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Macs & Mac OS X | 29 Mar 2010 | Listen   | Print Printer-Friendly Version of This Article | Comment (18)

Mac OS X 10.6.3 Update Delivers Range of Fixes

by Jeff Carlson Send Email to Author

Has your experience with Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard been interrupted by odd behaviors or obscure bugs? There's a chance that the just-released Mac OS X 10.6.3 Update may address them. The latest version of Mac OS X rolls in fixes for a host of bugs. Apple has detailed the major fixes, of which some stand out.

  • Performance is improved when running Logic Pro 9 and MainStage 2 in 64-bit mode.
  • Reliability is improved in many areas: photo screen savers, printing, some third-party USB devices, wireless connections, QuickTime X, sleeping and waking when connected to 2.4 GHz wireless networks, iDisk Sync and syncing calendars via MobileMe, and more.
  • A problem with Time Machine backups using an AirPort connection has been fixed.
  • Time Machine backups to a Time Capsule, including multiple computers, are more reliable.
  • A few problems when saving or handling files with an SMB server volume have been resolved.
  • A new crash-reporting option has been added. The preferences in the Console application now offer an option to "Automatically send anonymous diagnostic and usage data to Apple." In previous versions of Mac OS X, if a crash happened, the system would prompt you to send that data.
  • The Apple Events bug that Matt Neuburg described in "Tracking Down Snow Leopard's Apple Events Bug" (13 October 2009) is now fixed. However, another bug that Matt identified in "A Finder-Copying Bug in Snow Leopard" (10 November 2009) has not been addressed.
  • The annoying Preview bug Adam wrote about in "Two-Line URLs Broken in Snow Leopard's Preview" (10 September 2009) is finally fixed.

The update also includes dozens of security fixes that tackle problems with maliciously crafted files, messages, and Web sites, as well as updating MySQL to 5.0.88, PHP to 5.3.1 (or 5.2.12 under Mac OS X 10.5.8), Ruby on Rails to version 2.3.5, and various other components to newer versions.

Mac OS X 10.6.3 Update is available via Software Update, with file sizes varying depending on machine and configuration; my MacBook Pro's update, for example, is 414.4 MB. Standalone downloads are also available: Mac OS X 10.6.3 (719.23 MB); Mac OS X 10.6.3 (Combo) (784 MB); Mac OS X Server 10.6.3 (831.31 MB); and Mac OS X Server 10.6.3 (Combo) (897.32 MB).

 

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Comments about Mac OS X 10.6.3 Update Delivers Range of Fixes

Hunter H2010-03-30 05:49
I skipped the last one, scared off by nightmare stories. Is this one good to go? Is Software Update the best way to install it?
Adam Engst2010-03-30 06:05
So far so good here, but that's almost always true for the majority of people. The number of people who have trouble with these updates is usually a small percentage.

That said, the safest approach is to wait a week or so, and if there are no problems, use the Combo updater rather than Software Update. Personally, I feel that's a lot more effort than is warranted, but it offers some additional perspective and at least the illusion of control. :-)
Hunter H2010-03-30 06:21
Thanks, Adam - good advice! Will check back here in a bit to see whether the update's wrought any wrath or settled in quietly.

I appreciate your response! :-)
Roger D. Parish2010-03-30 10:51
I just applied the Combo updater, after a full SuperDUper backup. No problems in the first 10 minutes.

Model Identifier: MacBook4,1
Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed: 2.4 GHz
Dan Draney2010-03-30 11:41
I updated this morning and have had two hard crashes in just a couple of hours of usage. VMWare Fusion was running along w/ Safari.
Updaters beware!
Dan Draney2010-03-30 16:09
I downloaded the Combo Updater and reinstalled the update. I also found my copy of SmartSleep was not even supposed to be Snow Leopard compatible, so might be the root cause. So far, no more crashes.
Phil Kearney2010-03-30 17:26
Updated to 10.6.3 and tried to run a couple of ncurses based GUIs for command line tool configuration in Terminal and it seems 10.6.3 broke ncurses. The arrow keys don't work right for me in any curses-based GUI running inside of Terminal or iTerm.
Esel Theo2010-03-31 03:37
ncurses seems to be broken after upgrade to 10.6.3, too. :-(
florent2010-04-04 17:51
I ran into the same problem, and describe it here:
http://www.uponmyshoulder.com/blog/2010/os-x-10-6-3-broke-ncurses/

I submitted a bug report. Let's hope it'll get fixed soon!
Lloyd Loring2010-03-31 09:52
How do you uninstall an update? Both Adobe Illustrator CS3 and InDesign CS3 worked fine until 10.6.3. Now they crash as they open. Reinstalling them didn't help. Adobe doesn't seem to have a fix so far.
Adam Engst2010-03-31 10:03
You'd need to reinstall from the original Snow Leopard DVD, and then update to 10.6.2 using a download from Apple's Support Downloads site. Sorry to hear about the problem!
Lloyd Loring2010-04-01 13:06
Thganks. That's what I did, and restored three Adobe programs that had gotten munged as well. Thank goodness I had a SuperDuper clone FireWire disk that still had 10.6.2! It allowed me to run the programs that wouldn't open under 10.6.3 until I had un-updated..

James Vicars2010-05-04 23:14
Does this mean CS 3 won't run under anything later than 10.6.2?
ABZ2010-04-01 06:31
Is anyone having problems with multiple monitor freezes after updating to 10.6.3?
Adam Engst2010-04-04 12:41
I've had no troubles with my multiple monitors after updating, and neither has Tonya, so I'd be interested to hear if others have had issues.
Ben2010-04-04 05:11
i received ncurses problems as well, all ncurses related stuff did not work on 10.6.3 (arrow keys had no function).
so i came up with time machine and went back to 10.6.2, did a backup auf all libncurses in /usr/lib, updated to 10.6.3 again and copied back my backupped libncurses to /usr/lib.
now its working again.
Doug Smith2010-04-04 12:40
I occasionally use Windows XP via BootCamp on my MacBook Pro. When I updated to Mac OS X 10.6.3 (the build of 2 April 2010), the Windows screen skittered and blinked, and the cursor eventually froze. I then had troubles rebooting the Mac partition. I finally had to reinstall Mac OS X 10.6 from the installation DVD, then Windows XP again worked fine.
matthew2010-04-08 14:32
For me 10.6.3 is now randomly double clicking when I only single click. I notice this most often in Mail when clicking on messages and it bringing up a new window for the message or clicking on delete and having it delete two messages rather than one. Issue happens in other apps as well.