Degraded VGA output following Snow Leopard 10.6 software updates

IN the last two weeks I have accepted all Snow Leopard updates. Since installing these updates, the VGA output to a Data Projector and a VGA monitor have degraded, lost colour resolution and gained a red filter effect. I have tested this failure on an updated 3 year old iBook, same problem, and on a 1 year old MacBook Pro - same problem and on my 2008 MacBook Pro. The common link is that all 3 machines have taken all updates issued up to Friday 16th April. But on my MacPro, I have not installed any updates in more than 6 weeks and the problem does not occur when the MacPro signal is sent to the same data projector used with the laptops. Further, a friend has tried their family IBook that has not had any recent 10.6 updates and it works without a problem. There appears to be a problem in recent updates that degrades the VGA signal. Has anyone else had a problem with a post update laptop on a Data Projector and get the same problem, but does not get this problem on a pre- update laptop. The updates were only released in the last 4 weeks.? Warren

Thank you to those of you who have provided support for this problem. I have spoken to the Apple Technical people who have read this thread and expressed concern that it was so repeatable. I think that's there way of saying it may be a software problem I think.
I promised to try one more test for them. Yesterday I received my brand new model MacBookPro 15" i7 processor running the 500Gig 7200 HDD(oh so very nice). This has come with the latest 10.6.3 etc. Took all the instal upgrades. Connected it to the same data projector that 3 of the 5 other machines we have tested, and the same problem exists.
Remember 3 of the 5 have been upgraded to 10.6.3. and the two that still work are running 10.6.2 or lower. There is clearly a software issue now, and I am hopeful the technician I spoke to yesterday is monitoring this thread and will pick up this message. I have a case number so I will call them (when I can find where I wrote it down) next week.
From your feedback folks this is consistent with what you have been seeing also. I also notice in another discussion forum on this site, there is a reported "screen" dimming when connected to a VGA screen. I suspect this is the same problem.
Apple - over to you, I think you have a bug in 10.6.3 (patch and full install)
Warren

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Go to System Preferences, select Dock.
For the sliders, put them in the middle, about halfway between min/max and small/large. Make sure the "automatically hide and show the dock" is UNCHECKED.
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I have a 2008 imac with snow leopard. i installed update 10.9.3 not realizing it's best for Maverick's users. Now my Itunes 11.2.2 won't burn playlists to CD.   Anyone else with this problem? CAn I uninstall the 10.9.3 update?

i have a 2008 imac with snow leopard. i installed update 10.9.3 not realizing it's best for Maverick's users. Now my Itunes 11.2.2 won't burn playlists to CD.   Anyone else with this problem? CAn I uninstall the 10.9.3 update? Also my HP scannerwill not save the displayed scanned document since this update! it just saves gray.

If you have your old system backed up then erase the drive and restore your backup. If you don't have a backup then backup your entire Home folder. Erase the drive and install Snow Leopard after which you can restore your Home folder from the backup.
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Be sure to make a backup first because the following procedure will erase
the drive and everything on it.
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If I upgrade my leopard computer to snow leopard via an old update disc, can I then upgrade to Mountain Lion for the $20 deal?

If I upgrade my leopard computer to snow leopard via an old update disc, can I then upgrade to Mountain Lion for the $20 deal?

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Apple - OS X Mountain Lion - Read the technical specifications.
Macs that can be upgraded to OS X Mountain Lion
iMac (Mid 2007 or newer)
MacBook (Late 2008 Aluminum, or Early 2009 or newer)
MacBook Pro (Mid/Late 2007 or newer)
MacBook Air (Late 2008 or newer)
Mac mini (Early 2009 or newer)
Mac Pro (Early 2008 or newer)
Xserve (Early 2009)
I would also read this:
Make Your Own Mountain/Lion Installer
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Macs that can be upgraded to OS X Mountain Lion
iMac (Mid 2007 or newer)
MacBook (Late 2008 Aluminum, or Early 2009 or newer)
MacBook Pro (Mid/Late 2007 or newer)
MacBook Air (Late 2008 or newer)
Mac mini (Early 2009 or newer)
Mac Pro (Early 2008 or newer)
Xserve (Early 2009)
Are my applications compatible?
See App Compatibility Table - RoaringApps - App compatibility and feature support for OS X & iOS.
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HT201364 I currently have Snow Leopard and want to update to Mavericks

I currently have Snow Leopard and want to update to Mavericks. When I go to the Apple Store the only available option is to download Yosemite but I don't want to.
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Probably nowhere, and unless Apple says otherwise, definitely nowhere.
(117199)

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Entourage crashed after loading Snow Leopard 10.6.7 update

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I had a similar problem and solved it.
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Do I need to update my Leopard to Snow Leopard before I can update to LION?

Do I need to update my Leopard to Snow Leopard before I can update to LION?

Yes you do. You can get Snow Leopard at an Apple Store, or online: http://store.apple.com/us/product/MC573Z/A
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Then you should have the Mac App Store, which is where you go to download the Lion installer.

HT4623 I am trying to update an iPhone 4 but I can't follow the instructions above because "software update" is not an option under settings/general. How can I update my phone?

I am trying to update an iPhone 4 but I can't follow the instructions above because "software update" is not an option under settings/general. How can I update my phone?

The option to update without the computer (Over the air) was made available with iOS 5. If your iDevice is using a version of iOS lower than 5, you will need to use iTunes on your syncing computer to perform the upgrade. Use the Apple link below as a guide for the upgrade.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4972

Degraded Monitor Performance Post Snow Leopard Install

Hi.
I have noticed substantial degraded Monitor Performance since installing Snow Leopard. The Monitor is an NEC MultiSync 20WMGX2. The picture is "washed out" looking. Any ideas what the problem might be? The Monitor Settings are as followngs:
Brightness 50.0%
Contrast 43.0%
Sharpness 50.0%
Advanced DV Mode is "on"
DV Mode is set for Text
The Graphics Card is the standard Mac Mini Intel GMA950 with 64MB of shared system memory.
Thanks for any suggestions on how to get the performance back for this monitor.
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Are you aware that the default display gamma has been switched from 1.8 to the default value of 2.2? If you want to build a 1.8 profile, then you still can. Some interpret the change as degradation.
8,961

Keyboard and mouse issues following Snow Leopard update

I have a relatively ancient iMac--first aluminum bodied Intel-based model c. 2007. I was having issues updating my browsers (firefox, chrome) because I was on the old OS X (10.5.8 I think). So I did the Snow Leopard upgrade and since then have been having persistent keyboard (aluminum wireless) and mouse (mighty mouse connected via USB) issues.
I have verified the keyboard is connected via Bluetooth. I have verified that the keyboard is responding by opening the keyboard viewer and watching each of the keys light up as I type. Also, the keyboard will wake the computer from sleep and sometimes allow me to toggle between programs with Command+Tab.
Nevertheless, the keyboard will NOT type inside programs such as Word and Chrome. (It WILL type in the Post-it Note dashboard app, but I can't copy and paste into a browser from there.)
The Mouse will work in Chrome but in Finder and iTunes, e.g., it will not work. I can't use the mouse to select a folder in the folder tree to the left or to select a song or file/folder in the main window. I CAN, however, use the mouse to minimize/maximize/close each window.
Rebooting corrects the problem temporarily, but if I get up and walk away for a bit the keyboard and mouse re-freeze upon returning.
I have reset the PRAM and SMC because I saw these fixes listed in other discussion threads. Neither has fixed my issue.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Cheers,
Steve

Hi Steve,
One way to test is to Safe Boot from the HD, (holding Shift key down at bootup), run Disk Utility in Applications>Utilities, then highlight your drive, click on Repair Permissions, Test for problem in Safe Mode...
PS. Safe boot may stay on the gray radian for a long time, let it go, it's trying to repair the Hard Drive
Reboot, test again.
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Check the System Preferences>Other Row, for 3rd party Pref Panes.
Also look in these if they exist, some are invisible...
/private/var/run/StartupItems
/Library/StartupItems
/System/Library/StartupItems
/System/Library/LaunchDaemons
/Library/LaunchDaemons

Quicktime Player 10 question following Snow Leopard upgrade

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One of the reasons I loved using the previous Quicktime Player was the ability to go into 'cinema' view when viewing videos, effectively blacking out the whole background of the desktop but allowing me to control the size of the video playing in the foreground. Now to my dismay that control has gone which spoils the whole experience.
Surely it's not too difficult for the Apple programmers to display a black (or whatever colour the viewer wants) in the fullscreen background of the video being played, irrespective of the scale of the video being played back.
I'm also very disappointed that the Quicktime Player Pro option has disappeared, I now only have the standard Quicktime Player version 10.0 shown.
I don't think my request is particularly difficult to achieve, surely an oversight by the Apple programmers?
As a workaround, does anyone know of a way to play the video with a black background in either normal size, or double size in Quicktime Player 10?

Hi QuickTimeKirk & AnaMusic,
Thanks for the info, I never thought of looking in utilities for the previous version of QuickTime Player 7 Pro (7.6.6).
One small additional question, now that I have QT 7 in the dock I can select it to play videos, but if I click directly on the video icon it opens up in the new QT 10. I assume that all the videos will now default to opening in QT 10, is there any way to change the default back to QT 7?
To any Apple QT software engineers reading this post, I think the new black layout is very polished, would just like the ability to resize the video playing whilst in full screen mode.
Two new features I would like for QT 10:
Full screen background option with the ability to change the background colour from the default black.
Be able to resize the video playing by dragging the corners of the video or using the cmd + or - keys.
Seem to recall that you could submit features/improvements to Apple for software and hardware but cannot remember the link to do so - anyone have the link to hand?
Once again thanks for your help.
Rich

Snow leopard 10.6.2 Update

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SQL Developer Not Connecting After Mac Snow Leopard 10.6.3 Update

I installed Oracle 10g on a MacBook Pro running Snow Leopard 10.6.2 as described in here . All worked fine until after updating Snow Leopard last night with to 10.6.3. First I started getting an Insecure Startup Item Disabled message which I solved with the reply to my message at the Apple forums here . That took care of the first issue but now when attempting to connect with SQL Developer, I receive several errors messages in the log most of which point to the source o.jdevimpl.db.adapter.DefaultContextWrapper with a message starting with "Failed to create naming Context for db connections at url: file:/Users... I assume this is some sort of Jave error perhaps related to the Snow Leopard upgrade. However, I have absolutely no clue how to deal with it. I'm a student taking my first database class so the install of Oracle pushed me to my system knowledge limits.
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Edited by: user9137863 on Apr 1, 2010 8:19 PM

After some poking around on a several forums, I found a suggestion to reapply the OS X update by using the combo install package. That seemed to do the trick. I can now see and connect to my DB.

Degraded VGA output following Snow Leopard 10.6 software updates

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