Security Update 2018-001 won't install

Thanks squigglepop.

Apple was in touch with me on 3 May and I uploaded a relevant sysdiagnose file.

I got bored waiting for any reply, let alone resolution, and found that the Terminal commands near the end of the article here:

https://appletoolbox.com/2016/12/mac-will-not-shut-fix/

partially resolved the issue. At least I no longer had the black screen with mouse cursor.

Following the instructions here:

macOS Sierra: Login Items pane of Users & Groups System Preferences

by trial and error disabling items one by one, I also found that a very old version of Macs Fan Control was causing a long spinning wheel on shutdown.

I downloaded the latest version a few days ago now and no problems since.

Case now finally closed for me.

I have either left the iMac on, or using Terminal (Applications -> Utilities) and:

sudo shutdown -h now

after first checking that nothing important is running (e.g. Time Machine backups).

You'll need to enter a password, only one * of which will appear, but don't be put off by that - just type slowly and carefully.

In our case once done the first time, the Terminal window reappears on power up, so I can copy this line from the previous session when finishing the current one.

Even my wife - who wouldn't usually touch command lines with a bargepole - is now trained to do this.

Exactly the same here.

The black screen appears before the system shuts down completely.

Black screen has mouse cursor and pressing key combinations like Option Command Escape makes a sound and Volume Up / Down works.

It seems Apple's modus operandi has morphed from purposeful product perfectionism to proliferating profit production.

Software quality has transformed from Apple (of one's eye) to Dapple (mottled, spotty) in the 8 years since my household switched from IBM/Windows XP to Apple/Snow Leopard and seems on a trajectory to Zapple (unwantedly surprising, shocking).

Mac hardware quality is on a similar trajectory, it seems - I have had some terrible experiences this year with MacBook Air well within its AppleCare - yet it seems more slowly, or maybe just at an earlier point on the curve, as the hardware is increasingly lagging the competition.

This kind of tedious nonsense is why I quit Windows in 2010, except that then I had no major hardware issues other than an 8 year old IBM all-in-one that was beginning to struggle to keep up with the times.

I am closely following and occasionally using Windows 10, which has a major update coming in about 2 days.

May soon be time to install Windows 10 as an equal or main OS rather than using VirtualBox.

Well folks, I struggled through multiple more reboots that, despite me setting App Store to Hide Update, repeatedly crashed the system to the black screen and mouse cursor.

I finally found a solution that worked for me, after using Console in /Applications/Utilities and searching /private/var/install.log for 2018-001 and then lines before and after this and noticing several like this:

2018-04-27 01:01:33+08 iMac Installer[899]: recoveryPartitionVersionForVolume: could not get recovery version information for mount point /Volumes/Time Machine Backups: Unable to find boot helper partition. (-69737)

Hopefully it will work for some of you as well.

Absolutely no thanks at all to Apple.

1. Following longstanding advice from various parties, I disconnected all connected drives. In my case these were Time Machine backup drives connected by USB and by Ethernet, which I ejected and removed from Time Machine backups respectively.

2. I shut down, then after a few seconds pressed power button and then held left shift key for ages to boot into Safe Mode. This took about 10-15 minutes.

3. I opened Terminal in /Applications/Utilities.

4. Since I had hidden updates in a vain attempt to stop the borked shutdown process, I had to re-enable them. So I typed:

softwareupdate --reset-ignored

5. To list the available updates and check that the 2018-001 was still there, I typed:

softwareupdate -l

which responded after quite a pause with

Software Update Tool

Finding available software

Software Update found the following new or updated software:

* Security Update 2018-001-

Security Update 2018-001 ( ), 506017K [recommended] [restart]

6. Thanks to 9to5Mac's article here: https://9to5mac.com/2017/07/20/how-to-update-mac-using-terminal/

I typed the following variation on the author's last suggestion to run a shell script that would install all updates (the -ia switches) in verbose mode (if it works or not), then if successful reboot:

sudo sh -c "softwareupdate -ia --verbose && reboot"

Make sure that the straight quotes "" do not copy over as curly /smart quotes “” because if they do, that line won't work.

Because you are requesting superuser access, you need to enter the Administrator's password at a prompt:

Password:

Which will show a key symbol. It will not echo any characters you type, nor even bullets to represent each character. Type slowly and carefully. It will let you know if the password is incorrectly typed, in which case try again. In my case I got the following response:

Software Update Tool

Finding available software

Downloaded Security Update 2018-001

Installing Security Update 2018-001

I briefly also got some warning about the need to add a --restart option flash on the screen. I think that was in response to the first part of the shell script - i.e. the softwareupdate -ia --verbose part before the &&.

Anyway, the iMac rebooted, this time NOT sticking at a black screen with mouse cursor, but proceeding after a couple of stages to a normal looking boot screen (Apple logo and progress bar) and then a Software Installation / Update screen (sorry, I don't have a picture) and then another progress bar, for the first time with an estimated time (31 minutes).

In fact, the software update installed much quicker than this.

7. Just to be sure, because this one has caused me - and it seems others, too - so much hassle and wasted time, after booting finished and I logged in, I clicked on the Apple logo and selected About This Mac, then clicked again where it displayed 10.13.4 to reveal the build version (17E202).

8. Running App Store did NOT confirm that the update. However, returning to Terminal and typing:

softwareupdate --history

replied with a long list of updates, most recent first, beginning:

Display Name Version Date

------------ ------- ----

Security Update 2018-001 29/04/2018, 18:46:11

The version being blank for this update - adding to the general sloppy vibe of this particular update.

Whew! What a relief. I think I will try to use command line updates in future for a while. Seems these give you more feedback on what's happening than the App Store disaster area.

Please let others know if this helps or not by replying below.

I found the same this morning after starting shut down last night and finding the black screen with mouse cursor.

Sorry if I misled any that the entire problem was fixed.