Apple OS X 10.5.6 Update Breaks Some MacBook Pros 313
Newscloud writes "As PC Mag reported last week, Apple OS X 10.5.6 can break some MacBook Pros leaving some users (like me) with a dead backlit black screen after the Apple logo appears. While I initially thought I had a hardware failure, it turns out that there is a fix as long as you have an external display, keyboard and mouse. The problem only appears on the second restart, so if you sleep your MacBook a lot as I do, you might not realize the problem is related to the OS update you did the week before. The problem was related to older, incompatible firmware that Software Update wasn't flagging before the upgrade. This definitely gives weight to the argument for waiting a bit to run software upgrades."
Re:Here we go (Score:2, Interesting)
Here we go matching anecdote with anecdote, but I cannot resist.
Look.. I'm a UNIX/Linux guy.. as matter of fact I'm typing this on Slackware. I also like Macs.. but please dispense with the bullshit you're spouting.
I work in higher education as a network admin and work along side the end user support folks. I've seen maybe four Vista crashes out of hundreds of machines coming in through the door.
For the record I've seen a couple of Macs with serious problems as well, including one that lost all of the data on a non-faulty hard drive.
If you don't like Vista, don't use it. I fall into that category, but I don't run around spreading disinformation.
Fear of the unknown (Score:3, Interesting)
This definitely gives weight to the argument for waiting a bit to run software upgrades."
I'm going to pick on submitter here. This is your fear of the unknown. There is another guy who I work with that likes to pull this BS out of the air all the time when a new release comes out.
His argument: Ohnoz, I'm scared.
My argument: Here is the changelog. These are the real risks that are posed by continuing to use the old version. These are the benefits of upgrading.
When I started working for the company, software was years and years out of date. He had used this excuse for a long time to basically not do anything he thought was risky, but had in fact amassed a huge amount of risk to the business that ended up costing us a lot of real money.
Granted, there is some value to waiting a reasonable short period of time to gather your wits and read the changelog before upgrading/patching, but that should never be an excuse to coddle a fear of the unknown.
Tools break? (Score:1, Interesting)
Whenever someone I know tells me that they won't try Linux because they're afraid something will break and they won't be able to fix, I point at these kind of events.
The fact of the matter is, no matter what operating system we use, things break.. I'm actually impressed they don't break more.. as equally impressed as I am that bald-monkeys can rocket down asphalt at 60mph and generally make it to where they're going.
I simply switched to Linux because I'd rather have someone break my tool for free than pay them to do it.. and that it has forced me to experiment more with that tool, and thus understand it better.
But maybe that's all to reasonable.. so let the OS oneupmanship begin!
Re:Here we go (Score:1, Interesting)
The problems lies in right management. Vista is pretty stable - only if you use it in lock down mode as a user with limited rights. As long as you use it with an admin account though, things can go wrong very soon.
As single user on a machine, people tend to use an admin account though, since it makes installing stuff etc. not as long-winded. UAC is a good idea, except that it comes way too often and makes people get annoyed so they don't even thing when they click on OK. Similarly, on OS X, we have password prompts, which don't occur as often, but also guarantees authorization. You can also authorize yourself as an admin even when the current session is from a limited user.
I'll toss a log into the fire (Score:4, Interesting)
And assert that certain linux distributions are far worse then this. And by "certian" I am refering to Gentoo. Nothing is more exciting then either
a) some jackass removed some library in a way that breaks half your dependencies. Lesson? Always make sure you can restart ssh and then log in before you close your existing ssh session.
b) having your upgrade break because some jackass depreciated some library in a way that forces you to upgrade in a very rigid step-by-step manner. Lesson? Be afraid of updating your system--it will probably break.
Funner still is searching the Gentoo forums for an answer and sifting through the "this was in the archives, jackass", "this is what you get for waiting a week between updates," and "didn't you read the CVS commit on mailing-list XYZ? We discussed this already, so it isn't my fault".
You haven't experienced "update breaks system" until you've experienced the "Gentoo update breaks system". Gentoo is good in theory and there is a lot I like--for example I love the use of color in their toolkit and the command line. I with other distros and unix's would make their utilities use color more. But Gentoo is a bitch to update.
Close, but Wrong (Score:3, Interesting)
The installer shouldn't refuse to continue, it should upgrade the firmware! OSX has a luxury no other operating system has--it runs on purpose built hardware under its control. Thus its installer has no excuse to not just update the firmware.
Re:No one is safe from the "oops" bug (Score:3, Interesting)
1) It's Japanese on the panic message, not Chinese
2) When written, you just call it Chinese and not Mandarin Chinese; the distinctions "Mandarin" and "Cantonese" are primarily for spoken language, as the written languages are very nearly identical
3) I fail to see how it could be incomprehensible, seeing as it is pretty much obvious that there are different languages on the panic screen, and that it is giving you very clear instructions on what to do next: see one for yourself [macamour.com]
Besides, Windows XP (and likely Vista too) ship in a default configuration where they do not show BSODs (at least, that was the way it was set up on my system, a consumer-level laptop). This means that all the user gets to see is the system *instantly restarting*, without any sort of warning whatsoever. It also means that they won't see a BSOD, but will be informed after startup that their system "recovered from a serious error" or something like that.
One argument for the OS X panic message is that it doesn't replace the entire screen, meaning that whatever you may have been working on is still potentially recoverable. With a full-screen BSOD, where technical details essentially fill the screen, this doesn't happen.
Re:Well, that is a trade off (Score:4, Interesting)
That's right. By default, it downloads updates and then prompts users to install. If a reboot is required, users have the option to defer the installation until the next reboot. There's also always the option to not install the update at all. I agree that Apple's defaults probably wouldn't be a good idea for most Windows users, but they work well enough for me. (And the fact that there's so much outcry over a bad update like this suggests that Mac users are pretty good at patching their systems quickly.)
News! OS X update breaks MBPs and /. decorum! (Score:5, Interesting)
No, I'm not new here.
Neither am I trolling, neither is this flamebait.
It's just that there a LOT of posts complaining that if this were to happen with an MS update, the Apple gang would be crucifying them and a lot of negativity that this is funny.
Mismanaged updates by either corporation - Apple or MS - is indefensible and inexcusable, and it's usually a real problem for the victims.
The occasional screwed-up update from Apple is something Apple users are - unfortunately - used to experiencing. Ditto for the MS users. Given that I'm a user of both, that's just my experience.
I think we excuse Linux problems (I'm a user of that, too) because the software was free. There's some merit to that, but as I think about that statement it does make me ponder... In any case, the real demerits of the OS choices are overlooked at times like this:
1. Linux not liked because no corporation stands behind the OS potentially misbehaving. This is a real problem in the minds of many corporate managers who have to oversee risk.
2. OS X is the "odd man out" where corp mgrs don't want that risk.
3. MS may obsolesce something that worked for the whole organization in favor of something that seems to work less well, another risk issue for corp mgrs.
The fact that an update involving any of the three might screw something up is neither a decision-point nor cause for immature glee.
The problem from TFA is an unfortunate and foreseeable consequence of testing getting the short-shrift.
Re:Here we go (Score:3, Interesting)
True, but which of those used the slogan "it just works"?
Re:More bricked computers (Score:4, Interesting)
That's because JTAG A. is specialized hardware that very, very few people have access to, and B. almost always involves soldering a connector onto the device's board because it almost NEVER gets shipped with the headers populated in production hardware. So yes, safe to say if it requires soldering inside the unit, that qualifies as bricked.... That's significantly different than a software issue.
BTW, at least one of the people in that thread is (with 85% probability) seeing an NVidia chip failure. I wouldn't be surprised if several of them were that. The original poster also has some sort of hardware problem. And so on. These issues are all over the map, but are getting lumped together because they have the same symptoms and all happened right around the time of a software update. I strongly suspect that this is yet another non-story in which people jump to very wrong conclusions and mistakenly see patterns where none exist. It happens after pretty much every Mac OS X update, and apart from fairly minor things like "X feature of Y app doesn't work" or "X application crashes now", they almost never pan out.... (The one time in my memory that they did, it was caused by APE.)