Aborted OSX 10.5.2 update help needed.

February 11, 2008 9:54 PM

OSX Leopard 10.5.2 update - somehow aborted, now my macbook pro is caught in limbo.

So I woke up from my nap and there was a software update bouncing ball thingie, so I approved it and it asked to restart my MacBook, which is (was?) running Leopard 10.5.1. Well, it asked for all the Apple registration stuff as if it was a clean install - I went through with all that, then, when it came to the last "continue" it cycled back to the beginning, asking if I had ever owned an Apple before. I hard rebooted it, and it went through the same cycle. Stopping the installation does nothing, some of the menu bar windows operate but do nothing (e.g., "help", "about this mac" are there but don't function). It is stuck with a plain blue screen and a menu bar, no dock, and no programs. Since I am only semi-backed up, I'd rather not bork this totally, and I'd like to keep all my settings etc (i.e., not fresh install 10.5, if I can help it)

I presume the normal overlay install of 10.5.2 on 10.5.1 wouldn't mess with my data, but it didn't prompt me to make a backup or indicate in any way this was, in fact, an OS reinstall. I can see all the data booting it as a Target Drive from my old Powerbook running 10.4.10, which I am using to post this, and am backing up to this computer right now over firewire (once I make space by clearing off my daughter's crap music).

It is a 2.2 ghz 15" Macbook Pro, if that matters.

I don't have my install disks for Leopard here at home, but it is legit and registered and all that.

What's the best way to proceed here? Any way to kick-start the stalled installation? Anyway to restart that installation from the target disk?

posted by Rumple to computers & internet (17 comments total)

I think the shortest route back to a working computer is a clean install from the leopard disks.
posted by unSane at 10:05 PM on February 11, 2008

Safe mode. Power down, reboot, and I think (check the link) you hold down shift.

The same thing happened to my mom's Mac Mini with 10.5.1--but booting into safe mode saved it. I think there are more steps here--I think you check your account, it waits a WHILE and then kicks you out to the desktop, and you can restart.

If your experience is like hers, you have not lost any data--you're just stuck in an install loop. Good luck!
posted by Admiral Haddock at 10:13 PM on February 11, 2008

Ahhh Rumple this sucks - this exact scenario happened to my wife a few weeks ago with a 10.5.1 maintenance update. What I found was that at the time she initiated the OS update, she had one program or another that had frozen in the background - I said to her "you need to reboot, but while you are rebooting, install the software update" - and the result was your exact situation.

Luckily for us, we both have a Time Machine backup constantly running as well as a nightly SuperDuper clone, so I was able to restore the entire drive from backup and she was up and running in about 2 hours with just a few lost files.

I went through the registration and such about a half dozen times, even booted into safe mode, which got me farther, but it didn't appear to retain any info about user accounts and settings, so I didn't want to overwrite her old account and decided a restore was the best thing at that point.

Moral- go buy that USB drive and use Time Machine - good luck man, hope you don't lose much.
posted by Chuck Cheeze at 10:17 PM on February 11, 2008

Thanks so far, everyone. I got my data off over the firewire, so that's good *phew*. I am going to try various reboot options before I try a clean install.

Chuck Cheeze -- that does sound exactly like what my problem was. Was the file structure still there when you reinstalled or did you need to rebuild all that (that is, I see you had Time Machine, but, was there anything there after the reinstall?)
posted by Rumple at 10:36 PM on February 11, 2008

I have to say, the ease with which OSX fucked this up, and the merrily demented way it keeps looping back to the start of the registration menu is .... positively.... Microsoftian.

I'm booting into safe mode, but so far it is 10 minutes of spinning gear. At least I got my documents and my email back.
posted by Rumple at 11:44 PM on February 11, 2008

Ok, Safe Boot/password --> setup assistant/register ---> "enjoy your new mac" ----> SafeBoot/password-------> setup assistant/registe-----> "enjoy your new mac"

Putting the curse back in recursive!

Looks like it's the hard reinstall with Leopard disks. But maybe in the morning, so if anyone has words of wisdom, it ain't too late.
posted by Rumple at 11:53 PM on February 11, 2008

Found this at macforums, in relation to the first Leopard Update (10.5.1) and it works!! All data there, all settings still intact, etc. You'd think the mac geniuses would have fixed this glitch for 10.5.2. Yay.

"This is the 'fix':

1) Boot into Safe Mode by holding down the shift key upon boot... (wait, wait, wait... it will finally come up)
2) DO NOT LOG IN
3) Hit the back arrow key (click the "back button")
4) Then hit the restart button
5) Wait, it will then run/rerun the updates (agree to the "rebuild caches" query)
6) Wait, wait, wait and it will finally restart...

I had this happen to me about a week ago on my iMac, and the fix unfortunately did not work, and I just formatted and reinstalled. I think it has something to do with updates not installing correctly or the user not rebooting immediately when they download an update."
posted by Rumple at 12:51 AM on February 12, 2008

Before you reinstall, try this: When you get to the setup assistant, go to the apple menu, and choose shut down. Everything will start to shut down and you should then see the update dialog box doing its thing. Let it finish (it'll take a while), and then the mac will tun off. Leave it for a couple of minutes, and then switch it back on again. It'll boot twice (you'll get the grey apple screen, and then it'll reboot itself, and then it'll boot normally), and then when you get the login screen, you'll be good to go - no setup assistant and everything where you left it. At least that's what happened to me. Good luck...
posted by ninthart at 1:09 AM on February 12, 2008

Mental note: Do not accept Mac software updates as soon as they're available.

I'm already a bit narked that my iPod classic update to 1.1 caused loads of problems; I really don't want to have to suffer by updating the Mac mini... "Microsoftian" - how appropriate!
posted by Chunder at 1:32 AM on February 12, 2008

I doubt all your problems are solved. I installed the update and decided to take advantage of one of the new "features" (which is really a reversion) by right clicking on one of my dock folders and choosing to display it as a folder instead of a stack. Now, everytime I click that icon, my dock freezes. Everything else works but the dock is useless unless I reboot completely (force quitting Finder does nothing to the dock). Lame.
posted by dobbs at 6:06 AM on February 12, 2008

Dobbs, you don't have FontExplorer, by any chance, do you? Seems like others are having dock problems due to conflicts between it and 10.5.2.

Rumple--any updates?
posted by Admiral Haddock at 7:01 AM on February 12, 2008

This happened to me while updating to 10.5.1, and after a panic and a few failed attempts to login, I press shut down (or it may have been restart) and it continued the installation and everything was fine when I booted up again.

Phew!

Wishing you luck in getting your mac running again.
posted by markturner at 7:33 AM on February 12, 2008

Admiral Haddock, thanks. Indeed, I do run Font Explorer. :(
posted by dobbs at 7:50 AM on February 12, 2008

ninthart, markturner - the apple button was there, and the menu appeared on clicking it, but none of the commands such as "shut down" or "restart" worked.

AdmiralHaddock - it seems to be working fine now, under 10.5.1. Of course, the first thing it wanted me to do once it came back to life was to install the 10.5.2 update. As fucking if. Anyway, it looks like a happy ending. Later on, I am going to do a time machine backup to external drive (which I've had all along, idiot) and then in due course do the update and see how stable that is. I probably won't do a fresh install from disk unless it seems like there's a problem.

I suspect there will be quite a lot of hairpulling in the next few days as people install this and the Apple goes Pear-shaped.
posted by Rumple at 9:05 AM on February 12, 2008

I had nearly the same problem. When I installed the 10.5.2 update and restarted, everything was fine. However, upon installing the next update (Leopard Graphics Update,) when I restarted, I would enter my password, it would go to a blue screen, then send me back to the login screen. Rinse, repeat.

Called apple, tried resetting PRAM, tried verifying / repairing permissions / disk, nothing.

Fortunately, I let OS X set up time machine on my external drive a few weeks ago. After booting to the install CD, I chose "Restore from time machine backup" from the Utilities menu. Had a backup from less than an hour before everything went belly-up. Took about 2 hours to restore. Everything was back to normal (except my mailbox in Mail being borked. Easy fix.)

Stupidly, I tried running the updates again, but this time they worked.

I feel sort of miffed about the fact that if I hadn't had time machine that this would have been an excruciating process, possibly resulting in data loss.
posted by damnthesehumanhands at 9:32 AM on February 12, 2008

It's clear: "time machine" is Apple building in an excuse for being sloppy with updates: they send out some crap update, knowing they'll be able to say "durrr, you should have used our easypeasy backup tool so its all your fault."

busy setting up Time Machine

Though seriously, I think the casual way they package what is more or less an OS reinstall as just another update is a little against their "it just works" idea -- if that idea is understood to mean, "easy to use and bulletproof".
posted by Rumple at 10:45 AM on February 12, 2008