" Bluetooth 1.4.1 for Mac OS X provides enhanced stability for Bluetooth connections. This release also improves performance with human interface devices (HID) including enhancements to wake from sleep. "

See Tuesday's news page for reader reports (some problems and one user noted reduced transfer rates after the update).

" Mike,
I installed the ATI update for 10.2.8 (ATI 3.1.1) and it deleted all my custom control panels too. Just an FYI
Jeff B. "

I was afraid that the 10.2.8 update might also delete the /Library/PreferencePanes folder as the 10.3 updater did. Reportedly they are working on a revised installer - so don't install either of these updates until some feedback is received on a corrected/revised installer. (I'm told this has been done but best to wait for awhile before downloading to ensure all mirrors are updated.)

" Hello Mike, I'm running 10.2.8. And installed the new updater. Installer went good. However, when I ran disk permissions repairs. It pretty much listed all the ati drivers etc to fix permissions. It was quite a lengthy repair list. (this is typical of most every ATI OS X driver install I can remember, noted here in the past.-Mike)
I'm also getting this message in my console :

2003-11-17 13:41:41.460 pbs[400] CFLog (0): 
    CFPropertyListCreateFromXMLData(): plist parse failed; 
the data is not proper UTF-8. The file name for this data could be: 
     of bundle: /Applications/Utilities/ATI Utilities/ATI Monitor 
    The parser will retry as in 10.1, but the problem should be corrected in the plist. 

I get this every time I restart or boot up. What is this? Should I be concerned?
(Note/Tip A tip for the problem of the ATITVOut.kext not loading according to Bruno is to "Move it out of the folder, move it back in and it works fine." The 3D/GL overrides feature is still only available with the retail 9800 pro as before. For cards like the 9000 model w/o TV out, the control panel only shows info.-Mike)
I am having a weird problem. Screen blinks and image expands very large and shrinks to normal size. This happens very fast. Almost like screen effect when it first comes on. It's kinda like it can't make up it's mind to go screen effect or not. I've done every troubleshooting technique I know of expect clear cache's and zap pram ( which does not have anything to do with video I read). Ati has been no help at all. Guess I'll just have to live with it.
Don
P.S.-I have a Blue/White with G4/500 Sonnet zif, ata66 card and 17" Apple studio display. With a Radeon 7000 Mac Edition video card. "

I copied this mail to Bruno at ATI. (I asked Don if this prefspane folder was also deleted.)
A Beige G3 owner with Radeon 7000 PCI card wrote with some initial UT2003 flyby tests. (I wrote to ask if he had seen any problems and if the prefspanes folder was deleted (if the ATI control panel icon is still in system preferences, then it's intact- he later wrote the folder was deleted as is typical with the first release installer.)

" Hey Mike,
I just downloaded the new November drivers (noted earlier today) and ran a quick UT2k3 benchmark to see how they do. Heres the specs:

System:
-Beige G3 Tower @ 917Mhz (750FX) / 83Mhz Bus
-576MB RAM
-ATI Radeon Mac Edition (Not 7000)

UT2k3:
-Retail version with the latest update
-BenchUT2003 app used
-Low setting (640x480 minimal settings). Old machine after all.
-Asbestos Flyby Benchmark used

Benchmarks:
-Before drivers:
10.870428 / 41.448524 / 167.298950 fps -- Score = 40.987457
-After 11/03 driver update:
15.358628 / 42.191330 / 171.122162 fps -- Score = 41.650574

Overall in the score there isnt anything impressive happening. But when you get to the numbers themselves. The minimum fps see a 5 FPS speed boost. This is the area that I am most happy about cause many times in 2k3 I do not play with a good stable fps. I play closer to the minimum fps especially on a old system like this.
I didn't have a chance to do a botmatch comparision since I had no previous botmatch benchmarks around for it. The only ones I have are for the demo of the game and so they do not show the same performance levels as the retail. (the retail version has the same benchmarks in it - I don't use the utbench app since the first version I tried reported an applescript error on the results. I use the terminal method noted here when the demo was first released, listed in the FAQ's Game section.-Mike)
Now I just wish ATI would put out some new drivers for the Radeon 7500 Mobility in my iBook :D.
-Josh W. "

Although the OEM models are not listed, the retail Radeon drivers (except for the control panel) are also usable with the OEM/onboard graphics chips of the same series. (For example the 9000 series use the 8500's drivers, and the 7500 mobility uses the original Radeon driver which is the chip it's based on.)

(most recent report)
" After seeing the note about the ATI Utilites update for 10.3 on your site, I promptly downloaded and installed. I noticed the loss of the USB Overdrive pref pane (launcher) afterwords, and I now know what happened. (I have a very recent backup, so it was easy enough to restore w/o reinstalling.)

A comment on some of Bruno's remarks (below from the first posting of this problem here):

" Prefpanes are supposed to go in /System/Library/Prefpanes....I don't know why /Library/Prefpanes contains other application's prefpane files. As far as I know, this is not the correct place to store them.

While I'm not a developer, a check of the Developer Connection explains exactly why these 'other application's prefpane files' are/were stored in /Library/PrefPanes. The relevant article is:
http://developer.apple.com/documentation/UserExperience/Conceptual/PreferencePanes/Concepts/Anatomy.html
That indicates that /System/Library/PrefPanes is reserved for the built-in OS X pref panes; at the very least, that's Apple recommendation. 3d party pref panes can (should?) be stored in any of the remaining 3 locations, depending on accessibility requirements or needs, e.g. available to all users, a single user, etc. /Library/PrefPanes is natural location to store pref panes which are to need to be accessible to all users on the Mac.
Eric "

(previous reports follow)

" Hey Mike, I just downloaded and installed the ATI update for Panther and it deleted my /Library/PreferencePanes folder!! My WindowShade is still working, but the folder doesn't exist in that location. Just a warning!
Jeff L. "

" I'm not quite sure this was absolutely caused by the latest ATI Displays 4.1.1 Update for Mac OS 10.3 (Panther). (it was). On reboot, after a "successful" install, I opened the System Preferences application to see the new ATI prefpane, and to my horror I discovered that all my "Other" preference panes, such as Microsoft Mouse, iChatStatus, StuffIt AVR, (Developer's CHUD) Hardware, Adobe's VersionCue, etc. had vanished. Okay, I thought, no big deal, probably just a corrupt System Preference pane cache:
/Users/mdouma46/Library/Caches/com.apple.preferencepanes.cache
So I deleted that and relaunched System Preferences. No change. My "Other" preference panes were gone.
So I looked inside the /Library/ folder and the ~/Library/ folder, and my "Preference Panes" folders no longer existed. Completely gone, nowhere to be found.
I'm just worried about what other crap it may have deleted.
Mark D. "

And other reader reported:

" Should running the Ati installer delete Logitech Control Center from the "Others" Pane...
Miero "

Bruno of ATI posted a reply about the problem:

" Ok, bad news... The entire Library/Prefpanes folder is removed.
Good news... Only a few people here have seen the problem because the files have not replicated to all our mirrors.

The reason the installer is touching /Library at all is to repair incorrect installations from the older 1.1 installer. That Installervise installer put ATI files in the wrong folder.

Prefpanes are supposed to go in /System/Library/Prefpanes and the other files are supposed to go in System/Library/Extensions.

I don't know why /Library/Prefpanes contains other application's prefpane files. As far as I know, this is not the correct place to store them. (BTW - Deja Vu (part of Toast6) and Apple's Chud tools Hardware utility both install there, as do Logitech's Mouse control panel and others as readers have noted.-Mike)

A new installer is being tweaked as I write this and will replace the old file sometime this afternoon.

Sorry for the mixup folks. Now back to the other thread, I want to find out why Brett still sees a TVout.kext error.
(he later wrote)
Another followup about previous installers. Previous versions set correct file permissions on all files. The files all worked and Jaguar OS versions did not complain at startup.
Disk First Aid however has a different notion as to what constitutes correct persmissions. It would find errors with any number of Apple files in addition to ATI files.

The new installers are built with a NEW version of Installervise which has native support for 10.x permission and ownership setting, so it's all more automated and we hope, works cleanly for everyone.
Bruno
(ATI) "

If you have not already done so - I'd not install the update until a revised installer is posted (and reports are in on using it). I didn't have any 3rd party CPs/controls installed and didn't notice this issue at first as I had an ATI displays CP icon in the dock I used to launch it. (It's no longer in the System Prefs since the folder was deleted.)
Readers also reported the original (Nov. 12th dated) 10.2.8 driver update also deleted the PreferencePanes folder.

Bruno of ATI wrote regarding retail card ATI Control Panel update for 10.3 and a Radeon Driver update for 10.2.8.

" Hi Mike.
We've released the Panther Update for ATI Displays (TVOut.kext warning message, 3D Overrides & Installer fixes) as well as a new RADEON Update (10.2.8) for November (Drivers only - ATI Displays 4.2 to follow in another installer)

The ATI Displays 4.1.1 Update for Mac OS 10.3 (Panther) has been posted:
http://www.ati.com/support/drivers/mac/macos10-3-ATI-displays.html
The installer above works only on Mac OS X 10.3+

The November 2003 RADEON update for MAC OS 10.2.8 has been posted:
http://www.ati.com/support/drivers/mac/macosx-november-2003-update.html
The installer above works only on Mac OS X 10.2.8
Bruno
(ATI) "

See the release notes on each linked page for more details. As noted previously, the control panel features do not work with the OEM/BTO ATI cards, only the retail models.

"XPostFacto 3.0 has been in the works for quite a while. An alpha version is now available. and I'm working hard to get it to the beta stage. The major new features will be:

Support for booting Mac OS X from Firewire drives.

Integrated L2 and L3 cache support.

Support for booting from utility CDs.

Redesigned user interface

Runs in Mac OS X as well as Mac OS 9

...and more ...

As an FYI on this early release, one reader said he's had an issue with the alpha version:

" XPF 3.0a6 is out but I'm having a problem already reported on the XPF forums: the OWCCacheConfig.kext loads even with the -s and/or the -c boot args and it, subsequently, hangs the machine during testing (for size and type of cache).
So, not quite to Pantherland yet.
System:
Umax S900 w/Powerlogix G3/375
Radeon PCI (not 7000)
UltraTek ATA/66 IDE card
578MB RAM "

I'm sure Ryan will have this fixed soon. A big thanks to him for his continued work on this utility.

"New in version 1.2:
this app has been optimized for the PowerPC G5. This code will also compute correctly on single processor machines and non-G4/G5's. This code uses the MacMPI_X.c library for communcations and requires Mac OS 10.2 or later, or Mac OS 8.5 or later with CarbonLib 1.2 or later, and Pooch."

Previous versions ran fine in OS X 10.1.x also.

" Just been reading the slew of negative comments about OpenOSX WinTel on your page here:
www.xlr8yourmac.com/OSX/openosx_x86_emulator.html
Wish I'd seen that before I parted with money for the CD edition!
Finding out that their port of the Bochs emulation runs more slowly than Virtual PC would be a pleasure. I can't get it to run at all using a carefully-created Windows 98 disk image, despite following their superficially detailed but in fact very sloppy tutorial.

While I have no programming knowledge, I'm usually pretty good at finding solutions to computer problems at an operator level. Not with this ill-thought-out product though. I''m in the UK so I'm not going to waste money phoning OpenOSX, and of course they're not responding to emailed requests for tech support.
As I've just mortgaged the wife and kids to buy a 2x2Ghz G5, I'd like to get the damned thing running simply to find out whether it's remotely usable on the fastest platform there is.
If you add this message to the rest, and its read by anyone who knows how to get round the anomalies in the tutorial (consistently confusing Drive A and Drive D is the main problem), I'd love to hear from them at brian@hancill.com
Regards from Brian "

I don't normally include reader emails in postings, but Brian wanted direct feedback/tips, so I included it.

• Apple Dual G4 DDR (MDD G4/867) OC report
• Giga Designs G4/1.25GHz (at 1.4GHz) in (sawtooth) G4/AGP (rated 10)
• Giga Designs G4/1.25GHz (at 1.3GHz) in (sawtooth) G4/AGP (rated 10)
• Newer Tech G3/300 in 7600/132 (rated 10)
• Sonnet G4/800 in G4 Cube (rated 10)
• Sonnet G4/1GHz in (Sawtooth) G4/AGP (rated 10)
• Technowarehouse G3/500 in iMac (rated 10)
• XLR8 G4/533 in B&W G3 (rated 10)
  (My reviews of G4 and G3 upgrades w/apps/game tests, install info, etc. are linked here. OC/CPU module articles are on the Systems page.)

(Warning - Overclocking may not be reliable and could lead to hardware failure or corrupted data.) You can find the full reports by searching the database selecting the indicated Mac model and upgrade card brand/type. If you've upgraded the CPU on your Mac, please post an entry in the database. Search the database for entries from most every upgradable Mac model *before* you buy. (Searchable by mac model/upgrade brand). For detailed reviews with performance tests and install tips, see the CPU Upgrades page.)

DVD-ROM Drives:
• IDE Samsung SD-616 (16x48x) in G4/AGP (OS X)
  
  CDRW Drives:
• SCSI Lacie 4x4x16x (Yamaha 4416S mechanism) used w/7300-7600 (OS 9.1)
• IDE Liteon LTR-52327S (52x32x52x) in 7500 using IDE PCI card (OS 9.2)
  (problems noted)
• IDE Liteon LTR-52327S (52x32x52x) in G4/AGP (OS X 10.3)
  (native burn support in 10.2.8 and later)
• IDE Liteon LTR-52327S (52x32x52x) in B&W G3 (OS X 9.2)
  (using burn support file for OS 9.x from FAQ here )
• IDE Plextor PX-W5224TA/SW (52x24x52x) in G4 no AGP (OS 9.2)
  (no itunes/db burn support)
• IDE Samsung SW-240B (40x12x40x) in G4/AGP (OS X)
  (using modifed burn support plugin for 10.2.x in FAQ here)
• IDE Sony CRX230A-U (52x32x52x) in G4/AGP (OS X 10.3)
  (no native burn support)
  (Illustrated CD drive install guide here covers G4 towers up to the Digital Audio Model, Beige G3 MT, B&W G3 and 8600/9600 Macs)
  
  Combo DVD+CDR Drives:
• Exp. Bay Teac DW-224E-A (didn't note drive speed) in Powerbook G3 2000 (OS X) (said system firmware update fixed boot from CD problems)
• IDE Samsung SM-352B (52x24x52x +16x DVD-ROM) in iMac G4 (OS X 10.3) (using modified/replaced disc recording frameworks for iApps burn support. iMac G4 take-apart here)
  
  DVD+R/RW + DVD-R/RW Drives:
• IDE LG GSA-4040B in G4/AGP (OS X 10.3)
  (using modified/replaced disc recording frameworks for iApps burn support)
• IDE Pioneer DVR-106D in G4/AGP (OS X 10.3)
• IDE Pioneer DVR-106D in G4/AGP (OS X 10.3)
  
  Hard Drives:
• SCSI Seagate Cheetah ST318203LW 18GB in Dual G4 DDR (OS X 10.3) (problems mounting drives noted in 10.3, using 39160 card.)
• IDE IBM (Hitachi I suspect) 120GB in G4/AGP (OS 9.2)
  (Illustrated guide to adding a 2nd HD here in B&W G3 rev2 and G4 towers up to the QuickSilver models.
  IDE articles page RAID section has an illustrated guide for adding 2 more drives in the side bays.)
• IDE (serial ATA) Maxtor 120GB in Dual G4 using IDE SATA card (OS X 10.3) (noted very good performance, but problem waking from sleep.)
• IDE Seagate ST380013A 80GB in iMac slot-loading (OS X 10.3)
• IDE Seagate ST3120026AR 120GB in G4 Cube (OS X 10.3)
• IDE Western Digital 120GB in iMac G4 (OS X 10.3)
  (problems noted in 10.3)

You can find full owner reports (latest shown first) by searching the database by drive/brand/interface/mac models (the latest reports are shown first in searches). For guides to installing CD/CDRW/DVD drives or Hard drives in many mac models, see the IDE Articles page. The Firewire articles page also has guides on case kits, installing drives, etc.
If you've added a IDE, SCSI, Firewire or USB hard drive, CDRW, tape drive, etc. make sure you add a report to the database. (If you post an updated entry - make sure you use the same name, etc. as you did before so I can find your past entry. Thanks.)
(Incomplete entries are deleted. Do not post questions in the database, it's for drive reports not questions on what drive to buy - for that try searching the database for reports from owners of your mac model on the drive type/brand/interface, etc. you're interested in.)

• 1 year ago today
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