IMPORTANT WARNING!!! Os-x 10.5.6

[JP]

Sorry for the big shouty title but I'm hoping that people will see this before updating their Macs.

It seems that a lot of people are having all sorts of problems after updating it.

It has been over 24 hours since Apple released Mac OS X 10.5.6. While Apple published an overview of the notable changes, it appears that the update brought more than meets the eye, but not everyone is happy. First, Macworld's Rib Griffiths took a deeper look at the changes that 10.5.6 brought by examining the update's package receipt (found in /Library > Receipts). Besides the changes we already know about, Apple apparently updated various Bluetooth software components, Migration Assistant got some polish, and the Podcast Capture app was updated to version 1.0.3. Other low-level drivers, frameworks, and extensions were also updated, and even the Apache Web Server manual got some attention.

The improvements that 10.5.6 brought may not be worth much to some users, however, as a number of new threads in Apple's discussion boards complain about everything from broken AirPort, support for specific Bluetooth devices getting removed, and choking installations (hat tip to TUAW). It appears that, in some cases, Software Update doesn't finish downloading the ~190MB update before attempting to update the Mac with it.

Some users in our own forum thread have experienced a few of these issues and note that rebooting the Mac and manually downloading the full 700MB combo updater reportedly fixes the issue. Still, there are a number of other ticked-off users at Apple's site, particularly in the Installation and Setup and Using Mac OS X Leopard sections. So far, though, these problems seem to be fairly isolated, suggesting that the update itself is fine and something unique is wrong with these users' Macs.

10.5.6 pulled a few other stunts, too, that are anything but accidents or bugs. As we noted yesterday, the latest version of Leopard disables direct iPhone pwnage jailbreaking by preventing Macs from recognizing an iPhone or iPod touch in device firmware update (DFU) mode.

Additionally, some of our forum dwellers have noticed that Apple has finished its removal of the energy profiles ("Better Battery," "High Performance," etc.) from all portable Macs that are not the latest generation of aluminum MacBook Pros in 10.5.6 (the Pros get to keep the option due to their dual graphics cards). These settings used to be accessible from the battery icon in the menubar, but were removed first in the custom Mac OS X 10.5.5 build on the recently-released aluminum MacBook. Now it sounds like Apple has finished the job for all other portable Macs.

It is unclear whether this means 10.5.6 is doing its own dynamic performance management based on running applications and load, or if Apple has wired Leopard to fall back on being conservative with battery consumption at all times.

I updated it before I saw this and it's working fine...so far. I'm not sure if that's any assurance looking at the number of people who are having problems though.

I don't have TimeMachine, is there any way for me to backdate the software or is that possibly even worse?

[Taka]

I'm not so keen on the update for Mac laptops since it's removed the quick option to change the power preferences from the battery icon in the menu bar. I now have to go into the power settings menu in system preferences which is an extra step and window for what used to only take 2 simple clicks.

Won't be installing this on my MacBook Pro until 10.5.6.1 or 10.5.7 comes out!

[CMcK]

Updated a G4 mini and a Core 2 iMac with no problems so far. There are always issues with point updates breaking things for a vocal minority. Unfortunately there is only really one way to find out how it will be on your own machine.

I don't recall ever having had any grief with updates since I started using OS X at 10.2.something.