System 10.3.9 freezes at startup after installing Security Update 2006-007

Not that this helps at all, but here are things I've done that do not fix it! (I have the same issue)

Re-installing panther does not fix the problem. (unless when i did it is has a compatibility issue with my 1gig of ram)
Also repairing the disk will not work.

I had a friend install Tiger for me, and tht DOES work, however, it was his works copy so he can't let me keep it :P

I have everythign backed up onto another computer so I'm going to system restore and see what that does. before I do that I'm goign to repair permissions and see if that fixes the issue. Otherwise - I'm just as clueless as you are.

Hope that helps a little!

I have the exact same problem! Have any of you come across on how to fix this problem? I'm really in the ruin here I had nothing backed-up and now all my files are gone unless I could get my G4 to get beyond the "Starting Login Window"

JF,

There are many different things that can cause this behavior. The cause for your problem is probably different than the cause for other people with similar symptoms. Getting to the bottom of the problem can be easy or difficult, depending on the nature of the problem.

My suggestion is that you try to boot in Safe Mode. If that works, the cause is likely to be an incompatible extension or login item. It probably will not be too hard to track it down and fix the problem.

If the Safe Boot does not work, further debugging may require booting in Single User Mode and doing some unix stuff. I don't know if you are up for this. My suggestion would be to think about backing up your user folder on another OS X computer by connecting the two computers with a firewire cable and booting the problem computer into Target Disk Mode. The hard drive should appear on the desktop of the other computer and you should be able to copy over files that you want to save. Instructions are here:
How to use FireWire target disk mode.

Once that is accomplished, you could re-install your system software via an Archive and Install. Most likely that will solve the problem. An Archive and Install also preserves your user files, so you might wonder why go thru the hassle of backing up as suggested above. Well, sometimes a re-install goes sour, and you will be happy that you have a backup. Also, if the Archive and Install does not work, the next step probably is an Erase and Install. That will destroy your user data.

I hope this helps.

Rich

EMAC G4 1.0 GHz Mac OS X (10.4.8)

Rich not to burst your bubble, but everything you have listed was already suggested to me by a Apple technician and none of which worked. I still haven't done a system restore, so the only possible solution I know of right now is to upgrade to Tiger.

Not only can you back up your files this way (the host computer will have difficulty trying to rummage through the target computer if it is on panther still) but the computer is completely functional this way.

However that's a buy in for 100 bucks.

Ed,

I admit to being somewhat perplexed by your experience. But let me ramble a bit here anyway.

My opinion is that problems of the sort that you are experiencing (freeze after a software update) are almost always due to some software problem. (I base this opinion to a large extent on the experiences of other people in these forums.) The fact that your system works okay with Tiger is consistent with this idea.

But, if it is a software problem, why did it not go way when you re-installed Panther? I am wondering how you did the re-install. Was it an Archive and Install? That is the easiest approach and the first one to try, but there are some things it cannot fix. For one, if user settings and preferences are maintained during the A&I and the problem is related to these settings or preferences, then the problem will remain. In that case, an Erase and Install would be needed to clear out everything. Of course, this also deletes all of your data, so it is something you do not want to do unless you have a backup (which you said that you have).

Another thing that an A&I cannot solve is corruption of the filesystem (computer loses track of where some files start and stop on the hard drive). This problem can usually be detected and often repaired by booting off your install CD and using Disk Utility to repair the disk. You said that you used Disk Utility but gave no other details. I take that to imply that you detected no problems. If there are problems and Disk Utility is unable to fix them, a more powerful utility can sometimes do the job, and sometimes there is no solution except to reformat the hard drive and re-install the operating system. This of course destroys all data on the drive.

If there were a hardware problem behind this, the most likely thing in my view would be some bad blocks on the hard drive. I am pretty sure that Disk Utility, as used above, will look for bad blocks and mask them out if any are found. You mentioned something about 1 Gig of RAM. I think that RAM is unlikely to be the culprit. Problems with RAM usually are manifested as more erratic behavior that what you are experiencing.

You have already exhausted many of usual tricks, so what are your options? It sounds like you do not want to buy a copy of Tiger just to fix this and I can understand that. So, you could go to more and more extreme versions of re-installing your software. By this I mean using your Panther install disks to do an Archive and Install, then to do an Erase and Install if the first did not work, then to reformat and do an install if the Erase and Install did not work. Before doing either of these last two step,s you want to be sure that you have backup that you know works. You have said that "re-installing Panther does not fix the problem" and also that you "haven't done a system restore". It is not really clear to me what you mean by re-installing Panther. Was this from a backup or from your install CD?

If you want to avoid a re-install from your install CD as long as possible, then my suggestion is to attempt to troubleshoot the problem further by booting into Single User mode (which I think you have done). Once you get the disk mounted, I would suggest looking in the system.log file for an error message. Once you have mounted the disk, you can look at the end of the system.log file with the command

tail /var/log/system.log

Look to see if any of the messages look like they might be indicative of a problem. If you see nothing, you can print out more lines by doing this:

tail -40 /var/log/system.log

which will cause the last 40 lines to be printed. If you see any message that might be hinting at a problem, post it back here and perhaps someone will get a clue. I should say at the outset that this way of doing things takes a lot of patience and is not guaranteed to provide a solution.

I hope this ramble helps a bit. I know your are frustrated and I hope you get a solution soon.

Rich

Hi there

Just thought I'd give my two cents worth...

I keep a pretty well maintained mac here, and have had major system-level meltdown with this security update (and I always repair permission before and after every security update).

From a cursory look about, the worst problems occur on G4s running Panther, as mine is. As people's issues tend to differ might it not be that the damage done is dependent on hat your mac is doing when an offending peice of code pops up? After much mucking about with various bits of maintenance software and discovering lost iNodes, I had to erase my HD (with zeros) and re-install everything. I'd love to have updated to Tiger, but I'm not the one holding the purse strings here. I think the boss wants to wait 'till the Leopard pounces (or bites, depending on bug levels).

I installed and updated OSX first, then java, then individual security updates, then Apple apps, running Disk Utility frequently, and fscking after all this (which found volume data issues again). Only then did I start installing 3rd party apps (Quark, IDCS2, etc.).

I think that the main lesson here is that if you have the luxury of being behind a hardware firewall & router, then wait a few days befreo installing security updates, keeping an eye on these discussions pages. Hopefully we'll learn something from someone else's misfortune.

I know it doesn't help, but consider my spleen vented. ;0)
Macfool

I don't have the answer (sorry) but i just wanted to add myself to the list. The exact same thing happened to me that happened to Teddy B. I am also on 10.3.9 on a PowerBook G4.

It freezes up, i tried booting from the Panther disk and repairing the disk and repairing permissions. After doing that, when i restarted, it was all frozen. I kept trying, until it finally worked. Seems like it was pure luck.

What i noticed is that i could still move the cursor around but it had no effect on anything i clicked on. Another thing i noticed is that, in the upper right hand corner that shows the date and time, if i moved my cursor over that i'd get the SBBOD. And i waited and waited, but nothing happened. I couldn't even restart properly, as i couldn't acces anything at all. I had to use the power button to shut down.

I don't think it's unreasonable to think it might be the security update, as that's when the trouble started for at least two (or is it three?) of us who have posted here.

I just want to share what information i can, in case it helps.

Hi again everybody

I've just started up this morning and my mac hung at the blue screen on startup (after having had to erase my HD with zeros & reinstall panther after the latest secuity update). Ran fsck (which found no issues) and then it started OK, but I should not be having any problems as my mac was fine all day yesterday after installing the security update (again).

So I'm going to try to chase this down. From what I have seen, the problem is with Panther - not Tiger. Most problems are on G4 macs (altough this may be a red herring as G5's and Tiger came out quite close together).

The only difference between last night and this morning is that my energy saver shut my mac down, and that Retrospect accessedd my mac for backup last night.

I'm starting a thread to gather some more information called "Problems starting after security update? Answer these questions please!" Hope to see you all there...

Macfool

I have a G4 and I am running 10.4.8 and I am staring at a blank desktop (After log in) with the original desktop background, It keeps telling me the date is set to before 2001 and that my mess with some programs but then nothing else. So no, it is not just Pather, it is Tiger too. I just installed the security update the other night and I haven't been up since!!

Macfool wrote:

I'm starting a thread to gather some more information
called "Problems starting after security update?
Answer these questions please!" Hope to see you all
there...

Macfool

I posted on that thread this morning but now i cannot find it. Was it renamed? Where is it?



PowerBook G4 Mac OS X (10.3.9)

I've been having the same problem with the security update and tried all suggestions, with no happy results. So I've been trying to backup my files on my MacBook using firewire. I put my IBook (Panther 10.3.9) on Target Disk Mode, and I see the hard drive icon on my MacBook. I can open it up, and at first I was actually able to copy a few files, but then the IBook froze. Now everytime I restart it on Target Disk Mode it literally works for like 30 seconds, which is not long enough to copy anything at all. The same thing happens over and over again. Any suggestions???

I am wondering if the harddrive on your iBook is going south. Have you, or can you try to boot it off your install CD and use Disk Utility to check the drive? In particular, check the SMART diagnostics. There are instructions at: Resolving Disk, Permission, and Cache Corruption. See the sections on Check SMART Diagnostics and Repair Disk.

Rich

Hi Rich,

Archive and install didn't work, neither did erase and install. I reformatted the drive and installed panther on it, and that worked fine. Not a big issue to do it since i bought a new computer anyways. This time was fine downloading the security update and the computer works great.

So, to continue on the issue - is it possible there was software that was conflicting with the update? It's possible the security update was targetting some software not found or something, i dunno. Just suggesting things.

I refreshed my PRAM and went into Open Firmware and reset the NVRAM set the defaults and reset all.... instructions on how to do these can be found on these discussions, anyways, I was finally able to boot from my cd. I ran disk utilities and had it verify my hard drive, it was coming up with an error, something was too long, Forgive me, I can't remember what it said now, anyways, it couldn't repair it and I don't have any other diagnostic disks so I just wiped the hard drive and reinstalled and now everything is fine. I'm wondering if there is something running in classic that that security update didn't like. Maybe we should pay more attention to the Read Me's and License. It might have said something in there about an update you had to have first or something. Just a thought.

Hi Ed,

Thanks a lot for posting back. I always appreciate it when someone tells us how he finally solved a problem - and I am sure that some other readers do also.

Your question is a very good one and I do not have a good answer. Since you could only get your system to work by re-formatting, my interpretation would be that there was some damage to the filesystem that prevented your system from properly using the hard drive. When I say filesystem, I am talking about information stored on the hard drive which allows the operating system to figure out where files are stored on the hard drive. If this information gets damaged somehow, you can probably imagine that the computer may run into some problems. Neither an Archive and Install nor an Erase and Install can fix a corrupted filesystem. The repair takes a reformat of the filesystem. Having said that, I freely admit that I am not really very knowledgeable on all of this and that a reformat might be able to fix other problems that I don't know about.

So, if the problem that you were having was related to corruption on the filesystem, when did it occur? Was there corruption prior to the install of the Security Update that you did? Or, did something about the update actually cause the corruption? If there was corruption prior to the update, why did you not experience problems prior to the update? On the other hand, why would the process of doing the update damage the filesystem? All I have are questions and no answers.

My opinion is that it is highly unlikely that the update itself caused the problem. If an update did something bad to the filesystem, then everyone would be having that problem. But, that is certainly not the case or the forums would be filled with a lot more complaints that we have seen. But, I have to say that your experience is not particularly unusual. There have been many other instances of people who did a software upgrade, could not properly operate their systems afterwards and only fixed the problem after re-formatting the harddrive. It does make you wonder.

There are some contributors to the forums who know a lot more about this stuff than I do. Perhaps someone who knows more could comment about what might have happened.

Anyway, I am glad to hear that you are up and running and I am sorry that it was such a hassle for you.

Rich

EMAC G4 1.0 GHz Mac OS X (10.4.8)