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Apple Revises Snow Leopard Security Update and Pulls 10.7.3 Delta Update

Saturday February 4, 2012 1:02 pm PST by Arnold Kim
After a couple of issues with some software updates, Apple has made some quiet revisions to address the problems.

The first was a Snow Leopard security update which inadvertently caused problems with Apple's PowerPC emulation layer Rosetta. Macworld notes that Apple has since released Security Update 2012-001, version 1.1 for Snow Leopard. The new version seems to fix the PowerPC crashing issues described with the original update.

Meanwhile, the crashing/CUI errors with 10.7.3 Delta updater has also been addressed by Apple. 9to5Mac notes that Apple has responded by pulling the Delta update altogether, leaving the Combo updater alone.

The different between the Delta and Combo updaters is normally just download size alone. The Delta updater is a smaller download since it just includes the changes, while the Combo updater includes everything and weighs in at 1.3GB. The Combo updater should be available at this support page for direct download, but the page is presently not working. The direct download (1.3GB) link is still working at this time.

[ 140 comments ]


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FroMann
95 months ago
I think Apple needs to hire some more/better programmers to test their OSX software rather than iOS.
Rating: 34 Votes
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AlexJaye
95 months ago
A complete mess, that is.
Rating: 26 Votes
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usptact
95 months ago
As time passes, I am getting an impression that developers at Apple are under *immense* pressure. This leads to quite evident bugs like this.
Rating: 11 Votes
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rmwebs
95 months ago

I can tell that no none commenting has ever worked with software development.

Mistakes happen, its impossible to test for every single system. Its not like every person has these issues, its a select few. You can test all day in the lab but until something is released in the wild the developers will NEVER be able to know if more bugs are present in their code or not.


As a software developer I do agree with you for the most part, but Apple took 24 hours to simply pull the update. Given that we knew about 30 minutes after the update was released that it was majorly flawed, its pretty poor that it took them that long to pull it.
Rating: 11 Votes
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linuxcooldude
95 months ago

With the profits apple is making there is no excuse for this. They should have a team devoted to specific aspects of their software, or at the very least, to Mac OS X. I'm a programmer and I have specific parts of our software I know very well, and I work on them almost exclusively. If someone has a problem with them, I usually can help or solve it. If I fix something of someone elses, I may learn it well enough to do what I need to do, but a few weeks down the road if I need to answer some questions about it or do something else with it, its almost like I have to learn it all over again. Not exactly the most productive way of coding, and this sort of thing leads to the mistakes we are seeing.


So all of the software you and your team that has been used by the public has had 0% bugs that needed to be fixed after its been released?
Rating: 9 Votes
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Taz Mangus
95 months ago

Really? C'mon, this kind of stuff has happened before. It'll happen again. It's not a big deal unless you've lost data or anything like that.


I have been writing software for over 26 years. In every project that I have worked there as always been a group of people devoted to software testing. The software group has a well defined and executed set of tests that are executed before the software is released. Even with all this bugs still happen. After all software is written and tested by people. In all my years, I have never seen a situation where a release of software has never had any sort of bugs. You can test and test but at some point you need to decide to release the software.

And the important thing is how Apple responds to correcting the situation.
Rating: 8 Votes
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notMordecai
95 months ago
The problem with this whole debacle is that, yes sometimes this can happen with any release, but that fact is:

1) This is Apple
2) This is a major release
3) It's one hell of broken release

I work for an insurance and banking company as a software developer and you cannot imagine how many times we check our stuff before a release. I am not sure on Apple's release schedule but our's is monthly. If I recall correctly, Facebook has weekly releases.

I am sure Apple is doing everything they can in regards to damage control. Although they are essentially cleaning up the damage from a 1 ton bomb.
Rating: 8 Votes
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IzzyJG99
95 months ago

Some problems you can't simply throw money at to fix. Ever had a power outage?


Actually when my power company has an outage if it last longer than one hour they deduct the time you are without power from the following month's bill. It's their way of saying "Sorry." Apple should at least release some information on these vast amount of problems with Lion to reassure their public.

Tragically Apple is no longer a tech company, but a consumer company. One without much quality control it seems...
Rating: 7 Votes
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thejadedmonkey
95 months ago

I sure wouldn't classiify this as 'show stopping'. It only impacted those running out of date versions of the operating system, and it was quickly fixed. The vast majority of Snow Leopard users likely did not even install the buggy update yet, especially since they haven't even taken the time to upgrade to Lion yet.

Early adopters need to know that they always sholder the biggest risks. Those that have been around the block a few times know that it's generally a bad idea to be on the bleeding edge of anything new. Patience is a virtue. Let the other guy take the risks and work out the bugs before you jump onboard. Those that live with 'perfection' expectations will always live in constant misery.


Whoa buddy, I don't think you could be more wrong. Time to step out of the RDF and understand what happened:

1) The Core UI error happened on fully patched machines running Lion
2) The rosetta error also happened on fully patched, fully supported machines.

On one hand, you state that "It only impacted those running out of date versions of the operating system". A few sentences later, you state "Early adopters need to know that they always sholder the biggest risks... Patience is a virtue." So which is it? Should everyone be an early adopter and run Lion, or choose to run a more stable OS and keep Snow Leopard?
Rating: 6 Votes
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linuxcooldude
95 months ago

It is possible. Some software applications require a rigorous testing. Software for the military, for medical applications and flight control systems must be bug free.

If not, something like this can happen:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIM-104...ure_at_Dhahran
Quote:
Originally Posted by chrono1081
Its not like every person has these issues, its a select few.
Only a few soldiers were killed. No problem for Apple defenders.


I've worked with many systems in the military that uses software. I've seen it fail before, several times. Thats why the military uses backup systems, that don't necessarily use software, just for that reason.

Only a few soldiers were killed. No problem for Apple defenders


So now Apple is responsible for the failure of the Patriot missile? Save the theatrics for the movies.
Rating: 5 Votes

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