Tim:
I can't say that I have that experience, it's very rare that an update breaks something on my system. Sounds like you have something wrong with your system, more than Fedora in general.
Jim Lewis:
What does "very rare" mean? So it has happened to you on occasion?
Way back on Fedora 17, playback of some video files became unstable with some yum update. I can't recall anything since then.
It happens to me on occasion and certainly does to others as well and so I don't trust it. I want an update to improve my system, not make it worse.
Fair enough, but avoiding a problem (while accumulating others, such as numerous security flaws), instead of fixing a fault (or several) by installing updates and debugging anything that screwed up, isn't really a good way of doing things.
The problem is still there and no I have not rebooted yet.
Well, that well may be the problem and solution, but can't tell without trying. Generally speaking, there is more than one terminal installed, so you can use another one to work on fixing a broken one.
Some (few) updates require a reboot, generally just kernel-related updates. Some updates do need you to log out and back in again. Some updates require you to quit using whatever software has been updated, and restart it. Some don't seem to require that, at all, you can carry on using the prior version until you want to quit it.