X11 is not opening after Mac OS X 10.5.7 update.

I am using the latest Safari 4 beta with 10.5.7, and X11 works fine. My guess is you installed the update on an already dysfunctional system. I suggest you may want to try the following:

Repairing the Hard Drive and Permissions

Boot from your OS X Installer disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Installer menu (Utilities menu for Tiger and Leopard.) After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list. In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive. If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes, then quit DU and return to the installer. Now restart normally.

If DU reports errors it cannot fix, then you will need Disk Warrior (4.0 for Tiger, and 4.1 for Leopard) and/or TechTool Pro (4.6.1 for Leopard) to repair the drive. If you don't have either of them or if neither of them can fix the drive, then you will need to reformat the drive and reinstall OS X.

Now download the 10.5.7 Combo Updater from support.apple.com/downloads/ and reinstall the update.

I have the same problem: since updating to 10.5.7, launching x11 switching the focus to x11 causes the entire screen to change to a grey/white static pattern. To get out of this I can use Expose` to view all desktops and then switch to a different one that is unaffected.

Macrk, I don't understand how you were able to change the x11 preferences. I can't access the File menu from the gray/white screen...

There is an update to X11, which was, oddly enough, released before the 10.5.7 update.

You can download it here.

The X11 upgrade didn't directly fix the problem for me, but I was able to find the keyboard shortcut to exit Full-screen mode, and then go change the preferences (I unchecked Preferences->Output->Full-screen mode, which had been checked during the 10.5.7 update, but leaving "Auto-show menu bar in full-screen mode" frustratingly unchecked).

Annoying and sloppy bug, but not fatal.

I am using the build XQuartz 2.3.3 and full screen works fine in 10.5.7

check your console logs as you open X11 in fullscreen to see if that shows you some clues.

Have the same problem when using X11. I connect to my MS windows pc at work using X11 via my browser. With 10.5.6 I had no issues, but once I upgraded to Mac OS X 10.5.7 it stopped working. I get 1 of 2 problems, I get the grey screen issue or I am able to connect into my MS windows machine and get login prompt but my keyboard input does not work. X11 recognizes my mouse input but not the keyboard. I even tried to upgrade my X11 to the lastest version but I still have the same problem.

Add me to the X11 tale of woe.

In addition to the "Black and white texture" problem, I'm seeing garbled text in the command line in Pymol.

For example typing "fghj" on my keyboard produces "243|" at the command line prompt.

These problems occur on my iMac at uni and my Mac Pro at home, but not my Macbook Pro, although I thought the unix setup was the same for all 3.

I run fink and routinely compile the latest version of Pymol, but that's about all I do with unix.

Seems OK now.

Upgrading to the XQuartz build has got my text back under control and unchecking fullscreen mode has my desktop back where it should be.

Hopefully, this won't break any of the legacy stuff that I need occasionally.

Hi dulbecco,

I'm having the same problem...

What is the keyboard shortcut to get out of the full-screen mode?

Thanks!

I have the same problem with X11 recognizing mouse input but not the keyboard. Xquartz 2.3.1 works well for but any of the subsequent versions including the latest 2.3.3 exhibit the same behavior. I use Xquartz with Sun / Sunray Virtual desktop. So I have to downgrade to 2.3.1 to get it to work. Frustrating and any help appreciated.

Command-Option-A

This worked for me; updating X11 did not.

Yeah,
To be explicit,

Make X11 active to get the grey/white screen.

Command-Option-a to get out of full screen mode.

Command-, to open the X11 prefs.

Deactivate the full-screen mode option.

That worked for me.

My boss had the same issue (grey-textured screen / no menu) and your solution worked perfectly. Thanks for sharing!