Mac OS X 10.2.8, Take 2

Posted by Pierre Igot in: Macintosh
October 6th, 2003 • 10:00 pm

As most of you probably already know, Apple has re-released Mac OS X 10.2.8, and the major issues introduced by the first release of the system update appear to have been fixed.

As a precautionary measure, in addition to backing up all the important stuff and repairing disk permissions before installing the update, I downloaded the Combo Updater instead of the regular one. Combo updaters are supposed to be more reliable overall, even if you have the latest system version (10.2.6 or 10.2.7 in this particular case), for which you can also use the regular updater. In addition, a combo updater is always handy to have when, like me, you provide troubleshooting services to other people using Mac OS X and might have to UPDATE their machines, which might not have 10.2.6.

I am pleased to report that the installation appears to have worked just fine. Nothing is broken, all my regular utilities appear to be working just fine. I also repaired disk permissions again after installing the update. Interestingly, based on the information provided by Disk Utility, the privileges that it repaired were the same ones as the ones that already needed to be repaired before I installed the updater. (Affected files include “hfs.util”, “utmp”, and “DB.3”. Don’t ask me what these files are or do.)

I still fail to understand why, after such a minor update, applications such as Mail and Safari have to ask for my permission to access my keychain again — even though, according to the Finder information on these applications, Mail and Safari are unchanged from the versions in Mac OS X 10.2.6 (Mail is still 1.2.5 and Safari is still 1.0.) It’s a minor thing, but it’s annoying just the same.


5 Responses to “Mac OS X 10.2.8, Take 2”

  1. vaag says:

    Safari changed.

    These are some of the enhancements that are part of Mac OS X 10.2.8 Update:
    – […]
    – Includes several enhancements for Safari.

    <http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=25524&gt;

  2. Pierre Igot says:

    Mmm. So it’s been enhanced, but it still has the same version number… Doesn’t quite make sense. I suppose there is some convoluted explanation involving WebCore, but the bottom-line is that it doesn’t make sense for the end user to be asked to re-authorize Safari to use the keychain stuff when the application appears to be unchanged.

    Oh well.

  3. vaag says:

    See ‘About Safari’: its version number changed too, from 1.0(v.85) to 1.0(v.85.5).

  4. Pierre Igot says:

    Etan: Please refer to the earlier discussion mentioned in my post, at

    https://www.betalogue.com/index.php?p=363

    Turning the “Always allow access” option on is dangerous from a security point of view.

    Vaag: I see. Still doesn’t make it intuitive for the end user, who’s not supposed to know that “1.0” does not always mean “1.0”.

  5. Etan Greenbaum says:

    The Keychain thing is a pain. It is not a bug without a reason, however. If you go into the Keychain Access app and select any one of the listings and select the tab labeled “Access Control”, you will find two radio buttons that say “Always allow access to this item” and “Confirm before allowing access.” Anything that is asking for your permission again and again has the second radio button selected. If you change it and re-authenticate, no more bugging!

    This then leads us to the question: Why on earth isn’t the first radio button the default? We would then not have this problem at all?!

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