Leopard: Endless Boot Loop

[matd]

Hello I have a real weird problem,

I've updated my Tiger 10.4.11 to Leopard 10.5.1 and now in an neverending reboot loop. My MacBook (2Ghz Core Duo, 2 GB Ram) starts, then I get a grey screen with Apple Logo, then after 2 minutes, the computer reboots and so one....

To stop this (infinite) reboot loop I need to put the Leopard DVD !!!! :confused: in the drive and wait for an unknown time of reboots to finally get the login screen. After that I can log in and use Leopard without any problem.

I have no clue, what is going wrong, I've checked the Startupitems ( none, deactivated the Time Machine) and reset PRAM several times...

I'm really upset because I really don't know why the MacBook is rebooting and needs the Leopard DVD to correctly boot ???
Thanks a lot for your help !

[nufanec]

Sounds like software - try an archive and install.

[Duff-Man]

Duff-Man says...doing an archive and install is a bit harsh as a first-try fix. I would try some simpler things first. Download the 10.5.2 combo updater and apply that and see if it helps....oh yeah!

[matd]

Hi,

Now I have tried to update 10.5.2 (Combo Update) unfortunately same problem :-( I don't know what to do else...

[steerpikegg]

I had a similar problem to this - I fixed mine by deleting everything in /Library/Caches/

May be worth a try.

[ThirteenXIII]

Verify Disk with Restore disks
Repair Permissions w/ Restore Disk

Do a safe mode boot to disable any nuisance log in item or remove any file that might be a culprit

goodluck!

[Duff-Man]

Duff-Man says....another culprit can be external devices. If you have anything connected (other than kybd and mouse) temporarily unplug them...oh yeah!

[matd]

Ok, so I've tried following stuff:

PRAM reset several times, no devices connected, SMC reset several times

- Clean install of Leopard : endless boot loop until I press Command + V and reboot. Sometimes "You need to restart your computer" message

- Install of Leopard with Update 10.5.2 : endless boot loop
Sometimes "You need to restart your computer" message

- Clean install of Tiger: works wonderful
- Clean install of Tiger + Upgrade to Leopard : endless boot loop

Once started (after a random number of minutes, going from 5 to 20 minutes of reboot loops)

Leopard works without any problem and is very fast.

I bought my MacBook (1,1) in June 2006 and it has 2Ghz and 2 GB Ram. Apple Hardware Check was also ok.

Here is an excerpt of a "strange" message coming when I boot in verbose mode

BSM Auditing present and then reboots
panic cpu 0 caller 0x001A7BED) : Kernel Trap at 0x001a1ca2
Backtrace terminated-invalid frame pointer 0

BSP process name corresponding to current thread: kernel_task

Mac OS version:
Not yet set

kernel Version:
Darwin Kernel Version 9.10.0
System model name: MacBook 1,1

Here is a pic (sorry for the quality) of my error message: http://matdonline.free.fr/macbook.jpg

I'm really disappointed. It seems as if Leopard can't boot correctly with early MacBooks !

What else could I do ? Thanks a lot!

[Dave Nagel]

This probably isn't the cause or solution to your problem, but I might as well post my experience with the Leopard endless reboot here for future generations.

The mistake: I changed the permissions for the folder System/Library/LaunchDaemons and the file com.apple.backupd-auto.plist to reset my Time Machine backup interval. Unfortunately, I forgot to set the permissions back to normal when I finished. At the next startup, my MacBook Pro (2.5 GHz, Leopard 10.5.2) went into the endless reboot.

The fix: I restarted in FireWire target disk mode and accessed the files from another one of my Macs, changed the permissions back to normal, and restarted. Everything worked fine after that. (This problem was NOT fixed using Repair Permissions in Disk Utility. I had to change the permissions back manually using Get Info on the specific folder and file.)

As a side note, at one point I had given up on fixing the endless reboot and decided to restore from my Time Capsule. But the Time Capsule wouldn't accept my password! Well, that forced me to keep trying, and I was eventually successful. But what's the deal with the password not being recognized? Anybody encountered this? I haven't fixed it yet.

[AussieSusan]

We (my son and I) had this happen on a G5 iMac a week or so back. Running the TechTools software (booted from the DVD) identified a bad disk node structure and bad memory.

We replaced the memory (we had some spare to test with) and restored the disk from a backup. Now all is well.

We suspect that the memory failed and this caused something bad to happen to the disk structure.

Looking back, the thing that pointed to the bad RAM was the boot process was crashing (hence the restart) with a message about a corrupted skiplist (can't remember the exact wording now) which typically is a memory-only structure.

Susan

[chetvolpe]

This probably isn't the cause or solution to your problem, but I might as well post my experience with the Leopard endless reboot here for future generations.

The mistake: I changed the permissions for the folder System/Library/LaunchDaemons and the file com.apple.backupd-auto.plist to reset my Time Machine backup interval. Unfortunately, I forgot to set the permissions back to normal when I finished. At the next startup, my MacBook Pro (2.5 GHz, Leopard 10.5.2) went into the endless reboot.

The fix: I restarted in FireWire target disk mode and accessed the files from another one of my Macs, changed the permissions back to normal, and restarted. Everything worked fine after that. (This problem was NOT fixed using Repair Permissions in Disk Utility. I had to change the permissions back manually using Get Info on the specific folder and file.)

As a side note, at one point I had given up on fixing the endless reboot and decided to restore from my Time Capsule. But the Time Capsule wouldn't accept my password! Well, that forced me to keep trying, and I was eventually successful. But what's the deal with the password not being recognized? Anybody encountered this? I haven't fixed it yet.

I have the exact same problem... except I don't have another Mac to do the firewire/target thing... any details on changing the permissions via the terminal from the install disk... any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Chet

[BlueRevolution]

You changed the same files? In that case, you can do:

chmod 755 /System/Library/LaunchDaemons
chown root:wheel /System/Library/LaunchDaemons
chmod 644 /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.backupd-auto.plist
chown root:wheel /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.backupd-auto.plist

[chetvolpe]

BlueRevolution, thanks for your very prompt reply... tried and get a response to the chmod - chmod: LaunchDaemons: Read-only file system. Did an ls -l and LaunchDaemons is 757 and root wheel...

same for the other.

still stuck looping...

Chet

[gjbrouhard]

I also suffer from the endless reboot loop.

My problem also originates from changing the permissions on /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/.

I changed them back in single-user mode with the commands posted above, but the problem did not resolve itself.

Any ideas why? Where else could there be a permissions problem?

I might do an Archive and Install if I can't get this fixed soon.:(

[chetvolpe]

The Archive install is what I did to fix mine.

Was very painless...

Chet

[coupdetat]

My PowerBook did this also! I wound up going back to Tiger... Leopard was too slow on G4 anyways.

[DanielSosMac]

You changed the same files? In that case, you can do:

chmod 755 /System/Library/LaunchDaemons
chown root:wheel /System/Library/LaunchDaemons
chmod 644 /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.backupd-auto.plist
chown root:wheel /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.backupd-auto.plist


I've tried that booting as target mode. I cross fingers now...

[DanielSosMac]

You changed the same files? In that case, you can do:

chmod 755 /System/Library/LaunchDaemons
chown root:wheel /System/Library/LaunchDaemons
chmod 644 /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.backupd-auto.plist
chown root:wheel /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.backupd-auto.plist

MAAN you're a GENIUS.

I booted in Target Mode and from the terminal accessed Volumes

since Macintosh HD appears with spaces all I had to do to access it was backslash between the spaces

cd Macintosh\ HD

Then the chown and chmod things.

Voilà the computer stopped rebooting!!!

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