SPSS Statistics 26 Fixpack 1, released at the end of October 2019, contains a variety of fixes and enhancements for macOS and Windows. Our customers spoke, and we listened when it comes to the issues that are crucial to their workflows.
Where to get the Fixpack: search this SPSS Statistics page on the IBM Fix Central website. Select the file for your operating system(s) and click the "Continue" button for the download page. Read this document for installation instructions. For a list of APARs addressed in this fixpack, view this Tech Note.
UPDATE 11/13/2020: After you install IBM SPSS Statistics 26 Fix Pack 1 on macOS, it is recommended that you apply interim fix 26.0-IM-S26STATC-MAC-FP001-IF003. This interim fix improves application stability issues reported on macOS. Download it here.
UPDATE 11/19/2020: The current Fix Pack 1 installer will not work properly with Apple's latest OS (Big Sur). We will post an updated Fix Pack 1 installer in early December, please check back after December 9th for updates. In the interim, you can use this work-around.
Overall there were over 90 defects addressed that cover a wide swathe of functionality. The areas addressed can be described in several broad categories. Below are the highlights:
Improved application startup time
By streamlining internal processes we have significantly reduced startup time. The application will no longer slow your Windows desktop way down while it starts. We also discovered that users with Windows may experience additional startup delays caused by the Windows Defender application (learn more).
A new macOS JRE from Oracle
After working closely with Oracle about a macOS JRE crash that affected many applications in addition to SPSS Statistics, the team was able to fix a difficult crash problem related to machines "waking up" from sleep mode.
Adaptations for macOS Catalina
The IBM/Apple team squared away the official Apple Notarization for this release to comply with stricter Catalina standards. We also enhanced the fixpack to address new Catalina security features related to accessing files and certain system directories. Read more about our findings with respect to running SPSS Statistics on Catalina.
Minor Feature Enhancement
This release contains a minor enhancement to the ROC Analysis procedure that shows how well a classification model fits the data compared to a random assignment. The addition of the CLASSIFIER keyword to the PRINT subcommand controls the display of the Classifier Evaluation Metrics table in the output. The table provides the following information:
- The user-specified test variables
- Group information
- Gini Index (the Gini index is 2*AUC - 1, where AUC is the area under the ROC curve)
- Max K-S and Cutoff values
Custom Dialog Builder improvements
The Custom Dialog Builder (a.k.a. CDB) underwent changes to fix issues pertaining to UI generation and deployment. This update continues our commitment to support user-defined, syntax-generating custom dialogs that can be shared with other SPSS users.
Better support for acquiring data
Specific work was done to improve support for importing Cognos BI data into the application. A fix was also made to support Microsoft Access database with the Office 2016 drivers.
Improved MS Office clipboard support
Fixes and enhancements made to support 1) pasting data into Excel and 2) pasting charts as Microsoft Office Drawing Objects.
Chart editor fixes
Various fixes were made to the Chart Editor to better support histograms and fit lines on scatter plots. Work was also done to improve legend handling during chart transposition.
Fixes for R and Python extensions
Several customer-reported issues were addressed related to R-Essential and Python-Essentials.
Improvements in the handling of Far Eastern character sets
There were several fixes made related to the handling of Chinese and Japanese character sets.
Summary Video
Be sure to view this summary video for a brief demonstration of a few of the items mentioned above.
Conclusion
This fixpack continues a long tradition of successful Statistics releases. As always, our aim is to listen to our customers and provide them with world-class tools for statistical analysis and reporting.
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