Mac OS X 10.3.8 (#7): Pop-up blocker in Safari broken; Routers and slow network performance: Downgrading firmware; more

Pop-up blocker in Safari broken MacFixIt reader Scott Rose and a number of posters to Apple's Discussion Boards are reporting an issue where Safari's pop-up blocking mechanism is ineffective after applying the Mac OS X 10.3.8 update.

Scott Rose writes:

"It seems that after updating to 10.3.8 that pop-up ads are starting to appear in Safari for some websites, even if the pop-up blocker is turned on. A thread has been started here"

James Hitchcock adds:

"Since I?ve updated to 10.3.8 I?ve noticed that Safari?s pop-up blocker doesn?t seem to be catching all pop-ups. It seems to pop-behinds that it misses, and it?s only been in the last week that I?ve seen these problems."

The problem affects a variety of Web sites that previously could not get past Safari's pop-up blocker, including totalfark.com and howstuffworks.com.

If you are experiencing a similar issue, please let us know.

Routers and slow network performance: Downgrading firmwareWe continue to cover an issue where some routers -- particularly a handful of models manufactured by NetGear -- can cause a reduction in network performance under Mac OS X 10.3.8. When this situation occurs, users can often resolve the issue by removing the offending router from the network set-up.

Though we previously reported that upgrading firmware on problematic routers often worked to resolve this issue, at least a handful of readers have now reported that downgrading the router firmware restores normal network performance.

This is yet another example of seemingly conflicting workarounds being equally successful in differing Mac OS X installations.

MacFixIt reader Paul Goodrich writes:

"Before I read your report on the WGR614v4 router, I had determined, through various tests, that the router is at fault. But it seems to be related to the later firmware upgrades (5.x) I downgraded the router to the 4.04 firmware and now my speed is back. With the 5.07 (the latest) firmware, I had problems connecting to iTunes Music store, iChat, general page failures and high latency pings to domains like www.yahoo.com. (100-600ms on a cable connection) After the firmware downgrade, I am not having these problems and pings are back to 10-20ms!"

Printer problems: Deleting and re-adding One of the most continually successful workarounds for printing problems associated with Mac OS X 10.3.8 is to simply delete, then re-add the problematic printer via Apple's "Printer Setup Utility" located in the Applications/Utilities folder on a standard Mac OS X installation.

MacFixIt reader Michael Ruschak, for instance, writes:

"[...] I went into the Printer Setup Utility and deleted (my client's) printer and re-added it. Now it works. The driver needs to be re-added so that anything internally that needs to be done for printing is reset in any updated files."

"When you add the printer in the printer utility you create a new file in the ~/LIbrary/Printers folder. This perhaps could get corrupted just like a preference file so deleting this by removing the printer in the utility and re-adding it may be why it worked."

Automatic screen brightness more sensitive on PowerBook G4s? MacFixIt reader Laurent Daudelin reports that the automatic, ambient screen dimming scheme on newer PowerBook G4s is more sensitive under Mac OS X 10.3.8 -- an issue for which we are seeking confirmation:

"I haven't seen anything on this topic but on my PowerBook 17" (1.5GHz), since updating to 10.3.8, with the display set to automatically adjust the brightness as ambient light changes, I've noticed that the system is much more sensitive then in 10.3.7. Sometimes, if one of my hand partially cover the grille area on the left or right, the display will react immediately, dimming the screen. As soon as I move my hand off, the display increases the brightness. When that occurs every few seconds, it gets a little annoying."

Feedback? Late-breakers@macfixit.com.

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