Mac OS X 10.3.8 Update

The Mac OS X 10.3.8 update is out and ready for consumption. You know the drill, fire up software update, download the delta updater, or the combo updater. The delta updater weighs in at 27.7 MB and the combo is a hefty 103 MB. Software update will deliver a variable size updater dependent upon the machine you are running.

Update Details

• Addresses an issue with Mac OS X 10.3.7 in which iChat, Mail, or other network-based applications could take a long time to open.
• Addresses an issue in which a computer wouldn’t always restart automatically after a power failure, even when the Energy Saver preference option “Restart automatically after a power failure” was selected.
• Improves the performance of Blizzard World of Warcraft’s “Full Screen Glow” video feature.
• Improves DVD Player compatibility when playing a movie (using certain ATI Radeon cards) to an external widescreen TV with a 16:9 aspect ratio.
• Resolves an issue in which a “flicker” could be seen when navigating DVD menus in DVD Player on certain PowerBook G4 computers.
• Addresses an issue in which a PowerBook G4 computer would, on rare occasion, wake from sleep with a black screen and not respond to any keyboard, mouse, or trackpad input.
• Addresses “jumping cursor” issues that might occur when using your portable computer’s trackpad with your thumb, side of thumb, or a “flat” finger.
• Resolves an issue on certain Power Mac G5 computers where a fan cycles erratically at unexpected times, such as when Seti@home software is running.
• Speeds up Address Book and Mail LDAP lookups that are performed by a Cisco DistributedDirector DNS server.
• Addresses an issue that could prevent clients using the Active Directory plugin from binding to their Active Directory server.

Observations

Mail.app seemed to load much faster for me, as was described above. I suspect that the difference lies in using a non-blocking network call. The rest largely don’t affect me, especially because I don’t have a “flat” finger.

There have been some reports that user’s eject keys stop working (particularly on iBooks). However, a simple restart seems to correct that issue. It also goes to show that some people will start crying bug! before taking trivial steps to make sure it’s not a fluke.

Installation went fine on the 12″ Powerbook, the Powermac, and the old Pismo Powerbook for me.