Anyone else having issues with loading security update 2020-004 10.13.6?

Jimmy,

Try the standalone download & applying it in Safe Mode...

https://support.apple.com/kb/DL2046?locale=en_US

Safe Boot from the HD, (holding Shift key down at startup).

Hi,

I kept pressing Shift key down from startup of my iMac. The white Apple icon and download bar appeared on the screen. The download bar was loading a bit then eventually the screen turned to black and unable to even use my iMac last several days...

It doesn’t work for me. I wonder if I am doing something wrong.

I also tried just pressing Shift only at the startup but didn’t work.

Safe Boot from the HD, (holding Shift key down at startup).

Same problem on 2010 27" i7 iMac

This worked for me

I had to erase and format (APSF) my Startup Volume (Samsung 1TB SSD) reinstall a full new version of High Sierra (the undocumented version 17G66) in Recovery Mode, which brought up some error log which I sent to Apple.

*** Panic Report ***

panic(cpu 2 caller 0xffffff800f2b8220): "a freed zone element has been modified in zone kalloc.4096: expected 0xdeadbeefdeadbeef but found 0xdeadbeefceadbeef, bits changed 0x10000000, at offset 24 of 4096 in element 0xffffff80391d4000, cookies 0x3f0011dd73a016e0 0x53521c4435cb70b"@/BuildRoot/Library/Caches/com.apple.xbs/Sources/xnu/xnu-4570.71.82.5/osfmk/kern/zalloc.c:1122

High Sierra installed correctly in a second try, which ocurred automatically. The Security Update 2020-004 from the App store then also installed fine. macOS 10.13.6 (17G14019).

I then migrated my old system from the backup disk (not Time Machine) to the iMac. This went smoothly, took some hours though (Firewire 800 Backup drive Lacie d2).

Then the file permissions on my second internal hard drive were totally chaotic. I could not access the files nor change the permissions. I formatted the 2nd internal HD and tried to copy from backup via CCC. This did not change the permissions.

I had to format the 2nd internal drive again. I then copied all files from the backup with drag and drop to the 2nd internal drive. This finally fixed all the file permissions.

Done. 2 days work.

To add to the problem solving process - here some additional information:

For me the problems started with the last Security Update in 2019. I think it was -003. It would not install through the App-Store. I contacted Apple support, but they were of no help at all. So I waited with update for the 2020-001. Which would not install through the App-Store. So I downloaded the standalone updater. This worked.

Security Updates 2020-001 and -002 I could update with the Standalone Updaters from the Apple support page.

With Security Update 2020-003 the "will not shutdown and show black screen with a pointer" problem occurred. So I waited with the update for the next Security Update 2020-004. Same problem.

I had several helpers in this forum (BDAqua and others). But nothing worked. This led me to the above solution.

The Samsung SSD on my iMac was installed 4 years ago by my local Apple dealer:

Samsung SSD 850 EVO 1TB, AppleAPFSMedia

The second HD drive is the original 1TB HD which came with the iMac:

ST31000528AS

The Good News:

Finally - with this fix - my TimeMachine backups are fast again. Before they took ages.

I ran a Geekbench Benchmark test for my Mid 2010 27" 2,93 GHz iMac. It is now the in the range of fastest machines of this model on Geekbench: Single-Core Score 610. Multi-Core Score 2214. As fast as a Late 2012 iMac 27" i5.

https://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu/2991543

Also I read (during my quest for a solution, somewhere in the internet) that this might be the last update for High Sierra. Maybe someone with knowledge could comment on this.

It would be very unfortunate, if they ended support for High Sierra.

Apple was unable to introduce any significant improvent for the iMac in the last 10 years, besides making it a bit thinner, putting in a better display and changing the connectors several times (from Firewire 400 to Firewire 800 to Thunderbolt to Thunderbolt 2 to Thunderbolt 3/USB-C - can you believe this!). The single core performance did just about double in these 10 years (apart from the Multicore performance of the iMacPros for an extremely high price). What ever happened to Moores Law, i n t e l ? So, it made little sense to me to buy one of those.

But after using my Mid 2010 i7 for about 10 years, I was finally planning to buy a new (hopefully) 30" inch iMac with USB-C Thunderbolt 3, a really fast processor and good heat management this summer.

Now, as Apple has unveiled the move to ARM/Apple Silicon this fall, I will have to wait to buy a new iMac until at least late 2021, until the second generation ARM iMacs will hopefully be out. I will definetly not buy a first generation machine with such a radical new architecture, I made this mistake before.

So I will have to use High Sierra for some time longer.

I greatly would appreciate support for this system until 2022.

Apple should be providing 5 years of security fixes for each OS release, especially when they're trying to do dramatic things (remove legacy kexts, 32-bit apps, oh yeah, adding an architecture, etc.) where yearly refreshes are turning into adventures.

Installed without an issue for me on a 2011 Mac mini.

Great news, take care my friend! :)

Great work. 👍

Thanks, dang good info! :)

It very well could be the last update with the next OS release due soon, Apple generally supplies updates back 2 OS versions from the current one.

👍