Over 100 bug fixes baked into Apple's Mac OS X 10.5.5 Update

[AppleInsider]

For the second time in as many weeks, Apple has handed developers a new pre-release build of an upcoming maintenance and security release for Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard and asked that they spend the weekend testing the software.

Mac OS X 10.5.5 build 9F9 comes exactly one week after the Mac maker began widespread testing of Leopard update by privately distributed build 9F5 to its vast developer community.

Since then, the Cupertino-based company has implemented two dozen additional code corrections to bring the total number of bug fixes expected as part of Mac OS X 10.5.5 to more than 100, people familiar with the latest build say.

Among the more notable resolutions were fixes to Address Book printing, out-of-order replies and display problems with Mail app IMAP accounts, and syncing issues with both Address Book and iCal.

Those with knowledge of the ongoing beta test say Apple is also using build 9F9 to broaden developers' focus area from 18 core system components to 24. Some additions from last week's build include Directory Services, Fonts, mDNSResponder, Screen Sharing, and X11.

Unlike the previous build, however, Apple is no longer advising developers to abstain from installing the pre-release software on Macs that include integrated graphics cards.

Mac OS X 10.5.5 is presumed for a release by October, at which point it is expected to ship with support for a new generation of Macs that will include redesigned MacBook and MacBook Pro notebooks.

[ View this article at AppleInsider.com ]

[amac4me]

Seems as though Apple has stepped up the pace. 10.5.3 was released at the end of May followed by 10.5.4 a little over a month later.

Bring on Snow Leopard

[Ireland]

Originally Posted by AppleInsider

Among the more notable resolutions were fixes to.... syncing issues with both Address Book and iCal.

[wizard69]

10.5.x could firm up to being a very nice distro. At least I'm hoping so as it is working well for me now, making it better is just icing on the cake.

While Apple is saying that Snow Leopard is a minor update with little being exposed to the user I'm still worried. A lot of things will change under the hood and frankly I see compatibility problems. What Apple needs to do is to publicly go on record that 10.5.xx will be supported for X number of years until Snow Leopard is solid and well supported by developers. Sort of like Ubuntu's long term supported releases.


Dave

[mrpiddly]

Please apple, fix the dam x11 openGL linking bugs!!!

[eAi]

October seems pessimistic - seems likely that we'll either get it before the end of this month or perhaps around the special event at the beginning of September (I'm saying the 9th!) Apple don't generally take two months for a release like this.

[Foo2]

Originally Posted by eAi

October seems pessimistic - seems likely that we'll either get it before the end of this month or perhaps around the special event at the beginning of September (I'm saying the 9th!)

Are you picking Sept. 9th because it's not just a Tuesday as Apple is wont to use for product intros, but because it's the day before the Large Hadron Collider is first tested?

[k2director]

I wonder if Apple has managed to fix all the case of the disappearing RSS feeds in Mail. Half the time I launch Mail, my RSS feeds don't show up. The other half they don't update.

[mjtomlin]

[QUOTE=wizard69;1291089]While Apple is saying that Snow Leopard is a minor update with little being exposed to the user I'm still worried. A lot of things will change under the hood and frankly I see compatibility problems. What Apple needs to do is to publicly go on record that 10.5.xx will be supported for X number of years until Snow Leopard is solid and well supported by developers. Sort of like Ubuntu's long term supported releases./QUOTE]

I don't believe Apple ever said Leopard was going to be a minor release. They said they weren't going to concentrate on "gee-whiz" features but rather focus on the core foundations of the OS. That is not a minor undertaking. I'm also not sure I understand what you're talking about when you "supported by developers" ? It's not like your Tiger, or Leopard apps won't run under Snow Leopard.

[pmjoe]

Well I hope this fixes the nearly weekly instances where the apps on my MacBook Pro start to run slowly and then as I start closing out apps in the hope of finding the culprit it just freezes and I have to power-off and restart.

I used to leave my G4 Powerbook going for at least a month at a time under Tiger. I'm starting to feel like I'm running Windows on here where I need to reboot regularly just to keep the system stable.

[voodooru]

Dear Steve Jobs,

my iPHONE has become increasingly unstable with the invention of Apps. seems to me you're speeding full force into a brick wall. Apple taking on too much all at once??

[Ireland]

Originally Posted by voodooru

Dear Steve Jobs,

my iPHONE has become increasingly unstable with the invention of Apps. seems to me you're speeding full force into a brick wall. Apple taking on too much all at once??

Patience, at least you didn't drop your iPhone and crack the screen.

[corinhorn]

Originally Posted by k2director

I wonder if Apple has managed to fix all the case of the disappearing RSS feeds in Mail. Half the time I launch Mail, my RSS feeds don't show up. The other half they don't update.

Ditto, I don't use RSS in mail anymore because I became tired of inconsistent feed updates.

[theBigD23]

Does anyone using the new build know what the screen sharing bug fixes are?

My issue is with dual monitors and screen sharing. When switching screens (not seeing both at once), the screen is "covered" with the previous screen until you click all around the page.

If anyone has a fix or if you see 10.5.5 fix this, please post. Thanks!

[Messiah]

Seems to me like they should have 'baked' all these bug fixes in to 10.5.0

[steviet02]

Originally Posted by Messiah

Seems to me like they should have 'baked' all these bug fixes in to 10.5.0

You don't write software for a living do you?

[wizard69]

[QUOTE=mjtomlin;1291101]

Originally Posted by wizard69

While Apple is saying that Snow Leopard is a minor update with little being exposed to the user I'm still worried. A lot of things will change under the hood and frankly I see compatibility problems. What Apple needs to do is to publicly go on record that 10.5.xx will be supported for X number of years until Snow Leopard is solid and well supported by developers. Sort of like Ubuntu's long term supported releases./QUOTE]

I don't believe Apple ever said Leopard was going to be a minor release. They said they weren't going to concentrate on "gee-whiz" features but rather focus on the core foundations of the OS. That is not a minor undertaking. I'm also not sure I understand what you're talking about when you "supported by developers" ? It's not like your Tiger, or Leopard apps won't run under Snow Leopard.

To the contrary, from what I'm hearing many apps simply won't be able to make use of the new features in Snow Leopard. Thus it will take sometime for developers to support the new features in their apps. That is if they even can. I do not equate some of the proposed update ideas as simple under the hood tweaks. In many ways it will be a major up heaval.

[tomozj]

Still nothing for those who have issues with ejecting? I'm not ready to reinstall over a bug that shouldn't be there in the first place.. I'm not the only one who's experiencing this bug. What's taken Apple so long? I guess they can't reproduce it or some shit.

[Mosqutus]

hopefully the fixed the glitch in the dock that makes it go SUPER REFLECTIVE once in awhile

[Slewis]

Null.

[tomozj]

Originally Posted by Slewis

I'm curious now, what bug?

Sebastian

Most of the time, when ejecting disk images or CDs, it just won't eject. Or it will, but it'll still show on the desktop.

http://www.betalogue.com/2007/11/08/...s-proposition/

It's been an issue ever since 9A581.

[Tazznb]

Please fix the USB issues in Leopard, and quit pretending they don't exist. If this keeps up my place of employment may act as if OS X Leopard doesn't exist. We need to use usb ports for work.

It's REALLY CRAPPY when you are in the middle of an important flash drive file transfer, and the thing just stalls forcing you to just yank it out. You can take the same exact flash drive and it WORKS FLAWLESSLY on OS X Tiger. Most people can't even mount their usb products on Leopard!

[OptionTrader]

Originally Posted by Tazznb

Please fix the USB issues in Leopard, and quit pretending they don't exist. If this keeps up my place of employment may act as if OS X Leopard doesn't exist. We need to use usb ports for work.

No reason to pretend. They don't exist. I find it amusing how people think their problems are widespread and AAPL is ignoring them. We are at 10.5.4. That means there have been four maintenance releases to Leopard. If something as 'serious' as your USB issue, for example, was as prevalent as you assert, it would certainly have been corrected by now.

Originally Posted by Tazznb

It's REALLY CRAPPY when you are in the middle of an important flash drive file transfer, and the thing just stalls forcing you to just yank it out. You can take the same exact flash drive and it WORKS FLAWLESSLY on OS X Tiger.

Sounds like your problems are between the seat and the keyboard.

Originally Posted by Tazznb

Most people can't even mount their usb products on Leopard!

Pure BS.

[matt_s]

Originally Posted by AppleInsider

For the second time in as many weeks, Apple has handed developers a new pre-release build of an upcoming maintenance and security release for Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard and asked that they spend the weekend testing the software.

I hope they fix that annoying bug where Preview still thinks some file is still in use (even though it's not), so therefore, you can't empty the trash.

I hope the give us back one-click access to folders in the Dock, like previous OS X versions featured. Don't like the extra mousing around, extra clicking. Let's go back to the elegantly simple approach again.

I hope they fix iCal so it still doesn't take 3 or 4 steps to edit an appointment, and go back to the elegantly simple one-click approach previously featured in iCal.

I hope they fix Mail so under the Edit menu, inserting a link is right there for fast selection - like it used to be - instead of hidden inside yet another level of menu, forcing additional mousing, like it is now.

Oh there's so many things they could streamline to make this thing faster and more user friendly! Here's hoping...

Let's return to the more elegant & simple approach, instead of the new bloated Leopard way.

PS... Just out of curiosity, why can't I put anything anywhere I want in the Dock? Why are there so many rules and regulations for the stupid Dock?

[ltcommander.data]

Originally Posted by AppleInsider

Unlike the previous build, however, Apple is no longer advising developers to abstain from installing the pre-release software on Macs that include integrated graphics cards.

Anyone know if the graphics drivers for Intel IGPs have been updated? Intel's IGPs may not be fast, but Apple's drivers for them really seem to be lacking. the GMA 950 supports OpenGL 1.4 while the GMA X3100 supports OpenGL 1.5 yet Apple's drivers are only written to give the GMAs OpenGL 1.2 support.

http://developer.apple.com/graphicsi.../capabilities/

Also, I don't suppose there are driver hints on whether Apple's going to adopt the GMA X4500MHD and stick with Montevina? I believe the Santa Rosa Macbook refresh was revealed due to driver hints for the GMA X3100 so it'll be interesting to see what's in 10.5.5.

[Alex3917]

Actually there are problems mounting Flash drives with Leopard. If your system clock isn't set to the correct date then it won't let you write to a flash drive. (If you remove the battery the clock gets set to 1977 or something, which makes writing to a thumb drive fail.)

[matt_s]

Originally Posted by Alex3917

Actually there are problems mounting Flash drives with Leopard. If your system clock isn't set to the correct date then it won't let you write to a flash drive. (If you remove the battery the clock gets set to 1977 or something, which makes writing to a thumb drive fail.)

I have not had any issues with flash memory drives mounting in Leopard (on an old Dual G5 & on a MacBook Intel). For me, they mount much faster than in previous OS X iterations.

A USB thing about Leopard that I don't like: under Tiger when I plugged my camera in, the card inside mounted like a drive and I had access to it. Now, it only appears under iPhoto, and this is another change that adds bloat and reduces workflow.

My systems have other USB bus issues - ports being turned off - warning message says this port will be de-activated, too much power, even though the port worked fine yesterday & will work fine again, once the system is rebooted - and if I put my Mac to sleep and ANYTHING happens on the USB bus, turning a printer off, removing a USB drive, unplugging a mouse or a keyboard - anything - the Mac will wake up.

I would also like to know why sometimes when my Macs (2 personal and all 7 of them in the office) wake from sleep I get the password window I want and other times, no password window at all, it just allows access directly to the user that was active when the machine was put to sleep. There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to this, it's unsettling and obviously, unstable. My daughter and my wife experience this also. I hope this gets fixed as well.

[mdriftmeyer]

Originally Posted by mrpiddly

Please apple, fix the dam x11 openGL linking bugs!!!

Perhaps when Xorg 7.4 is released Apple will be synchronized with branch and all your woes will be addressed.

http://www.x.org/wiki/XDarwin_TODO

http://xquartz.macosforge.org/trac/report/1

http://xquartz.macosforge.org/trac/wiki/X11-UsersFAQ

[justflybob]

Originally Posted by OptionTrader

No reason to pretend. They don't exist. I find it amusing how people think their problems are widespread and AAPL is ignoring them. We are at 10.5.4. That means there have been four maintenance releases to Leopard. If something as 'serious' as your USB issue, for example, was as prevalent as you assert, it would certainly have been corrected by now.



Sounds like your problems are between the seat and the keyboard.



Pure BS.

Pure BS indeed... Next!

[jabohn]

Originally Posted by OptionTrader

No reason to pretend. They don't exist. I find it amusing how people think their problems are widespread and AAPL is ignoring them. We are at 10.5.4. That means there have been four maintenance releases to Leopard. If something as 'serious' as your USB issue, for example, was as prevalent as you assert, it would certainly have been corrected by now.

Sounds like your problems are between the seat and the keyboard.

Pure BS.

I have the same USB problems here. Most flash thumb drives and USB external hard drives just lock up after a few minutes of using. Mac Pro running Leopard.

[Trepanator]

I use spotlight to look at copies of my source code when I'm looking for a function definition or trying to debug a problem. I have to use a copy because spotlight has a bad habit of RENAMING or just plain DELETING files after I open them in xCode. It seems to happen most often when the search results window is in list mode and sorted by date, which is of course the DEFAULT.

So every week or two I have to create a new copy of the source code to search through since it is out of date and dozens of files have been renamed/deleted. This is probably the stupidest bug I've ever seen in any operating system and should have been caught by any beta tester regularly using spotlight.

Amazingly, the bug has survived 4 system updates without a fix. Maybe Tiger's biggest feature doesn't deserve attention anymore, but some people are still (trying) to use it.

[user]

@peopleComplainingAboutUSB

Yes, they probably know about your USB problem. It is called a "USB hub I bought at the dollar store" and when you use it with Leopard (or Vista, or Ubuntu)... well, it will *probably* work. Or maybe it will give you some crazy error instead. Before you give up and decide that Leopard is the problem, you might try unplugging all your other devices, and plug your drive *directly* into your Mac (no, don't use the USB port on the keyboard or on the monitor).

If it works, you owe me a chilled bowl of Jello. Wild Cherry, please.

[Mr. H]

Originally Posted by matt_s

My systems have other USB bus issues … and if I put my Mac to sleep and ANYTHING happens on the USB bus, turning a printer off, removing a USB drive, unplugging a mouse or a keyboard - anything - the Mac will wake up.

That's not a "USB issue", that's meant to happen. The machine is waking up so that the driver can unload from the kernel.

Originally Posted by matt_s

I would also like to know why sometimes when my Macs (2 personal and all 7 of them in the office) wake from sleep I get the password window I want and other times, no password window at all, it just allows access directly to the user that was active when the machine was put to sleep. There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to this, it's unsettling and obviously, unstable. My daughter and my wife experience this also. I hope this gets fixed as well.

Eek! That's a rather major flaw. Hope Apple are aware of it.

Originally Posted by Trepanator

I use spotlight to look at copies of my source code when I'm looking for a function definition or trying to debug a problem. I have to use a copy because spotlight has a bad habit of RENAMING or just plain DELETING files after I open them in xCode. It seems to happen most often when the search results window is in list mode and sorted by date, which is of course the DEFAULT.

So every week or two I have to create a new copy of the source code to search through since it is out of date and dozens of files have been renamed/deleted. This is probably the stupidest bug I've ever seen in any operating system and should have been caught by any beta tester regularly using spotlight.

Amazingly, the bug has survived 4 system updates without a fix. Maybe Tiger's biggest feature doesn't deserve attention anymore, but some people are still (trying) to use it.

Presumably as a developer, you are aware that you can submit bug reports to Apple? You should submit this bug and hound them until it's fixed; if true it's a serious bug - there's no way spotlight should be able to delete stuff!

[BeyondYourFrontDoor]

Originally Posted by Mosqutus

hopefully the fixed the glitch in the dock that makes it go SUPER REFLECTIVE once in awhile

I had that one... weird... How about some simply upgrades like an actual Date/Time picker in iCal instead of typing the dates in like 1983? Maybe the same type of control as on the iPhod?

[Amorya]

Originally Posted by BeyondYourFrontDoor

I had that one... weird...

Is that the one where when you have two graphics cards, and move a monitor from one card to the other, the Dock's reflection code breaks until the Dock is relaunched?

Amorya

[matt_s]

Originally Posted by Mr. H

That's not a "USB issue", that's meant to happen. The machine is waking up so that the driver can unload from the kernel.

Bummer. Bad design IMHO. The machine should wake when the lid is raised or keyboard struck, and then the driver should unload. Having the USB bus disturb sleep is annoying, frankly, and a big waste of time almost every day.

I would also very much like to know why the hell I can't put anything anywhere I want to in the Dock. Why can't I put a document or a folder over by the Finder icon?

What up with all the made-up rules and regulations with the Dock? Apps must go here! Folders must go there! Silly. Does anyone else find this arbitrary and exceedingly goofy?

[BenRoethig]

Originally Posted by OptionTrader

No reason to pretend. They don't exist. I find it amusing how people think their problems are widespread and AAPL is ignoring them. We are at 10.5.4. That means there have been four maintenance releases to Leopard. If something as 'serious' as your USB issue, for example, was as prevalent as you assert, it would certainly have been corrected by now.



Sounds like your problems are between the seat and the keyboard.



Pure BS.

I couldn't have described your post any better myself. Pure "Apple is perfect" fanboy BS. When you have to juggle around your USB ports to get devices to work, there is a problem.

[BenRoethig]

Originally Posted by user

@peopleComplainingAboutUSB

Yes, they probably know about your USB problem. It is called a "USB hub I bought at the dollar store" and when you use it with Leopard (or Vista, or Ubuntu)... well, it will *probably* work. Or maybe it will give you some crazy error instead. Before you give up and decide that Leopard is the problem, you might try unplugging all your other devices, and plug your drive *directly* into your Mac (no, don't use the USB port on the keyboard or on the monitor).

If it works, you owe me a chilled bowl of Jello. Wild Cherry, please.

If Apple would actually ship with a decent number of USB ports instead of barely enough for your keyboard, printer, and ipod/camera/camcorder/whatever you wouldn't need that dollar store hub.

[OptionTrader]

Originally Posted by BenRoethig

I couldn't have described your post any better myself. Pure "Apple is perfect" fanboy BS. When you have to juggle around your USB ports to get devices to work, there is a problem.

Who said anything about AAPL being perfect. Read my post. If something as rudimentary and of widespread demand as USB support is as flawed as the whining on these forums suggest, it would be all over the front page of the Wall Street Journal (and any computing rag) as a major oversight on AAPL's part. The simple fact is that It isn't.

When Tazznb stated "Most people can't even mount their usb products on Leopard!", what is he basing that on? That's not BS?

As for being a fanboy, that is hardly the case. While I may have a couple of MacBook Pros and an office full of Mac Pros, I still find many faults in other AAPL products - software and hardware. I also think the iPhone is still in its Fisher-Price stage. I do, however, take responsibility for my problems and faults, troubleshoot them and move on. Most of the time, the problems are between the seat and the keyboard. When they are not, I go straight to AAPL, not whine on a public forum under the assumption that the membership here represents a reasonable cross-section of AAPLs clientele.

[BeyondYourFrontDoor]

No, just a single display iMac 2.4Ghz 20inch 2600HD. The dock just turns almost white - making it look more reflective (sort of). Everything still seems to work fine...