10.5.6 update still a work in progress

Although they speculated that Mac OS X 10.5.6 (not to be confused with 10.6, "Snow Leopard") could arrive by November 21, there is still work to be done on the release, according to Ars Technica's David Chartier.

Apple is asking reviewers of this latest build, 9G52, to test MobileMe's automatic syncing on "networks with medium-to-high latency or constrained bandwidth." Apple might be trying to improve MobileMe syncing; anecdotal evidence suggests that for many, syncing is still not up to snuff.

Second, Apple wants users of non-Latin languages like Hangul, Kototeri, Traditional Chinese, Cyrillic, Hebrew and Arabic to use Mail, in order to test its support of non-Latin character sets.

Even so, 9G52 fixes over 100 issues. Full notes on the build are available in the second part of this story.

There's no word on when the update will be released, but we'll likely have to be patient for a little while longer. Like my mom always said when baking, "it'll be ready when it's finished."

This list of changes comes to us from hmbt.org. Since their site is slow just now, we're including it here as a courtesy.

Focus Areas with Additional Information

MobileMe / Syncing:

Please help test MobileMe automatic syncing. We are particularly interested in testing automatic sync on portable computers and on networks with medium to high latency and or constrained bandwidth. Please include the ~/Library/Logs/Sync/dotmacsync.log with any radars you file.

If you are working behind a firewall (ie. corporate proxy), we would like to know your experience with the syncing. If you have auto sync turned on, and you make a change from me.com, or MobileMe website, does that change sync within a reasonable amount of time? Also attempt general syncing of Contacts, Calendars, Bookmarks and other sync data. Please watch for excessive syncing and file radars for any abnormal syncs.

Mail

We would appreciate testing from those who send messages entirely in non Latin character sets, such as Hangul, Kotoeri, Traditional Chinese character sets. We would also like to include those who send messages and enclosures in Latin character sets (French, German, Italian, etc). Cyrillic, Hebrew, and Arabic would be another good set of writing systems to pound on. Testing should include attachment names, punctuation, and anywhere else the character sets appear.

Issues fixed in previous seeds:

• AudioQueueStart() and intermittent pause fix

• Misc graphics corruption fixes

• Fixed issue with DAVKit and error handling code

• Resolved issue with MLTE Controls and data capture

• Fixed issue with Bluetooth Preferences panel

• Fixed issue with MobileMe dotmacsyncclient and error messaging

• Resolved issue with Automatic bookmark syncing and dotmacsyncclient

• Fixed issue with Sync Services and slow sync prompt

• Fixed issue with DVI and display detection

• Issue with Superdrive and eject sound resolved

• Fixed issue with MobileMe pref pane and periodic syncing

• Fixed issue with printing a PDF file from Mail.app

• Resolved issue with LaunchServices and downloading playlists

• Resolved problem with Sync Services and calendar syncing

• Resolved issue with FileSync and FileSyncAgent

• Fixed issue with syslog and duplicate message suppression

• Fixed multitouch issue with Finder

• Resolved issue with USB disconnect warning dialog

• Fixed issue with notified syncs and dotmacsyncclient

• Fixed issue with System Preferences and MobileMe sync tab

• Issue with KeychainAccess and prompting of passwords resolved

• AFP Server no longer caches FPGetSessionToken

• AFP Server now turns off replay cache for non replay clients

• AFP Client now advertises that it supports Replay cache

• Bluetooth and USB in closed lid mode compatibility fix

• FileSyncAgent syncing fix

• HTTP basic authentication with long URL containing username/password fix

• iCalExternalSync - you can now change the record identifier to RootNode

• Misc localization fixes

• Buenos Aires (Argentina) Local Time One Hour time change fix

• Fixed issue with CFNetwork and Content-Disposition file names

• Addressed issue with CoreTypes and certain zip file contents

• Fixed problem with USB OTG Disks and Mass Storage

• Fixed issue with Parental Controls and idle sleep

• Fixed issue with Parental Controls and curfew login

• Fixed issue with iDisk Syncing

• Fixed Calculator issue with Swiss German

• Fixed network server file copying issue

• Addressed issue with AudioQueue and CoreAudio

• Fix to Network Authorization UI

• Fixed issue with AirPort Drivers and "off" setting

• Issue with decoding GIF images and CoreGraphics resolved

• Fixed issue with Mail and authentication of inactive accounts

• Resolved issue with iCal Search and text search

• Fixed issue with iCal Alarms not firing in certain situations

• Problem with Quick Look and CoreGraphics resolved

• Issue with iChat setup assistant fixed

• Fixed issue with firewall configs being reset after upgrading

• Resolved issues with CFURLCookies

• Address books syncing fixes

• AFP server login fixes

• Graphic drivers performance fixes

• New iCal Events and AppleScript applet fix

• Safari and cookies compatibility fixes

• Core Audio and AU component version mismatch fix

• Multiple instances of MatrixReverb in separate threads fix

• Core Audio compressor threshold fix

• Switching default audio device's output stream is now immediate

• More channels for Core Audio 3D mixer

• Programmatically created (public) aggregate device now plays correctly

• Audio Channel Layouts and Unique ID fix

• Changing the composition of an aggregate device audio dropout fix

• kAudioSubDevicePropertyDriftCompensation property can now be set on an aggregate device

• Renaming aggregate devices now propagate device name changes to all applications

• AudioFileOpenURL memory management fix

• CoreAudio AudioFileWritePackets file creation fix

• audioqueue compatibility fixes

• audio file stream compatibility fixes

• ExtAudioFileCreateNew memory management fix

• ADTS files now supports kAudioFilePropertyPacketSizeUpperBound

• Core Audio performance fixes

• CGDisplayBaseAddress and 64bit binaries compatibility fix

• Command-H and applications hiding fix

• FSCatalogSearch() on 64 bit binary app now returns correct results

• iCalExternalSync floating events and stability fixes

• iCal can now identify VTIMEZONE with a simple offset and no transition dates

• Setting iChat setting to "invisible" via AppleScript now keeps you logged in

• Embed ColorSync Profile" in Image Capture no longer leaves invisible file behind

• Image Capture Architecture performance fixes

• Show(Hide)Window() without Window menu memory management fixes

• Linked binary with NFS shares fix

• Keychain Access: Change Password now works for smart cards

• AppleScript/Keychain Scripting now saves passwords as UTF-8

• pthread operation support fixes

• Access times on FAT32 formatted USB external drive performance fix

• Fixed issue with large file (4gb+) writes to LINUX nfs server when initiated from finder

• NFS export and hostname resolution at startup fix

• copying from a framebuffer object to a texture via glCopyTexSubImage2D fix

• GL_ARB_occlusion_query now works with multiple in-flight queries

• Dealloc method of Cocoa PDE is now called when Print dialog is closed

• Two-Sided Checkbox now follows PPD UIConstraints

• Carbon Printing sheets and window flickering issue fix

• 'Collated' can now be set as default in print dialog

• Print sheet now honors first page/last page settings

• PDFView now works with undoManager when its document is set

• Paper sizes and some PPDs compatibility fixes

• AERecord-to-NSDictionary translation now handles ‚Äòusrf' fields.

• Support for serial smart card readers in pcscd

• SyncServer performance fix

• AppKit recognition of xml-format webarchives

• Latest time zone changes for Brazil, Europe, Argentina, etc

• Uploading of files to more than one webDAV volume at the same time fix

• X11 application gnubg segmentation fix