Mac OS X 10.4.7 Special Report follow-up: Stalls when launching, restarting network services -- "Workaround Bonjour"

Mac OS X 10.4.7 exhibits an issue where the error: "Workaround Bonjour: Unknown error: 0" when attempting to access certain network services through the launchctl process.

Depending on where this problem is encountered, you may not see an error message but instead receive the spinning beach-ball progress indicator for an inordinately long time, after which network services are properly launched.

The bug is especially noticeable when turning on or off network daemons like POP, IMAP, Bonjour and open-source mail utilities like Fetchmail.

According to a blog posting by Bernard Teo, the error occurs every time a call to /bin/launchctl is made, "no matter which services are launched. And it affects both PPC and Intel Macs updated to (Mac OS X) 10.4.7."

Again, network services accessed by launchctl will still work correctly, but the user may notice a long pause when re-loading said services.

While we are attempting to locate a fix for this issue, note that you should simply wait out a spinning beach-ball that occurs when launching or restarting certain network services under Mac OS X 10.4.7 as they will properly launch. Do not immediately attempt a force quit or other process kill.

Feedback? Late-breakers@macfixit.com.

For further coverage, see our Mac OS X 10.4.7 special report.

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