Troubleshooting Mac OS X 10.2.5: More thoughts on the clicking problem; Resolving SMB issues; more

More thoughts on the clicking problem Our ongoing investigation of the strange clicking or "ticking" issue that occurs after upgrading to Mac OS X 10.2.5 is producing some interesting potential solutions.

Building a new disk directory and replacing the old one using a utility like Alsoft's DiskWarrior seems to work in the short-term for some users, thought the clicking generally re-emerges after a few hours of use.

MacFixIt reader Ty Davidson adds:

"Shutting down the Mac then restarting work every time. Interestingly, neither restarting the machine without shutting down nor logging out as a user has any effect. The clicking just keeps going under both those circumstances."

Resolving SMB issues We have now isolated a workaround that appears to work in at least some cases of SMB file transfer problems that have appeared after upgrading to Mac OS X 10.2.5.

Turn off sharing to the folder and turned it back on. Then go into the User's control panel and accessed the "Advanced" controls. Reset the password for the username you trying to access the shared folder with (Users->Action->Reset Password). Return to the main user's control panel selections and change the password for the user there.

Windows systems and file corruption The network administrator for a fairly large Macintosh-using organization reports a rash of file corruption issues - corroborated by other readers - that began cropping up with Mac OS X 10.2.4, and persist with 10.2.5:

"Since the 10.2.4 update I've seen many instances of Mac OS X corrupting data to network drives. It does not matter whether the drive is published via Mac OS X Server or Windows 2000. All the shares are published with AFP. Files are written to the shares and contain all zeros. There is definitely a file size limitation involved as very small files do not have this happen. Any file of considerable size, say 30MB, will be written but contain all zeros.

"To make this happen use a web browser (Safari or IE) or Fetch to download a file directly from the Internet to an AFP share. After the download completes attempt to use the file. It will probably not be usable. If you examine the file in a program that allows you to see the data-fork (I use Resourcerer) you will see the data-fork contains all zeros. Downloading the same file directly to the hard drive will work 100 percent of the time.

"Apple claims they can not reproduce the error. With the release of 10.2.5 I am seeing this on more and more of my client Macs. I have reported these problems to Apple again and hope that a quick resolution is around the corner."

CUPS problems It appears that the Mac OS X 10.2.5 update installs a non-functioning serial and parallel backend for CUPS. MacFixIt reader Matt Broughton writes:

"I found that the serial backend I installed was overwritten during the update. The serial printers I had installed were still functional, but I could not add a new printer. Neither the CUPS web interface or lpinfo -l -v would see the serial ports. You will have to install a new serial backend in order to be able to add a new serial printer."

Feedback on this issue? Drop us a line at late-breakers@macfixit.com.

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