Troubleshooting Mac OS X 10.5.3: iTunes crashes; Update fails; Time Machine problems; more

Fixes many problems, but can cause many others.

CNET staff

Sept. 2, 2009 2:36 a.m. PT

5 min read

[Thursday, May 29th]

[2:00 PM update]

iTunes crashes Several users are reporting repeated crashes from iTunes when attempting to access the iTunes store or updating podcasts. MacFixIt reader Frans van der Geest writes:

"After applying the 10.5.3 update (intel, Mac Pro) iTunes crashes when choosing Store (eithe itunes store or download podcasts). It then spins into a crash - restart-crash loop."

This issue can be temporarily eliminated by deleting the following files:

Only way out of this is deleting the following plist files from ~/Library/Preferences/ (your user library preferences folder):

com.apple.iTunes.eq.plist
com.apple.iTunesHelper.plist
com.apple.iTunes.plist

This will allow iTunes to launch again without crashing, but the problem will manifest again uon attempting to access the iTunes store or update podcasts.

Some users have reported that deleting proxy settings in the Network pane of System Preferences can resolve this issue, though we haven't received definite confirmation.

Time Machine slowness, getting stuck -- fixes Several users have reported that Time Machine operation is much slower under Mac OS X 10.5.3. MacFixIt reader Bob O?Driscoll writes:

"After updating to 10.5.3, I tried creating a new Time Machine backup on a Time Capsule connected via gigabit ethernet. Under 10.5.2, it had taken only about two minutes to copy 1 GB. After updating to 10.5.3, the rate slowed dramatically to about 1 GB per hour."

It appears that turning off AntiVirus software -- a fix that has also worked to resolve an issue in which Time Machine gets stuck on the "Preparing Backup" phase -- may restore previous speeds.

Meanwhile, users continue to experience the "Preparing Backup"-stall issue. Users are reporting that, as previously noted, excluding virtual machine disks -- such as those created by Parallels and VMWare Fusion -- from Time Machine backups can resolve this issue.

One MacFixIt reader writes:

"A combination of excluding Parallels virtual disk and rebooting time capsule seemed to solve the (stuck on "preparing") issue for me. After updating two iMacs and a MacBook pro all three machines stuck on 'preparing.' After excluding the Parallels virtual disk and rebooting the Time capsule all seems OK now."

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Update fails to install with verification error When attempting to update to Mac OS X 10.5.3 via Software Update, some users get an error that the installation failed. As Apple Discussion user "AlphaDeltaVIII" writes:

"During the installation this message comes up: Install Failed. The installer could not vailidate the contents of 'MacOSXUpdCombo10.5.3' Package. Contact the software manufacturer for assistance."

This error occurs even after disk verification and permissions fixes have been checked with Disk Utility.

Fix: While this has not worked for everyone, several users have found that downloading and trying the standalone updaters -- avaialable from the Apple Downloads page -- has allowed installation to proceed.

Time Machine problems and updates First, the good news: Mac OS X 10.5.3 seems to have fixed the major issue of crashing that users have experienced with Time Capsule. In a rather lengthy Apple Discussions thread regarding the topic, users who have updated to 10.5.3 have had to wait a while for Time Machine to run through some checks of the Time Capsule backups, but the crashes have gone away.

Poster Mike Richards2 wrote:

"I have installed 10.5.3 and so far (fingers crossed) TM and TC have worked just fine and I've had no repetition of the kernel panics."

However, some users have found that they needed to run Disk Utility repair/verification processes on the sparsebundle file which can take a long time (overnight for some) before Time Machine would work again, but after the repair it ended up working again. This might be what users with previously corrupted sparsebundle backup images should do.

Now, the Bad News.

For some users, Time Machine will give this error more frequently after the update: "A volume you are backing up is case-sensitive, but the backup volume is not." While this has affected folks prior to 10.5.3, it seems to start with some folks after the update and persist for others. As described by rauschelbach:

"I just upgraded to 10.5.3 and started receiving this message...Neither the source or backup drive are case-sensitive according to Disk Utility. Both read: 'Mac OS Extended (Journaled)' "

Fix: Try restarting the computer. Apparently other folks with this problem have solved it with a restart. Additionally, use Disk Utility to verify the computer's main hard disk integrity as well as that of the backup disk, and run a permissions check on the drive.

Backups will now sometimes fail after displaying 'Latest Backup: Delayed...' in the Time Machine menu, and then state "Backup volume cannot be found" after clicking the "failed" error in the Time Machine preferences. A

Fix: For some folks, reselecting the backup drive in the TM preferences has fixed the problem. You may have to select "None" and then reselect the backup drive for this to work. This, however, seems to have only solved the problem for a few folks, and others have had to format their TM drive and restart the backups.

Finally, Time Machine backups are still getting stuck on stuck on "Preparing...", or otherwise taking a long time. pesquillace wrote:

"Since I updated to 10.5.3 my macbook seems to not like time machine. When Time Machine runs it does so for what seems like a real long time and says, 'preparing backup' the entire time. Before the update, it would take a few seconds and finish."

We've covered this issue extensively on MacFixIt.

Fix: Let it run. As with all other times this problem occurs, allowing it to run (even for hours) has resulted in it resolving itself. For Time Capsule users the sparsebundle image may take a long time to mount and check out. The 10.5.3 update is pretty big, and the large number of replaced files will cause Time Machine to do a deep traversal of the drive instead of relying on its catalogue for file changes. This will take time and should be left uninterrupted.

Computer freezes when switching network locations -- persistent in 10.5.3 When changing network locations after the Mac OS X 10.5.3 update, many users have experienced full system hangs and have had to restart their systems. As reported previously:

While previous fixes and workarounds have helped some folks, others are still experiencing these problems through the latest version of OS X (10.5.3). It appears so far Apple has not adequately tackled this problem in the latest update.

Minor Disk Utility error When running a permissions fix in Disk Utility after the Mac OS X 10.5.3 update, the program will find a problem with the CUPS ownership, where the group is reported to be incorrect:

Group differs on "private/etc/cups", should be 0, group is 26.

Disk Utility will make note of it but does not seem to fix it, and after repairing permissions the message will still show in subsequent runs of permissions verifications/repairs.

Fix: CUPS is part of the printing system; and, since users have found that despite this message printing seems to work flawlessly, the computer should be fine without doing anything. However, if a user desires to remove the messages, the group association of cups can be changed to "0" (otherwise known as the "wheel" group) with this command in the terminal: