Mac OS 10.4.10: The Worst System Update Ever?
July 23rd, 2007The other day, I was interviewing MacFixIt’s Ben Wilson for one of his periodic slots on The Tech Night Owl LIVE. During the conversation, he remarked that reader surveys had shown that the recent 10.4.10 update for Tiger was the most troublesome in recent memory.
This surprised me, largely because I never seem to have any of the problems that other people seem to encounter with regularly. I don’t know that I’m necessarily doing anything different, other than to be a little cautious about third-party system toys, or maybe I’ve just been lucky, and now things will change for the worse because I’ve mentioned them here.
While troubleshooting forums might be heavily weighted towards people with problems, I accept Ben’s comments as entirely accurate. Clearly there’s a disconnect between my experiences and those of others in our audience.
So what went wrong? Well, some folks are encountering AirPort wireless connection issues and related kernel panics, primarily on recent-generation MacBooks and MacBook Pros. Well, my MacBook Pro is of the first generation variety, and it has been outfitted with a replacement AirPort card from our friends at FastMac to support the 802.11n draft standard, so I don’t really fit into any of the conventional categories, but I haven’t had any troubles at all.
Another problem, fixed by a more recent update, caused a popping sound on some of the Intel-based Macs. This isn’t something I can check for myself, since the bottom tip of an audio jack remains stuck in my MacBook Pro’s output port. So much for sound, although I installed the update anyway without incident.
Apple also released and quickly withdraw a SuperDrive firmware update that had the nasty side-effect of disabling drives, which will no doubt keep their service departments busy for a while.
There are also reports of issues with QuickTime 7.2 but that, technically, is not a 10.4.10 update, so we have to put it into another category.
So why is these problems occurring? Did Apple fail to test the 10.4.10 update because the operating system team was too busy putting in the final touches for the iPhone and to get Leopard development back on track? I don’t pretend to have any hard answers, especially with no personal experiences to help illuminate possible causes.
But assuming everything is as bad as it seems, does that mean Apple must put up a 10.4.11 update to set things right? Or will that just create more problems than it solves.
It’s a sure thing, though, that as the Mac OS X user base continues to grow, there will be more opportunities for things to go bad. That’s the nature of the beast, because it also increases the opportunity for unique installation scenarios that might cause some of these ills.
However, I have to tell you that no Mac OS X update was ever as bad as some of the garbage that passed for a Mac system over a decade ago. Let’s return to 1995, for example, when Apple switched to PowerPC computers with PCI expansion slots. Now ditching NuBus for PCI was a great idea, because it made it possible to get accelerated graphics card for much less money, since a manufacturer could leverage their PC product with new firmware. Or at least that was the prevailing theory.
But the Mac OS 7.5 versions that shipped with those computers caused endless nightmares. As I recall, that PCI Power Mac, a 9500, shipped with 7.5.2. It was crash city, and it started misbehaving not 15 minutes after I set up that computer for the first time, and continued every hour or so until Apple delivered relief in the form of the 7.5.3 update. In retrospect, 7.5.3 was nothing special, but after the misery caused by 7.5.2, anything would have seemed a vast improvement.
Although cherished by some old-time Mac users, I don’t recall System 6 as being especially reliable either. I recall working at a pre-press studio in the late 1980s, and hearing Macs restarting several times an hour. Of course, they were running heavy-duty and notoriously bug-prone content creation software too, but you had to wonder how they ever got any work done, and how the Mac came to dominate the graphic arts business. Then again, those early versions of Windows were far, far worse.
Indeed, things have changed far more than our fading memories realize. However severe those problems with the 10.4.10 update might seem, they pale in comparison to what we encountered way back when.
That, however, doesn’t lessen Apple’s obligation to fix the things that are broken, even if it means that Leopard may ship a little bit later.
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I don’t recall ever having any trouble with System 6. System 7.0.1, I think it was, has some fast math routines that made it incompatible with MacMoney, and was possibly less reliable, but certainly not Pentium-math level of unreliability.
I got a 7500 that came with 7.5.2. By the time I got it, I had the 7.5.3 update, so I turned the computer on and immediately did the update. Open-something-or-other (that was a networking and internet tool) was stil buggy and was the cause of all the crashes I had up until 7.5.5 or something like that. Open-whatsis 1.1.1 corrected a lot of the problem prior to 7.5.5.
BTW, Tiger has never crashed for me, not on my G4 tower, my iBook G4, or my Mac Pro.
[I think maybe “Open Transport” is the term I couldn’t think of when I wrote the above.]
My first Mac came with System 7. It was OK and worked fine for me in my fledgling days as a computer user. When the updates to it started, Apple got themselves into a real mess until 7.6.1. This was the first really stable update. OS 8 was pretty flaky and continued to be so right up until OS 9.2.2
Ah for those days of extension conflicts and any application allowed to completely stuff up your “b tree”, requiring a re boot if you were lucky and a full OS re-install if the gods were against you.
With the exception of the beta, none of the OSX releases are anything like the purgatory of the Classic era.
I seem to remember one OSX upgrade that killed Firewire, although I also seem to remember that Apple put out a fix toot sweet. If my memory’s right, okay, that one was pretty flamboyantly inexcusable and probably some erstwhile Apple programmer is now selling aluminum siding. But let’s look at the big picture. If you are putting out OSX (or Windows, or any other imaginable OS) it’s impossible to pre-test a new version with every conceivable peripheral device, application, or third-party system modification that’s out there. And then there’s the whole subject of security holes. All you can do is prerelease your new version to the usual gang of beta-testers in the hope they will catch your more obvious mistakes, then declare it GM, release it, and then stand back and wait for the complaints to come rolling in. Then you worry about how to fix whatever problems surface: by issuing patches or by starting the whole cycle over with a new upgrade. It’s nuts for customers to expect perfection. All we can realistically hope for is that when problems do surface Apple fixes them quickly and effectively. And here I think it’s fair to say they have a pretty terrific track record.
And i. m. h. o. the amazing thing about Classic was how well it continued to work even after it evolved into a Rube Goldberg assortment of extensions, etc. If nothing else, at least once it had finished booting it was damn fast, it was not until I started running Tiger on my Mac Pro that I reclaimed anything like the speed I had going for me running OS 9 on a G-4. And don’t tell me OSX is totally problem-free. It very rarely crashes itself, but some application freezes can only be solved by a system reboot. And if you let run for a few weeks it eventually becomes very squirrely (because of fragmented memory?) and needs a reboot to get back to normal.
Another significant difference between then and now is the cost of high-speed backup drives. With only having SCSI as the preferred way to connect a drive, hard disks were so dang expensive! Thank God all we had to backup at the time before systems updates was the System Folder! Many of my clients could barely afford the Mac in the first place let alone any decent backup solution. A lot of money was paid to my company to reinstall the OS and set up again. It became a yearly ritual if not more often for some clients.
I agree as well with the speed of OS X. People used to remark at how quick the interface was on a 9600 running OS 8.6 or so. OS X was a dog from day one on every machine I ever touched. It’s alright on my Intel iMac but even there it spends too much time spinning it’s little beach ball head around locking up the dock, the Finder and the menu bar.
We are better off in so many ways but I’ve noticed progress in this industry is always hampered with bugs. There is no money in making OS 9 stable now. Or 10.4 either.
(One last thing… System 6 might have had it’s troubles but rebooting in less than a minute was alright by me compared to later years.)
Cheers
Bone-stock MacBook Pro 1st generation; all updates, all installed from Combo Updaters. I use Airport (11g) extensively, on battery. No problems. Why? Very little 3rd party stuff? Only use mainstream apps? The Combo Updaters??
I don’t know, but as a Mac User since OS 4.x (before finder and system were syncronized), can say that OSX is the most stable experience. If I had the problems so many others do, wonder if I’d feel the same way?
And yeah, it sure takes a lot of h.p. to get OSX to run.
7.1 was the most stable classic Mac OS for me, running beautifully on my PowerBook 145B. Every subsequent update all the way through 9.2.2 on a Lombard PowerBook added new features, but at a cost in stability and speed. Probably the switch to PPC and the use of emulation was partially to blame, but not until Panther on a 12″ G4 PowerBook did I exceed the stability of 7.1, and even on a latest generation Core2Duo MacBook I’ve not yet come close to the speed of that old 25MHz PowerBook 145B running 7.1.
If I recall, it used to boot in something like 20 seconds (my system folder definitely took the “less is more” approach, as it does today), Word 5.1a launched in about 6 seconds (about twice as fast as the admittedly emulated Word 2004) and just about every other application also launched in about half the time of its modern counterpart. Of course, those 1993 applications were far less capable, but I don’t think the increase in application ability matches the increase in raw computing power represented by the MacBook over the old PowerBook 145B.
Of course, the same progress, or lack thereof, can be found on the Windows platform. I had an old 16MHz IBM PS/2 computer back in 1990 and it would launch Windows 3.0 in about 30 seconds, compared to an even minute to get Vista up and running. Word for Windows 1.0 would be up in about 2 seconds, compared to six for Word 2007 (first launch, subsequent launches are instant). Just as with the Mac, the software is far more capable, but I doubt its requirements have increased as much as the capabilities of modern hardware has.
I’m curious about this setup – do you have a post about it somewhere? Did you actually change the internal AirPort card? If so, where did you get the new part? If you’re using an ExpressCard, how’s that working out? Is it affecting battery life? Howabout drivers/software? Physical form factor?
Thanks,
Avi
Started with System 5? (I think? 1988) had a 9500, no problems until the power supply died after about 4 years, have owned probably 20 machines (had 6 at one time in business)
Had some crashes, but rarely anything that was more than an irritation.
Have been on OSX since 10.2, would never go back unless Windows was the only alternative.
now on Macbook 10.4.1, the only problem I have had was Safari crashing, but that has gone away with Beta 3.
In case anyone wants to know, my AirPort upgrade for the MacBook Pro was installed by http://www.fastmac.com and they are one of several companies that offer “n” cards to replace the existing AirPort hardware.
Peace,
Gene
10.4.10 has been a great update so far, but recently I wonder if I might have reached a bug with it. I can’t get Superduper to backup to either of my backup drives, and Disk Utility reports no problems with the directory or permissions, and I don’t use any other utilities except Macjanitor, and the hard drive is only 50% full. I’m going to have to see if I can run Disk Warrior and fix the problem. If it doesn’t, Shirt-pocket is going to hear from me.
I have an iMac 20″ Intel Core2Duo with 2 GB of RAM, and Superduper is complaining about the file size of one of my files and quits backing up when it reaches it.
With the risk of thunderstorms over the next 5 days, I won’t be able to try that experiment with it until after the risk has subsided.
Hi all,
I have installed Mac OS X 10.4 in April 30th, 2005 and suffer from problem ever since. Yes, this is the worst OS I ever saw and I use Apple computers from early 1985.
Hard disk directory structure, buggy AppleScript, Finder intempestive restart, CD/DVD burning (bad, wrong, …) and so on, and so on. I have list of screen shots, text explanation that I will use one day (before leopard, after leopard release ?).
I am sad, tired and bitter about that OS. What about other OSes ? Do not talk about Windows and forget Linux (Clipboard persistant in 2005!)
And then again, in System 1 putting a Desk Accessory such as the Calculator into the Trash, actually erased it!
FWIW, 10.4.10 has been stable for me on three machines (PowerBook, PowerMac G5 and a four-core Intelitosh MacPro)
No known issues here with 10.4.10. Updated a Ti PowerBook, an Intel Mac mini, and a museum-worthy iMac G3 Graphite.
[…] a long thread on the Apple discussions boards, and independent confirmations from around the macweb. The main workaround so far is to go wired (which is hardly a […]
Gene: thanks for the info!
Wireless not a problem here. Sounds like to me many third party wireless access points have bad firmware. Someone did find a solution, and that’s to use a 13 character password to avoid wireless problems. See my FAQ:
http://www.macmaps.com/WIFI1048.html for additional solutions.
I haven’t had any problems at all with 10.4.10 on my 1st generation MacBook Pro. I use a Linksys WRT54G rather than an Airport Extreme base station.
We have OS X 10.4.10 on four computers here running fine with no problems. We burn a fair number of DVDs and CDs with no issues. We use lots of Firewire accessories and a few USB accessories. We use an Airport Extreme router. The machines range from a G3 iMac, a G4 iMac, a G4 Aluminum PowerBook to a 17″ MacBook Pro. We don’t run any third party apps that modify the OS. It may or may not be helping but I always restart the machines and repair permissions before installing updates. The G4 iMac has always had problems if we add memory so we run it stock.
Computers should run like clocks so it is a puzzle why some machines work well and others have problems. Probably the people who study this have some real information on the topic. I’d guess that in the millions of machines in use there are some with marginal components of one sort or another. Maybe a disk with a thin spot on the platter. Maybe a filter capacitor that sometimes doesn’t filter so well. Maybe a power supply that may momentarily drop the supply voltage. These are understandable things but it is cost prohibitive to investigate them on every machine that is having problems.
Up until a few days ago, I always wondered how some people had so many upgrade problems and I didn’t. I’ve never had to do anything other than the usual preventative steps. But, after the upgrade to 10.4.10, I’m a member of the club.
I upgraded my TiBook via Software Update (like usual), but after the usual double reboot, my wireless PCMCIA card didn’t work. In fact, I had no bars at the top of my display. I did everything short of completely rebuilding my network configuration. I stopped short of that because a wired connection still worked.
Also, Safari is dog-slow. It takes minutes to paint a screen. I’ve switched over to Firefox. It opens slower than usual, but is acceptable.
After about three days, the wireless connection started working again. Being a laptop, I had shutdown and restarted the machine once or twice each day. But, Safari was and is still slow.
I haven’t noticed any other problems. I’m thinking of downloading the full upgrade and trying again.
Your point about unique installation scenarios is well taken, but hardly covers the situation.
I updated my virgin MacBook Pro from 10.4.9 to 10.4.10 the day I bought it, using Software Update, and it trashed my networking. I had to nuke-and-pave from the restore DVD. There is no excuse for this, whatsoever!
Ah, yes, I remember the 7.5.x nightmare. Several indistinguishable but different versions of 7.5.2/7.5.3 floating around, each customized for one particular Mac, and unusable on others. 7.6 was SO welcome! 9.0 was another dog.
On the other hand, 6 has always been a lucky number for the Mac. System 6 was good, 7.6 was good, and my Finder finally stopped spontaneously restarting when I upgraded to 8.6. I can’t wait for Apple to replace Leopard! 🙂
I think I remember that Mac OS 7.5.2 (they started having the Mac OS icon back in 7.5.1 already) disaster. My Power Mac 7500/100 started crashing six days after I bought it — at startup.
And please don’t even get me started on that Open Transport update thingy — versions 1.0.2, 1.0.3 and that kind of stuff…
(As I’m writing this, the old 7.5.2 Printing Fix extension even comes to mind…)
They had like about two to three different versions of 7.5.2 floating around with the different System enablers — and another one for the laptops only.
Then there was the one about 7.5.4, where they nixed it at the last minute and came out with 7.5.5 instead.
FWIW, I’m on 10.4.9 on my MacBook and (I think) 10.4.6 on my PowerBook. I don’t upgrade either until something like the end of the world comes down on these two. I’m a big believer in “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!”.
One wonders why Apple’s OS updates should ever be problematic since THEY totally control the hardware and should be able to predict any and all anomalies right down to the last electron. In contrast, Windows OS updates should be even more problematic than they seem to be considering that they must fit with a mind-boggling array of devices and unexpected hardware configurations. This would imply that Apple is cutting corners and inappropriately waiting for the user community to find their problems for them, which is not at all cool.
They don’t control the third party products, however. And that’s where some of the problems appear to have occurred.
Peace,
Gene
I don’t think its only an OS or an upgrade or combination of installed applications that makes one computer more or less reliable than another. Case in point, I have one PC that is very reliable, never crashes whether in Windows or Linux, and just keeps on working, but that has the annoying tendency to stop and think for a few minutes here and there.
I can’t explain it, it just freezes for a minute, even when doing nothing more than navigating through folders or scrolling through a text file, and then just as suddenly returns to life. It doesn’t matter if its running Windows 2000, XP or Vista (Vista does it a bit less often) or Ubuntu 6.06, the behavior is the same. I’ve tried everything, flashing the BIOS, swapping out RAM (it has a full 1.0 GB) and even a processor swap (from original P4 2.0GHz to a similar P4 at 1.8GHz). It doesn’t matter if I use the integrated Intel graphics or the add-on ATI Radeon 8500, and swapping out the 40GB Maxtor for an 80GB Hitachi also did nothing. It can’t be software as I’ve tried four different operating systems and especially Windows 2000 (clean install) is nowhere near to overwhelming this computer’s specification.
I had a G4 Power Mac that was differently, though equally quirky. That machine would kernel panic in any version of OS X if anything was connected to built-in FireWire port at boot up. That was the only issue. The FireWire port caused no problems booting OS9 and once up and running in OS X I could connect, use and disconnect FireWire devices at will.
The Power Mac remains in service today as its problem just isn’t worth dealing with, but the PC with its “coffee breaks” is simply too frustrating.
[…] Is she on a wireless connection. There have been reports of issues with the 10.4.10 update and Airport when you’re running on battery. It appears there’s a bug in the Atheros driver. There’s no workaround yet other than either using AC power or Ethernet for the time being. There will probably be a software fix for it soon. It seems to be fairly widespread. Hardmac.com : Le "Macbidouille" in English Mac OS X 10.4.10 Update v1.1 available – The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) MacMerc.com: Is your MacBook Pro giving you kernel panics when you use wifi? Mine too. The Mac Night Owl » Mac OS 10.4.10: The Worst System Update Ever? […]
I never had a problem with updates before, but since I installed the latest update, applications are crashing all over the place. This includes Google Earth, Firefox, Safari, and even sometimes the Dock and Finder! They seem to be crashing in the ATSServer, if I am not being faked out by the error messages and CrashLog reports.
I had APE installed, and uninstalled it, thinking it might have something to do with this. No help. Also, now that you mention it, I do see odd network behaviour — lots of transmits with no receives, a second or two delay, and then the responses coming back. This latency is abnormal.
This update seems to have thoroughly trashed my machine, and my confidence in Apple is destroyed. HELP!
Chris,
If your problem is with wireless, there is an update from Apple to fix wireless issues. Check
http://www.apple.com/swupdates/
If your problem is with wired, it sounds to me you have a network hardware issue.
See my FAQ to isolate your issues:
http://www.macmaps.com/upgradefaq.html
Both 10.4.9 and now 10.4.10 have caused me endless hours dealing with Kernal panics. I just downloaded another security update. I’ve Cocktailed the machine, run the disk util. We’ll see if I can log back into my main account or if I have to move all my files to a new account shortly.
Vista is looking better and better even though my 17″ iMac is not much more than a year old and maxed with 2GB RAM.
This is my 5th MAC, don’t even get me started on the problems I’ve had with my old 12″ 1Ghz PowerBook G4. It gets past the apple logo about 1/2 of the time, making it a good paperweight. Despite the fact that Apply has replaced the HD 2x and given me a replacement machine 1x in the 4 years I’ve owned it.
At work I have a IBM notebook, I’m the 2nd owner, it runs XP with nary a problem. Ironically I have Tech Support at work and do not ever need them!
Jimmy
I had been running 10.4.10 just fine on my G4 tower and iBook for a while, but just recently let Software Update take my Mac Pro to 10.4.10. I had seen that they have an undated version of the updater for Intell Macs.
So far so good.
The only problem I have with my Macs is that Photoshop CS3 won’t print on my HP Laserjet 1320. It just spews out pages with one line of garbage on each. Illustrator, Acrobat, InDesign all print just fine, so it is not a big deal to work around the problem using one of them or Preview for the printing. I don’t think this problem has anything to do with which Mac OS version one is using, so it’s not relevant to this discussion, other than to say its the only problem I have on a Mac right now (or have had for a good while).
Weird issues are not uncommon on either platform. I have a PC that prints garbled junk on an HP printer than works fine with every other computer I have (Mac and PC). Even wiping that computer clean and installing nothing but the printer driver makes no difference. That PC, by the way, prints just fine to my other printers, only this one HP.
HP has no clue. Lenovo has no clue. Microsoft has no clue. I’ve had similar strangeness from my Power Mac G4 that won’t boot when anything is plugged into the onboard firewire port. Any OS, any device, it just won’t boot. Attach a device after booting and everything works perfectly.