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Apple Acknowledges 10.5.6 'Configuring Installation' Issue

tj8 said:
Helpful Hint: Try not to sound like a smarmy know it all when giving advice. Some of us can't afford an external hard-drive when the laptop sets you back quite a bit already.
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Here's an option for you. if you have an old computer that you are not using and had bit the dust (but the hard drive is still good) - get your self a USB external enclosure for the drive. Enclosures have dropped to at low as $25 depending on where you look. they now come in sizes to support the 3 1/2 inch desk top drive and 2.5 laptop drives. just make sure the enclosure is the right connection (IDEE, SATA, eSATA - or whatever the drive is using).

I used to have 3 or 4 of them laying around, before I got out of the PC repair ministry. They worked good, I had a friend who had a house fire, the laptop was toast and could not even recognize it. I grabbed his laptop, broke the cover and keyboard off of it (trust me it was pretty melted). Saw that the harddrive looked good (just had black soot on it). Plugged it up to an enclosure and hooked it up to my expendable (kept one with just an OS incase of viruses) laptop's USB. Drive was good, and got all his data back for him. Just the boot sector seemed to take a hit.

I done the enclosure thing many times to reuse hard drives, or too extract data from a drive where the OS or boot sector was trashed.

I do not think drive size matters too much with time machine (as long as it can hold one full backup). time machine will delete the oldest backup (you can set it to warn you), to make room for the newest one. I have a 500 gb harddrive for my laptop. I was using a 250 internal hard drive from a 4-year old HP machine for my wife's mini until a popup -no warning thunderstorm gave the drive a spike.
 
tj8 said:
Helpful Hint: Try not to sound like a smarmy know it all when giving advice. Some of us can't afford an external hard-drive when the laptop sets you back quite a bit already.
Click to expand...

Then don't complain about lost data. Back up critical data and files you don't want to lose. You must have skipped school the day that was covered in 101.
Hard Drives are historically very inexpensive. Pennies per GB.
 
Well my macbook updated with no problems, but my mac pro.. not so much.

I just blindly started updating when it popped up without paying much attention, so I wouldn't be able to tell you the size of the file. But, it seemed to go fine, then it asked me to restart. It hasn't booted up since. It just stays at the gray apple logo with that little circle animation spinning round and round, perpetually.

I don't know how i'm supposed to get into that folder to delete it and try again if i can't even boot up... any help would be greatly appreciated!
 
motulist said:
I can't even tell if anything is different in 10.5.6. Mail.app still doesn't always beep when new mail comes in. My airport still only works with some wifi networks but fails to connect to certain open wifi networks that 10.3 machines and Vista machines can connect to. etc.

Did 10.5.6 actual improve anything for anyone?
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There were over 100 bug fixes in 10.5.6, most of which the average user would never notice. There were also a slew of security patches in 10.5.6. So, yes, it improves things and should be installed by everyone who runs Leopard. In my personal situation the update cleared up a minor Bluetooth issue on my Aluminum iMac. And contrary to your statement my Mail.app now plays all of the various sounds consistently. However the "no mail" and the "sent mail" sounds are now sent through the system alerts channel so you have to have the "Play user interface sound effects" checked in the Sound preference panel. You can adjust the Finder sounds by lowering the volume slide to zero.
 
stevo86 said:
Well my macbook updated with no problems, but my mac pro.. not so much.

I just blindly started updating when it popped up without paying much attention, so I wouldn't be able to tell you the size of the file. But, it seemed to go fine, then it asked me to restart. It hasn't booted up since. It just stays at the gray apple logo with that little circle animation spinning round and round, perpetually.

I don't know how i'm supposed to get into that folder to delete it and try again if i can't even boot up... any help would be greatly appreciated!
Click to expand...

Startup with your install disk and delete the file that way. Always good to have another bootable external hard drive though.
 
tj8 said:
Helpful Hint: Try not to sound like a smarmy know it all when giving advice. Some of us can't afford an external hard-drive when the laptop sets you back quite a bit already.
Click to expand...

You can't afford to backup your data? Seriously, can you afford NOT to? What is more important than the data? Every part of your computer is replaceable EXCEPT the data, UNLESS you backup.

I would say some sort of backup facility is a MUST for anyone doing anything remotely important with their computer.
 
Orion27 said:
You must have skipped school the day that was covered in 101.
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Man, some people just don't get it...

ANYWAY... My 3 machines (a MacPro and two G4 Powerbooks) are updated to 10.5.6 but there were some tense moments. Having heard of some rough landings with 10.5.6 I took what I thought to be a very conservative approach, doing full backups first, repairing permissions, cleaning caches, disconnecting peripherals, etc., then doing clean reboots and running the update off a Combo Update DVD with no other apps active.

All 3 rebooted themselves twice to complete the installation - spooky behavior I don't remember ever experiencing with another MacOS update - and my MacPro machine hung on shutdown before I power-cycled it (after waiting several hours). All the initial restarts took quite awhile as well, but they eventually resurrected themselves and now everything appears fairly happy.

Whew!
 
tiger to 10.5.6

the real question is why software updater thought I could go from 10.4.11 to 10.5.6...and if I can get back. my software update.log looks like this:

2008-12-18 02:13:13 -0800: Installed "Security Update 2008-008 (Intel)" (1.0)

even though I'm running 10.4.1. any ideas to get that undone?
are 10.5.6 and security update 2008-008 the same?
 
mrkgoo said:
some sort of backup facility is a MUST for anyone doing anything remotely important with their computer.
Click to expand...

Double, triple, quadruple true. Your hard drive WILL crash one day, guaranteed. The only question is when. You can buy a new monitor, you can buy a new video card, you can buy a new blank hard drive - but you can't buy back your digital photos again! If you're using a computer without a reasonably regular backup system, then you might as well be a Buddhist monk working on a mandala, because one day very soon everything you've worked so hard over on your computer will disappear with the rushing wind and water and then be gone forever.

wiki said:
To symbolize impermanence (a central teaching of Buddhism), after days or weeks of creating the intricate pattern, the sand is brushed together and is usually placed in a body of running water to spread the blessings of the mandala.
Click to expand...
 
new problem?

my new problem may be that security update 2008-008, and not an update to 10.5.6, has caused installer, itunes, etc to stop working. any ideas on a fix for this?

guess I was chasing the wrong latest mac issue.

running 10.4.11
 
Orion27 said:
Startup with your install disk and delete the file that way. Always good to have another bootable external hard drive though.
Click to expand...

And if i'm a total idiot who has lost his install disk? I'm sure it's around here somewhere, but after moving 5-6 times in the last 2.5 years and never once needing that disk... seems i've lost track of it.

EDIT:
Wow, security update 2008-008 definitely rings a bell... pretty sure that is what i installed. My mac pro doesn't even have leopard on it, it has tiger.
 
Has Mail gone single-minded

I didn't have the problem installing (though I'm glad that MR had me paying attention to the size of the download to make sure I didn't.)

However, Mail now acts as if it can only do one thing at a time. Am I the only one experiencing this?

For example, if I'm typing an e-mail, when Mail decides to check the servers for new mail, the entire app becomes unresponsive to my typing and to mouse clicks for 30 seconds while it checks and downloads the new mail.

I'm about to submit a bug report, but I'm just curious if anyone else is experiencing this.
 
stevo86 said:
And if i'm a total idiot who has lost his install disk? I'm sure it's around here somewhere, but after moving 5-6 times in the last 2.5 years and never once needing that disk... seems i've lost track of it.

EDIT:
Wow, security update 2008-008 definitely rings a bell... pretty sure that is what i installed. My mac pro doesn't even have leopard on it, it has tiger.
Click to expand...
FireWire Target disk mode to another Mac or PC with FireWire
 
Mac PowerBook G4 1.25Ghz

I did the update via the software update and I got a hang. I forced the reboot and all seemed well; the system profiler indicated that the OS was 10.5.6. I keep my Time Machine backup disk connected to my PowerBook Dock. When I noticed Time Machine was not backing up I tried a couple of different things to get it to work, nothing seemed to work. I found that a lot of people were complaining about TM not working after the update, and then I saw this article indicating update issue.

Since the update was not normal, I deleted the update as indicated and tried again and I'm guess that since my system was showing 10.5.6 it was not downloading the update. So I tried option two, download it directly, but this did not work at all, every single time it tried to mount my Powerbook froze or crashed. I was about ready to do a reinstalled when I thought I'd try downloading the update on my iMac (which had not issues with the update) and then transfer the update to my PowerBook. That worked like a charm. I brought my backup disk home with me (since my iMac is at home) and plugged it in after the update - worked as it was suppose to. Really not sure what happened, but as my PB continues to age it gets more and more quirky with each of Apple's updates. The thing still runs great and it runs all of the OmniGroup apps I use, M$ Office (2004), and email and web. One thing to look forward to with Snow Leopard is it won't be on this PB since PPC are not supported (last I understood), which is fine. I use my Intel iMac for more intensive stuff so it works out pretty good.

Anyways, if you're running into the same problem as I had - not being able to download the update directly - try downloading it separately and then transfer it over.
 
Had the same problem, disappointed by Apple

I just had the same problem, and already wasted more than half an hour on this, including a phone call to Apple support which was not very helpful.

I wonder:
Why did Apple release such a sloppy software update?

Now, that they know that there's a hanging problem for some users, why are they still distributing the 10.5.6 update without a fix?

The person that I talked to at Apple support didn't tell me that Apple is aware of this problem. He just told me to restart my computer, warning me though that this could later cause problems on my system.

So, who is spending money on ads instead of fixing problems, Apple or Microsoft?
 
Kilamite said:
Really? What issues you having?

I've had no issues at all with 10.5.6. Extremely stable, if not slightly more responsive than 10.5.5.
Click to expand...

Internet's become damn near unusable. I've had wifi issues and prayed this would fix them, now it's pot luck whether a page even loads or not.
 
jnc said:
Internet's become damn near unusable. I've had wifi issues and prayed this would fix them, now it's pot luck whether a page even loads or not.
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So it is just the internet?

Did you start a topic in the Mac OS X forum explaining your setup and symptoms so we can help? ;)
 
Orion27 said:
It's really quite simple. I'm always amazed at the impatience and ignorance surrounding these updates. First, Apple is not God though lord knows it sometimes seems so. Operating system code is a complex enterprise. The process is not infallible.
Click to expand...

True, but an installer checking to see it's the correct length isn't hard to do. Heck, I thought running a quick checksum comparison was standard procedure for installers, a checksum error should arise if the file is the wrong length or if the file is corrupted.

tj8 said:
Helpful Hint: Try not to sound like a smarmy know it all when giving advice. Some of us can't afford an external hard-drive when the laptop sets you back quite a bit already.
Click to expand...

The problem is that they are right, even if it's a bitter pill in terms of cost. While hard drives don't actually fail as often as some people claim they do, the majority live long enough that they still work when they are replaced. Still, they fail often enough that if there is any value in the data on a drive, it's worth backing up somehow.

At least decent external drives only cost a tiny fraction of an Apple notebook. If you have an internal drive from a tower, you can put it in an external enclosure at an even lower cost. The good drives on Newegg are cheap, and the ones in ad inserts in a Sunday newspaper are usually competitive too.
 
So why was this update ......

such a crapshoot? Should this be the case and did they put something out there too soon? Why would they do that? Why would they put an update out that clearly wasn't ready or well thought out? They had to know this would be a problem for many.
 
ggjstudios said:
It would help if you said what update you're talking about. If you're referring to Mac OS X 10.5.6, the update worked fine for millions of Mac users, not to mention there are already threads where this is being discussed. No need for a new thread.
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Yes there are threads discussing what happened to people's machines when they installed. There aren't any discussing why Apple would release this when it clearly wasn't ready. Millions also had their systems bricked. Read about that on the Net. Why are you such an apologist for Apple?
 
satcomer said:
Well did you read the apple Support document Mac OS X 10.5: Software Update stops responding during "Configuring installation"? Plus you can always re-download the 10.5.6 Combo Update and run it. A Combo Update usually fixes update screw ups.
Click to expand...

That doc wasn't yet written when I did the update. I had no way of getting into the system to make any changes that would have helped. When was the last time an update trashed as many systems as this one apparently did?
 
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