Why did Mac users have to upgrade?

The new viewer upgrade has caused endless problems for Mac users. Why oh why didn't Linden Labs tell them that they really ddin't need the new upgrade. The Mac still works perfectly fine on sl 1.19.1. This from Linden Labs themselves

KNOWN ISSUES:
* This 1.20 Viewer will not run on a Mac PowerPC that is running Mac OS X 10.3.9. The minimum requirements for running Second Life
is using Mac OS X 10.4.11 or higher. Please see http://secondlife.com/support/sysreqs.php for more information.
** The 1.19.1 Viewer still supports the Mac PowerPC that is running Mac OS X 10.3.9.

Why then insist that Mac users use the new upgrade?

It's because the security vulnerability affects Macs too.

I can not login period using OSX 10.3.9 and viewer 1.19.1. I can't get past the "upgrade" notice. I can either download 1.20 or quit. No other choices. Until yesterday I was able to login. However by late evening and still today no go! Ugh! I pay a huge tier. Have sent a ticket but still no reply even as concierge resident. The first was closed as soon as I logged in for 5 minutes. Guess they assumed all was fine. Sent 2nd ticket which is still open. I understand LL's decision to not support the older OS. However, I don't understand why the new viewer in required. Effectively I've been shut out of my land and SL. The only solution I have is to finally break down and divorce my Mac wife of 20+ years and trade her in for a younger PC. Which I did (new Dell T7400 coming within 2 weeks).

However until then, I am locked out I guess. Since I run a rp sim, I sure hope all will be there when I get back.

I did read somewhere about a arguments workaround for this problem. But can't find it now. So if any other Mac users know a solution I'd love to hear it.

Ty,

Yendor (spending a small fortune to keep up with LL) Heslop

Hey Guys!
I had the same problem as you and Authored the "Very, Very, Very Frustrated" thread. I found a FREE solution. Read the new thread entitled "SOLUTIONS!...."

I am on a new MacBook Pro and since I have downloaded the past 2 upgrades, I have had nothing but trouble. Constant freezing and locking up that I can't even force quit! grrrrr

About to try Onrez. Mac OSX 10.3.9, Radeon 9800 Mac Pro Special Edition, and enough Ram and ATA drives to pull down a house. Well at least edit video. Wish me luck!

Security or not, as some have said if we wish to run naked (me like that since we are on Macs after all) then why not allow the what was the answer to the SL Gods not so many months ago... 1.19x.

I get the "no longer supported" line and we in Mac folks are used to it But still.... WHY? I need my SL crack...

OK so a new system is order sure sure.. kk got it.

There is the option of upgrading your MacOS to 10.4 or 10.5.

I can think of a couple reasons LL won't let users run a viewer with known vulnerabilities. They don't want the liability, and they don't need the bad publicity that will inevitably result if it is ever exploited. There is no upside for them letting anyone run unsecure viewers.

I see the point and it's valid. But considering they really have publicity issues to deal with (minors, mass griefing of commercial ventures into SL, etc.) ... bad publicity from a viewer vulnerability isn't the motive. If so they'd lock out the non-LL viewers too. The official motive is cost for LL staff to support the older systems, according to their official notices.

NP. I will get by OnRez works better anyway. Nice interface. LL should take notice. But then hey I am a Mac guy and designer so I prefer better looking better interfaces. LOL.

Honestly I started this thread and thinks its served it's purpose.... if you don't have the cash or want to upgrade your Mac yet, get the free OnRez viewer so far so good. Now if I wake tomorrow and find a million spams in my IM box, or email... I let you know. If all my land and Linden's come up missing... I'll take down the OnRez folks and break a mega prim off in their ... well you get the idea.

It's a tough tightrope to walk. I'm lucky in that my machine is still relatively new, and I have no problem running the very latest Mac OS (currently 10.5.5), which always seems to work well in SL.

If I was still using my old G4, I'd be really out of luck. It's stuck at 10.3.9... I'd be forced out of SL at this point.

Last point: I usually don't update my viewer right away. When my stuff is functioning, I continue to use it for a long time before dipping my toe in the water and seeing how the performance of a new viewer release is working for the Mac community before jumping in fully. When SL is functioning, I usually go for the old adage, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

did I say that I HATE BEING FORCED TO UPGRADE..... major PITA and a waste of my evening last night.... almost had to cancel my gig tonight because of it...... makes me feel very skeptical of other "improvements" that might be coming, ouch!

If i hadn't found Caledonia's fix I would have been screwed, thanks again Caledonia!



That's pretty much what happened to me last night, Zak..... and I think there would be a few folks, lol, who would be unhappy if i wasn't able to play SL anymore.

A G4 will run 10.4 or 10.5.

I hear ya, Freddy! Once again, if I hadn't bought a new computer about a year ago, I'd be out of luck as far as SL is concerned.

I certainly love SL, and you know I enjoy performing live music in SL (as do you), but there's no way I could justify large expenses relating purely to SL. It's my hope that since the Mac has seemingly stabilized around the Intel processor, most future viewer updates will remain compatible with my MacBook Pro, along with the fact that I should be able to run the latest OS for a long time to come.

Crappily, though, compared to the Intel. Combine that with the fact that SL is a processor-intensive app already, and you're bound to minimally not have the optimal experience, if you can run the OS and SL at all.

I promise, I have both machines sitting here in front of me... I've tried.

A G4 does everything crappily compared to an Intel Mac.

A G4 will run SL under 10.4.11. Crappily. Same as it does under 10.3.9.

LL has supported 10.3 a lot longer than anyone else, including Apple.

I hate to say this, because I am a Very big fan of the Mac OS. My main system is a Mac, and I've been using Macs since they were first introduced, way back in 1984.

But...

The writing was on the wall well over a year ago that older hardware, both PC and Mac, would soon be forced to upgrade. Windlight alone was making it clear that older systems like G4 Macs and Mac Mini's were nearing the sunset of their viable SL lives. The older computers and video cards just didn't have the horsepower to run Windlight well. So most Mac users started saving back then for upgrades or new computers... I know I certainly did, and I replaced my system last December.

More recently, LL waved a HUGE red flag when they stated clearly that 1.20 and later would NOT work with Mac OS 10.3.9 and earlier. Anyone who had an older Mac and had not yet started saving for new hardware by that point should have started doing so then. Yes, they promised that they would allow 1.19 to be used for the foreseeable future, but they also clearly stated that by that point, only a very small percentage of Mac users of SL (4%, I think was the figure?) were still on OS 10.3.9 or earlier. Clearly, most of the Mac users already upgraded...

So now they lowered the boom. A security vulnerability that was too serious to ignore came up, and the old 10.19 viewer had to be locked out. That is life, in the technological world. No OS version or application version can keep on being used forever... I'd love to still be able to play some of my Mac games that were new when Mac OS 7.0 was new. But they no longer run on the newer OS or hardware. I'd love to be able to use my old G4 Tower and my old Max OS 9 laptop for something more useful than a doorstop. But it was already to the point where they wouldn't run most of the newer OS and application versions, or were just too slow or too limited in CPU, RAM, power supply and video card configuration to be useful any more. They went to Goodwill, as scrap.

The harsh bottom line: You had plenty of warning, but you didn't act on it.

So you have a few choices:

Replace your Mac with a newer model. The desktop iMacs run Sl just fine, and even he latest generation of Mac Mini's though slow, will still run SL.

Upgrade your OS to a version that SL supports, if your current Mac can manage it.

Or... Grit your teeth, and buy a cheap Windows XP PC clone, and use that for playing SL.

Well, as an SL noob, I kind of missed the warnings, lol. I just found out about SL last winter, and only started doing shows of my own since this past summer....

Onrez is a temp make shift solution at best...... apparently there was skipping in my audio last night, but I'm not sure how onrez would have affected my audio stream, for which I use Nicecast and was stable before the forced upgrade.....

Needless to say..... again..... the forced SL upgrade is a major PITA for me and might just force me to suspend playing gigs here while I jump through more F#**ing hoops to get SL back to where it was.....

I'd love to buy a new computer, would anyone care to lend me 3-4,000 in order to upgrade that and most of my software, lol?

By the way, unless OnRez has just released new code, their viewer STILL HAS THE SECURITY VULNERABILITY! It was based on the 1.19 client. So unless they have already applied the necessary patches that LL released as Open Source, they ARE vulnerable. Does anyone know for sure?

The "Cool Viewer" reportedly has already been patched. Check other forum threads for that one, but it may be safer for the Mac users still stuck on 10.3.9 and earlier.

Any vulnerability that will allow a stranger to arbitrarily add files to your hard drive is a VERY serious risk, and should not be taken lightly. Just because the Mac OS tends to be more robust against this sort of attack does not mean we are immune to them entirely.

Update: I checked the OnRez release notes, and they do NOT indicate that OnRez has the new security patches. They are only up to speed with the 1.19 main client's fixes.

Hi guys,

I don't get any issues with what people are saying in this thread, everything is working nice and fine for me.

I have the basic iMac, I don't play Second Life a lot, only like an hour a week, maybe less but when I do, there is bad issues with the client I'm running on.

All I could recommend is running a fresh installation of Second Life, deleting every single SL file / script from your hard drive and doing it all again.

I find this does fix any issues I may have, if not I'm sorry but I'm not sure.

Good luck and have fun as always!

Ben.

You will all be amused to know that I play Second Life with a Dual G4 876mhz system with 1 Gigabyte of RAM and an ATI Raedon 128 Meg video card (OSX 10.4.11).

And if you haven't snorted your coke through your nose yet, know that I also run three SL clients at once (2 for camping).

Yes, I get slideshow performance; but then, with only one client, I don't manage much more than 10 FPS unless in an enclosed room anyway.

I've also had Photoshop, Illustrator and Cinema4D open with two SL clients (though not simultaneously).

Once again, the only thing we in the Mac/SL community can say for certain is that there is no rhyme or reason as to why some of us get very acceptable performance from SL while others can't run it at all.

I've looked at every variable, every permutation of processor, graphics card, Mac OS, viewer version, and so on. For the life of me, I can't figure out why my system runs SL extraordinarily well, while a seemingly identical system crashed on startup.

Again, I'm lucky in that I'm using a MBP and am able to run the latest viewer and OS with no problem. I don't preach that everyone will get the same performance as me, even on the "same" machine.

Ah well.

Weird, works perfectly on my Core 2 Duo Mini.

Oh go and get a copy of Tiger from eBay. Enough people have upgraded to Leopard to ensure that legal copies are available on eBay. You can then run SL no problems at all. Total cost <$100

Panther isn't supported by Apple any more, why should LL support it?

Really. I ran Tiger on a Sawtooth PowerPC G4 350 Mhz. In fact I know Tiger can run on an iMac G3....

In fact Tiger runs very well on my Quicksilver G4. SL doesn't run too badly either (yes I have 3 Macs. I sold the Sawtooth G4. But I have a Quicksilver G4, a Mac Mini C2D and a Macbook)

So... you think tiger would run ok if I installed it on a G4 DUAL 800? Maybe I could experiment using a separate partition until I upgrade to my much coveted Macbook Pro, lol. Thanks, Fred

Yeah Tiger would run fine on a Dual 800. I had it running well on a Single core 350

SL? Would be touch and go