noise on a range of Macs, particularly PBG4s and G5's: On our Powerbook G4 1.33 1gig ram, the fan's nearly constantly cycling. Activity monitor shows nothing using CPU to speak of, although visualizer frames are higher in iTunes.
True, it is zippier, but I prefer the quiet and less odor of air moving as in 10.3.2 - I'll be re-installing later back to 10.3.2.
"Asger" from Denmark writes: It appears the Apple has still failed to address significant problems with OpenGL front buffer rendering - basically they don't follow the standard like every other computing platform does! Arrggghhhh!
Now you won't see this problem in games because they typically don't use Front buffer rendering however we do.
We produce what is probably one of the more sophisticated visualization systems commercially available on the Macintosh platform. This problem doesn't occur on SGI/Sun/Linux/Windows platforms but is purely a Macintosh problem and didn't occur until Panther was released.
The problem is described in detail in apple bug report ID #3549054 filed Feb. 4, 2004, although you can download a demo program to illustrate the problem along with source from our web page at http://www.ivs3d.com/applebug .
Fortunately it mostly occurs on the external monitor displayed from a laptop but it makes it hard to give presentations using the software as you might imagine. Initially we thought it was an OpenGL driver bug but it occurs with both ATI and NVidida cards. It's clearly an Apple OS bug. There are other examples of general Apple sloppiness when dealing with front buffer rendering but they can at least be lived with.
Adam Hodson writes: Disappointing results so far. Just did a quick points test with CocoaBench and found the overall score less that 10.3.2. I was getting an overall 24.5, and now it's about 23.5 File I/O seems to be the major issue. The machine is a Dual 1.25. Also, sonce installing Norton utils and firewall, the startup now takes MINUTES longer than it did prior.
Leander Hutton had some very typical mixed results to report. Mixed reviews here... My FW400 drives mount faster and boot up time is reduced. But IÕm not seeing any improvement in OpenGL games. In fact Elite Force II seems to runs slower, the frame rates have dropped significantly in EF II. No other problems thus far.
Morgan Adams makes an important point about the number of negative reports you'll read here: Hi--Just a quick note to mention that your 20% negative reports you've been getting on 10.3.3 is certain to be skewed: people with a problem are highly motivated to report it--to vent, and to seek a solution.
People who are having no problems are far more unlikely to report anything. (But I'm waiting anyway.)
Larry G. DeVries wrote in with a very typical report: It worked well when I updated my G4 today to 10.3.3 from the prior version.
I always use Software Update. No problems and it does seem faster. Including faster Safari rendering of web pages.
Richard Lane's experience has been fairly similar to ours, with some initial delays in Finder startup times: I have noticed one interesting problem. After I installed I restarted my computer (without repairing permissions) and the start up seemed to hang at the screen where the Dock and the Menu bar appears. The background image popped up nicely and in a timely fashion but it took FOREVER for the Dock and the Menu to appear.
I was not sure what to make of it. I then ran permissions repair (it showed that I didn't need any) and I restarted. I had the exact same response at the same screen...I was worried becuase I had the spinning beach ball going for a lonnnnnnng time but it did eventually kick in. Once it kicked in I noticed no performance increases or decrease either way. I have a G4 Digital Audio 466MHz w/ 1GB of RAM.
Remy Theriault writes: Great update!!!
Now, both ways are able to correctly mount SMB volume on the desktop: by Network (Browsing network) or the menu (Connect to server)
This update made my day!!
Wynn Martin is clearly one of the happy ones. Count me among the uberhappy 80%! I'm a starving student running a crappy, donated B&W G3 into which I desperately crammed a $149 G4 upgrade and a heretofore useless ATI Radeon 7000 PCI....
so I almost can't believe the x.x.3 update's benefit today, especially in booting and application launch times; the update has done more than the hardware upgrades did. Plus, amazingly, windows in the Finder now drag fluid around as if they were in, um... Windows, god forbid. Or OS 9, even.
Expose still chops along in performance better rated in frames (3) than framerate and is more likely to induce seizures than the first season of Pokemon cartoons, but at least I can now tell what's *trying* to happen.
It's all enough to make me continue studying very hard, with the hope of maybe graduating next year, and one day buying a Mac.
Adam Huson, however, is not one of the happy ones at all. My G4 AGP has been running for months without any problem, just as soon as I applied the Panther 10.3.3 update, I restarted and the computer would not boot. It sat at a flashing icon screen until I restarted it. When I booted up off a disk repair utility, it couldn't see either of my two hard drives.
It seems now that the only way I can get it to boot from the main drive, is to shut the computer all the way down, otherwise it won't see any hard drives. (It doesn't even see the drives when at the boot device selection screen by holding down option at boot.)
It sounds odd, and not like something I would normally attribute to software, but nothing else has changed.
While most users experienced over-active fans and therefore cooler temps with 10.3.3, Johnathan Flower has had the opposite experience: Yes, the new update is snappier by quite a bit.
Two things happened on my machine (iBook g4 12") - the first is that I lost keyboard commands for shutdown, restart, and sleep.
I had to use the menu; a restart fixed that. The next and more alarming is that my ibook now gets really hot!!!
The fan does not seem to come on at all. My left palm and my lap now get sweaty. I had never ever experienced this heat in the past. Definitely because of the 10.3.3 update. I have reset the PMU to no avail. Wish me luck.
Sam Venning writes: If you save Mail attachments by clicking the "Save All" button files are saved with Owner Read & Write access. If however you drag Mail attachments to the desktop (anywhere in fact) the files are saved with Owner Read Only access. This is VERY, VERY frustrating - try editing a MS Word document.
I've been hassling Apple about this for ages now. I'm really surprised this hasn't been addressed in the Mac OS 10.3.3 update. I'm surprised that more people aren't complaining about this.
Dtravis - Thursday, March 18, 2004 - link
Oh and Windows Never Crashes, Never locks, Never blue screens, Never has security holes.Anonymous - Thursday, March 18, 2004 - link
He probably trying to get that crashed Mac back up and running. lol.SmurfTower - Thursday, March 18, 2004 - link
I have a feeling he's dead and the murderer was the one who posted this pathetic unanand type message. :pAnonymous - Thursday, March 18, 2004 - link
I don't know, but I am losing patience. I keep checking the board and stare at blanks.OoTLInk - Thursday, March 18, 2004 - link
All the anonymous silly people.. yeeesh..*starts throwing pies at them*
Well I guess that should liven things up a bit :)
What I wonder is if Mr. Anand is still using his mac or not? hehe
Adam K - Wednesday, March 17, 2004 - link
You guys are funny!Anonymous - Wednesday, March 17, 2004 - link
#11 and #12 got it right. These people really don't have a life and pay no attention. These people go above and beyond an idiotic level.