Mac OS X 10.4.7 (#2): Drives not recognized, fixes; Dangers of working while update is taking place; Mail.app problems, fixes

CNET staff

Sept. 2, 2009 7:23 a.m. PT

9 min read

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Problems starting up after update -- try re-applying combo updater from separate drive If you are having problems starting up after applying the Mac OS X 10.4.7 (i.e. startup stalls at the grey screen or another point before the desktop appears), first try the suggestions in our tutorial "Startup will not proceed after a system or security update; solving."

Failing those options, you may need to re-apply the Mac OS X 10.4.7 combo updater while booted from a separate startup drive via the following process:

Download and save the Mac OS X 10.4.7 combo updater (PowerPC or Intel).
Startup from an alternate boot volume, such as an external FireWire drive, or use another Mac to boot the problematic system in FireWire target disk mode (connect the two machines via a FireWire cable, and boot the target [problematic] system while holding down the "T" key)
Once booted from an alternate drive, select the problematic volume in the Finder, and "Get Info" -- either by pressing the Command-I keyboard combination or accessing the "Get Info" option in the File menu. Check the box marked "Ignore ownership permissions on this volume."
If you have a third-party disk repair utility like DiskWarrior, use it to re-build the directory on the problematic volume (this step may not be necessary)
Re-install the Mac OS X 10.4.7 combo updater on the problematic drive.
Re-attempt booting from the problematic volume (hold down the option key at startup to select the desired drive)

Alternatively, if you have an Intel-based Macs with Boot Camp and Windows installed, you can avoid having to use another Mac in the process.

Instead, boot into Windows, then download the Mac OS X 10.4.7 Combo Updater (PowerPC or Intel) -- it will be stored on the Windows NTFS or FAT32 partition.

Next, boot from your Mac OS X installation disc, and was your system is booted click the "Continue..." button. From the "Utilities" menu, open Disk Utility and use the "Repair Disk" function to ensure your drive integrity. Now, from the "Utilities" menu select "Terminal" and use the Terminal cp command to copy the Mac OS X 10.4.7 Combo Updater from the Windows partition to the Mac OS X partition. The command should like something like this, but will depend on where the combo updater is stored on your Windows partition, and what your Windows partition is named.

cp /Volumes/(Name of your Windows drive)/MacOSXUpdCombo10.4.7Intel.pkg /Volumes/(Name of your Mac OS X drive)/MacOSXUpdCombo10.4.7Intel.pkg

Next, run the Combo Updater installer, via the following Terminal commands (press return after each):

/Volumes/osx/usr/sbin/installer -verbose -pkg
/Volumes/osx/MacOSXUpdCombo10.4.7Intel.pkg -target /Volumes/osx

External drives not recognized -- fixes Several users have reported that external FireWire and/or USB hard drives will not mount after updating to Mac OS X 10.4.7.

MacFixIt reader Joseph Samuels writes:

"I did have some trouble with one of my two laptops recognizing my firewire drives. On the Pismo, with Daystar G4 550mhz upgrade and 1 GB ram, there were no problems. On my Powerbook G4, 1.67mhz, 2 GB ram, at first after the upgrade, the firewire drives were not recognized. I unplugged them all from the computer and restarted and tried them again and they all worked. For the first plug-in with each drive, it took some time for the machine to mount the drive. It seemed that the system had to do something to the drive before it could mount. But after the first plug-in for each drive, the later plug-ins were very quick like it had been before installing 10.4.7."

As noted by Joseph, the solution for some cases of this problem is to simply unplug the drives, restart and re-connect them.

In other cases, clearing system caches with a utility like AppleJack, Cocktail or Tiger Cache Cleaner can often restore accessibility to FireWire devices that otherwise refuse to mount.

You may also want to try some of the suggestions listed in our tutorial about solving various FireWire issues.

Problems with Formac WatchandGo USB 2 Tuner MacFixIt reader Torsten Carzow reports that the Formac WatchandGo USB 2 Tuner with Software 1.7.0 does not find any DVB-T channels in Germany after the update to Mac OS X 10.4.7.

Example of the dangers in continuing work while update is applying In our initial recommendations for applying the Mac OS X 10.4.7 update, we noted that users should avoid performing any other operations (in Mac OS X or third-party applications) while the update process is occurring.

MacFixIt reader Eric offers a perfect example of how things can go wrong if you fail to abstain from other operations while the update is installing:

"I was working on some latex documents while at some point my mac (MBP) asked me to install the upgrade. Said yes and kept on working... then, I got a message saying that the update had failed. I thought, OK, no problem, I'll retry later. But then back to the terminal and nothing was working. All command in the terminal gave a 'illegal instruction' as return... started to panic, and restarted the machine. Except that it never restarted. Since then I still cannot reboot. It stays at the gray screen stage."

If you find yourself in a situation like Eric's, follow the instructions listed in our tutorial "Startup will not proceed after a system or security update; solving."

Older versions of Tiger Cache Cleaner not working Versions of Tiger Cache Cleaner prior to 3.1.5 appear to be incompatible with Mac OS X 10.4.7, delivering the error message "This application cannot run on this system (1047)" when launched.

Version 3.1.5, now available, resolves this issue.

Problems with Keynote projects MacFixIt reader Rikk Watts reports issues with Keynote documents after applying the Mac OS X 10.4.7 update.

Rikk writes:

"Since installing the update a number of my Keynote files are broken. While most of the image links remain, a number of photos, clips etc. are declared to be 'missing.' There appears to be no rationale behind which ones are preserved and which ones are lost. Each of the files was saved in their entirety (i.e. images were imbedded in the files, or so I thought)."

CS2 apps (Photoshop, etc.) not launching -- remove Application Enhancer Several readers have reported an issue where they are unable to launch various Creative Suite 2.0 (CS2) applications -- including Photoshop, Illustrator, etc. -- on Intel-based Macs after updating to Mac OS X 10.4.7.

This problem appears to be caused by the presence of Unsanity's Application Enhancer (currently at version 2.0.1).

The solution is to remove Application Enhancer via one of the two following methods:

Open System Preferences and find, then click the APE Manager Preference Pane. Choose the Uninstall option under the Information tab.
Re-download the Application Enhancer installer, then launch it and select the "Uninstall" option.

Mail.app unable to connect to servers -- solution Several users have reported an issue where Mail.app is unable to connect to POP and IMAP mail servers after applying the Mac OS X 10.4.7 update.

In most cases, this issue can be solved via the following process:

Open System Preferences
Click on the "Network" pane
Select your current connection method (e.g. AirPort, etc.) and click "Configure" (you may already be at the configuration screen)
Click the "Proxies" tab
Uncheck the "SOCKS Proxy" option from the "Select a proxy server to configure:" menu
Click the "Apply Now" button

Sleep issues MacFixIt reader Mike reports that after installing Mac OS X 10.4.7 using the combo updater, he is no longer able to put his Power Mac G5 to sleep.

Mike writes:

"It had been working just fine prior running 10.4.6. The first time I put it to sleep it worked, after waking I no longer can put it to sleep. Now when I select sleep the computer becomes unresponsive and does not got to sleep. The only way to regain control is to hold the power until it shuts down. It works fine after a reboot other than not being able to sleep. I did try repairing permissions and deleting com.apple.powermanagement.plist with no results."

Breaks QIM 1.0.3 -- new version already released Several users of the QIM input method (version 1.0.3) are reporting that after installing Mac OS X 10.4.7, switching to the QIM keyboard crashes the frontmost application.

MacFixIt reader Joe notes that the author of QIM has already released an updated, Mac OS X 10.4.7-compatible edition of the software.

Joe writes:

"The author of QIM, Glider, has (in record time!) released QIM 1.0.4, correcting the error that caused the crashes under 10.4.7. I can confirm that the new version does not crash my computer (iBook G4). The article expresses his apologies to anyone affected by the problem."

Problems with Parallels MacFixIt reader Art Busbey reports that he is no longer able to obtain an IP address (disallowing Internet connectivity) under the Parallels Desktop virtualization environment after updating to Mac OS X 10.4.7.

Art writes:

"I upgraded two of my Core Duo iMacs last night when the Mac OS X 10.4.7 update came out. Now the Parallels Desktop installation on both machines isn't getting a IP address through DHCP - though this was working before. Still troubleshooting."

High CPU usage on Intel-based Macs MacFixIt reader Richard reports inordinately high idle processor usage, accompanied by slow responsiveness on a MacBook Pro after installing Mac OS X 10.4.7. He was able to resolve the issue by reverting to Mac OS X 10.4.6.

Richard writes:

"This morning downloaded the OS X 10.4.7 update for Intel and PPC. Installed it on my MacBook Pro, installation went without problems, after the customary long start-up, my MacBook Pro runs continuously at 45-70% CPU usage 2 Ghz. Temperature increased to 76 degrees C, after which I shut down the MBP. After starting up again, same issue. Repeated this twice, no change, still high cpu and temp. did system check, monitored processes, no apps indicating the cpu usage. This evening I chose to reload my backup (OS X 10.4.6) all is well again, cpu normal at 4-10% and temp normal at 54 degrees C."

Note that we previously covered an issue where having the "Windows Sharing" function turned on in the Sharing pane of System Preferences causes inexplicable high processor loads on Intel-based Macs.

AirPort issues Several readers are reporting issues with AirPort connections after the update.

MacFixIt reader Patrick writes:

"Since I installed the update I'm having airport problems. My airport card is receiving a wrong ip address, I have to turn off airport then turn it back on and select my wireless network, after these steps my airport card is having the correct ingo and is allowing me to connect to the internet. I already removed from my keychain all the airport passwords and re-entered them when I was asked to do so, this unfortunately did not help."

Richard Funderburk adds:

"Since updating to 10.4.7 my airport connection is broken. After any restart or wake from sleep I have to jump through hoops to get airport to connect again. It continuously gets an internally assigned IP address until I re-enter all of the connection information. None of this was an issue with 10.4.6."

Some of these issues are soluble with the aid of workarounds listed in our tutorial "Improving AirPort reception, avoiding dropouts/lost connectivity, working around card/Base station recognition issues".

If you are experiencing similar issues, please let us know.

Two-finger click functionality now enabled on 15" MacBook Pros, PowerBooks A feature previously available only on the 17" MacBook Pro and 13" MacBook -- allowing the user to place both fingers on the trackpad then click in order to register a secondary or "right" click -- is now available on 15" MacBook Pro models and some other PowerBooks under Mac OS X 10.4.7.

MacFixIt reader Wade writes:

"Seems to be enabled on my Powerbook 12" now,too."

Reverting (downgrading) to Mac OS X 10.4.6 For instructions detailing how to revert to Mac OS X 10.4.6 from Mac OS X 10.4.7, see this tutorial.

Feeback? Late-breakers@macfixit.com.

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