10.3.3 exceeds expectations...

Ripcord said:
I've found that the majority of "networking" problems that people complain about have revolved around SMB share browsing, connection, etc.

See my link to the Apple article for example of the one that bugs me the most.
Some others:
- When making a connection from a windows machine to OS X 10.3.2 to print, for some reason OS X attempts to make a CIFS connection BACK to the Windows machine. If it is unable to for some reason (like I have firewall software running on my machine, which is required if I'm VPNed into work - I *can't* shut it off), OS X simply doesn't respond to the printing request. Eventually (45 seconds later) Windows times out and tries again. User simply sees a hung printer dialog box. This doesn't happen when connecting to other Windows machines.
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Never had to try this, so I can't speak on that one.
- The browser is spotty in finding machines in Workgroup, NT4 domain, and AD domain environments. For some people this is worse than others. I have about a 50% success rate in "finding" machines in my workgroup at home.
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I've noticed that the browser takes a while to finally list all of the available machines in a selected domain, but it does seem to list them all here. Again, this isn't an issue for me since I usually know the name of the machine I need to connect to. And the name I see in the browser is the actual DNS Hostname of the machine.
- The browser used when selecting printers will not display more than a few hundred machines. In my case that means I can't select my print server at work since OS X only displays up through systems starting with the letter D, and my print server starts with the letter S
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Is this when selecting Windows Printing? Rendezvous? AppleTalk? Haven't tried that as all the printers I print to are set up via IP or DNS Hostname.
- Performance while copying (if OS X is a client) is extremely slow, at least for me. For some reason OS X throws in 50ms pauses 10-15 times a second, meaning 50-75% of time is simply spent "idle" for no good reason. This happens on two machines of mine, probably the third too.
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I can honestly say I have never seen this. Is this copying via AFP, FTP, NFS, SMB/CIFS? Ethernet? Wireless?
- I constantly get "the share you're connected to is unavailable. Do you want to disconnect?" (or whatever it is) dialog. I've looked at the network traffic while this is happening, there's NO reason for OS X to think the share's unavailable.
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Again, never seen this one.

I take it none of these issues were present in Jaguar? Sounds like some work is definitely needed in the "Networking" area. I guess how many have these issues and supply Apple with feedback will determine whether or not and/or how soon they are addressed.

I'm glad I don't have any of those issues… sounds like a major PITA.
 
cybergoober said:
Never had to try this, so I can't speak on that one.
Again, never seen this one.
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I'm not going to spend any more time (or this thread) on the issues, but let's just say there are many, and deep, issues with SMB networking in 10.3.

cybergoober said:
I take it none of these issues were present in Jaguar?
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Not that I'm aware of, but only the browsing issues, latest incarnation of the password issue, and a couple others are *confirmed* to be new in Panther (though it doesn't matter so much to me when they were introduced as when they will be fixed)

cybergoober said:
Sounds like some work is definitely needed in the "Networking" area. I guess how many have these issues and supply Apple with feedback will determine whether or not and/or how soon they are addressed.
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A large number of people have been complaining quite loudly in the networking and printing support forums since Panther was released. Since Apple does not post or provide feedback in these forums, I can only guess whether they've acknowledged the problems and are working on them. Also since the discussion forums are usually extremely slow (and often times have search capabilities disabled because they can't keep up with the load) I imagine that has discouraged people from using them to report/look for information about problems.

cybergoober said:
I'm glad I don't have any of those issues… sounds like a major PITA.
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Yes, but then again it could be worse - I could be using Windows. =)

(It is difficult for me particularly at work since I'm mostly operating "rogue". To do email, I have to run the Classic Outlook 2001 app; I can't join the domain (though I don't really want to, and not complaining about issues stemming from that), many of our websites are IE-Win-only, etc)
 
Well, they are clearing up the last of the bugs so that this release will create as few problems as possible.
It's a QA thing. Apple tries very hard to make sure that their software is thoroughly tested.
Probably next week it will become available.
 
Ripcord said:
A large number of people have been complaining quite loudly in the networking and printing support forums since Panther was released. Since Apple does not post or provide feedback in these forums, I can only guess whether they've acknowledged the problems and are working on them. Also since the discussion forums are usually extremely slow (and often times have search capabilities disabled because they can't keep up with the load) I imagine that has discouraged people from using them to report/look for information about problems.
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That's not what I meant by providing feedback. This is what I meant by providing feedback. ;)
 
I agree with Ripcord on quite a few points. I've used Panther on two networks with mixed platforms and I've even found connecting to other OSX systems shaky, let alone Windows (and it's not just my machine, or one Windows machine). Sorry if I'm repeating too much but this is a very big issue and if Apple take notice of their feedback at all (which they seem to), I hope it will be fixed, given the collective noises about it.
 
Imagine said:
They've been talking about a release...
Anyone know anything about this?

Thanks
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I'm secretly hoping that the fact it's taking so long means that the update will be that much more drastic.

Things like 20-30% OpenGL performance improvements, new Safari, other updates that have been reported sound promising, so I'm hopeful. The proof's in the pudding, as they say - don't let us down, Apple!

Even if only SOME of my problems are addressed I'll feel pretty satisfied. If *none* of them are, I'll feel really gypped (what, me, irate? =)
 
to me, the longer it takes the better. at least we know they're not hastily letting something go without really testing it for bugs.
 
As far as I'm concerned. I'll happily let Apple take their time with this upgrade. More time spent equals better update usually.
 
...Which is better, releasing 6 updates with increasingly fewer bugs and more new features, or one update that has the sum of all 6 updates?

I vote for the faster, more frequent, personally, as long as the speed doesn't cause very many new bugs. Open Source Software is usually very good that way (update often as a "rule" of release schedules, instead of say once per year, if that, like MS, and still tend to be very reliable updates)
 
but considering people don't upgrade all the time they're supposed to, having one nice update is better than releasing 10 different updates. also, from a tech support perspective, it's easier to say "are you using mac OS 10.3.3" rather than "okay, did you install 10.3.3, and the march 10 security update, and the java update, and the safari 1.2.1 update?"
 
7F43 is out since Friday night. Ripcord: Sadly, There hasn't been any performance increase in the past builds from 7F32 afaics. It's really about polishing the update.

And btw.: I'm for _both_ small bugfixes and bigger updates. And I think that's how Apple handles this. Security updates come out whenever they're finished, while the 'bigger' updates (version number involving updates) come out when they're tested on a far broader basis.
 
Well, at this rate we won't see the 10.3.3 update for us regular users until at least Easter. I guess I've turned into a pessimist. :(
 
We'll see. Latest I've heard, 7F44 is out (internally at Apple only) and will be released. But I'm just calming myself down, too, and try not to expect it.
 
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