Last night I installed the freshly released update for Tiger (update 10.4.10).
The installation went fine, but took unusually long time, which made me a little worried for a moment (a spinning wheel is not the best indicator of progress).
After the problems I (and many others) had with 10.4.9, I recommend doing at least these steps in order to install a MacOSX Update:
- close all the apps
- backup important stuff
- launch Disk Utility and verify the disk *and* disk permissions
- start the installation
- don't touch your machine until the update is done
- start praying
14 comments:
I cannot tell you how badly I had discovered your blog before last night. I returned home from a business trip and flippantly clicked the update button. And now, I'm experiencing your 10.4.9 experience thanks to the 10.4.10 update. Does your method work for this update, as well? I'm going to try it. I just wish I'd known about these problems beforehand. Congrats on making it through this update unscathed.
Ohhh no, I'm sorry to hear that!
If you are experiencing the same problems, my fix should work 10.4.10 as well.
Try it and let me know if it worked.
cheers,
i
Ok - all hope is not lost, but things are quite confusing. I am writing thanks to Boot Camp - I installed Windows Vista Ultimate on a minimal partition a while back. Other than gaming, this is the first time I've needed it.
Basically, I got the combo update DMG while at work and stuck it on my USB key. I've started into the boot CD, repaired the disk and the disk permissions, and opened Terminal. Here's where things get hairy. My main HD is not detected by Terminal. The Startup Disk utility detects it, the alternate startup menu that I use for Boot Camp - by holding alt/option during boot - detects it, and somehow Terminal doesn't. How does that work? Is there a way to force it recognize the disk? Is it possible that it is not found under /Volumes anymore because of Boot Camp? I changed the name to "Macintosh" when I installed Vista onto "Windows." Any thoughts? Also, the Windows Partition doesn't show up either...but I'm typing from inside it...so...I am confused. Why can't I copy the file over onto my Macintosh HD? How could it be broken?
Update: The list function ls lets me see the directories and whatnot on the Macintosh drive as well as the USB key, and even on the Windows partition. I've tried using the copy function cp and the ditto function - ditto, not to be redundant or anything - and I get different errors. List shows the directories and stuff in them no problem. Copy says that the directory I am copying TO does not exist. Ditto says it is read-only. In other words, I can see all of my stuff...but can't do anything with it? The USB Key is FAT32. I also have an external HDD that is FAT32, but I am going to reformat it so that I can maybe attempt to salvage data onto it... But I'm wondering if something sinister has happened. Any thoughts? I am really sorry for the blogspam, and I know that you're not a help desk, but I'm truly at a loss here. If you've got the time and the inclination, I could really use your help. Thanks.
IT'S ALIVE!
I finally figured out what was going on. I live and work in Japan, and when I accessed your site at work to print out the instructions, the character encoding got screwed up. When I viewed it through Vista, I realized that I'd spent nearly 5 hours carefully typing the Japanese yen symbol ￥ instead of the backslash \. It was merely typos. You inadvertently saved my butt, thanks to your article about the last update. You have my wholehearted thanks. (I have no wife or child to offer you, unlike that fellow in your last round about, but the gratitude is the same.) Thanks so much. Feel free to delete all of my blogspam now. But, in case you wondered - your fix works for the 10.4.10 update, too.
Big. Sigh. Of. Relief.
deas,
I'm glad that you were able to fix the problem.
At the same time I'm angry that Apple doesn't care about this and didn't learn from 10.4.9 fiasco. Where is the "invention" that Apple brags about all the time!! DTrace anyone? :)
It's weird that the backslash was displayed as Yen in Japanese locale - one would thing that google (blogspot.com) would now about how to do l10n right and prevent problems with character encoding.
How come you didn't download the fixmymac.sh script? I bet that you would see the problem right away.
cheers,
i
Ha ha - I thought the fixmymac script was a one-use only script that would point to the 10.4.9 files. Am I wrong? But now that you mention it, it would make the backslash and yen thing obvious. I suppose I never tried it because it never occurred to me. :-) Here's hoping I've learned my lesson.
Hi ppl
I just upgraded to 10.4.10 and it went smoothly but now after my macbookpro hibernates my mouse movements are slow and I am unable to click button first time. But after restarting the machine this goes away. Is anyone else having this problem ?
Help appreciated
Mike
Hi Mike,
I've never heard about that one before.
Sorry :-/
cheers,
Igor
I too am having a little bit of trouble. I have followed the instructions and rebooted, but then can’t find Front Row on my mac mini anywhere. I have a old G4 1.4 mac mini that I had already updated to 10.4.10. Thanks.
aquabot,
It's hard to say for sure, but it sounds like your MacOS installation got corrupted.
If you can't get the issue resolved, I suggest you do "archive install".
cheers,
Igor
Igor, thanks a lot! That was very helpful!!
I had the same problems with the 10.4.11 update and could solve it with your instructions.
Volker
IGOR you are a true life saver!
Update to 10.4.11 manual with terminal solved my hangover.
Thanks for all the helpful information on this blog. Yesterday (also after returning from a short holiday) I updated to 10.4.11
After restart the startup screen hanged. Nothing but the Apple logo and the wheel-thing turning..
After reading all the information here I was able to update again by terminal. Your sctipt didn't work completely but manually I managed to get the installer doing what it should do.
I think there is an error in your script:
cp "/Volumes/$USB_KEY/MacOSXUpdCombo10.4.9Intel.dmg" "/Volumes/$YOUR_HDD/"
-> I think "$YOUR_HDD" should be "$MY_HDD".. no?
Anyways, I totally agree with you that Apple should do something about the disk permissions by automatic checking when updating!
So, thanks a milion again for your contribution and helping me solve this problem! This experience proves that you can't blindly trust Apple like I used to for so many years..
THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!
Regards,
Maarten
Igor,
I am a US biology teacher on a Fulbright Teacher Exchange and have been living in the UK for only 2 weeks. Last night, I updated to Mac OS X 10.4.11 and could not get past the gray apple screen with the spinning gear after installation. I do have the luxury of having another identical MacBook (one was issued to me by my US school-it is having the problem; my wife works with our personal MacBook that we purchased-it's working fine). Using our personal Macbook that works, I found your blog. I downloaded both MacOSXUpdCombo10.4.11Intel.dmg and MacOSXUpd10.4.11Intel.dmg onto the working MacBook. Then I connected both MacBooks with a firewire and installed both pieces of software onto the school machine (stuck in spinning gear mode). After completing the installation and optimization, I disconnected the two machines, shut down the school machine, waited for 30 seconds, and restarted it. No change...it's still stuck in the spinning gear mode!
PLEASE HELP!
I need the school computer for my first day of teaching in the UK classroom.
Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks.
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