Firewire ports messed up after 10.5.6 update!

[rafals0]

I'm sorry to say that all was OK until.. I updated OS to 10.5.6 two days ago.. and my external 1T Seagate Freeagent Desktop for Mac stopped mounting on Firewire.
It will mount on USB, it will mount on FW when Mac is restarted, but will not when you boot up after your system was shut down.
I tried to reformat, repair the disk, repair permissions and nothing worked.

Somebody posted that you should disconnect your Firewire stuff before OS update? Is this correct?

Can anyone please suggest anything as I don't want to end up having this HD hooked with USB...

Alternatively how can I revert to the OS before the update? Is restoring from Time Machine the only solution?

 

[Sun Baked]

I got a bunch of this in the System Log (bout 50MB of garbage FW messages), the FW devices weren't even on.

AppleFWOHCI_AsyncReceive::waitForDMA - context not going inactive.
AppleFWOHCI_AsyncTransmit::waitForDMA - context not going inactive.

Didn't go away until I turn the powered off completely by unplugging the main line and waiting the required time for a reset.

 

[rafals0]

P-RAM reset resolved this problem

 

[Robbomac]

The PRAM reset only works temporarily for me. Drives will mount, but then they don't want to dismount cleanly. My system log has lots of messages like this:

12/17/08 12:26:50 AM kernel AppleFWOHCI_AsyncReceive::waitForDMA - context not going inactive.
12/17/08 12:26:50 AM kernel AppleFWOHCI_AsyncTransmit::waitForDMA - context not going inactive.
12/17/08 12:26:50 AM kernel AppleFWOHCI_AsyncReceive::waitForDMA - context not going inactive.
12/17/08 12:26:50 AM kernel AppleFWOHCI_AsyncTransmit::waitForDMA - context not going inactive

My computer got stuck at the gray Apple bootup screen this morning - after I powered it down and removed my FW devices (neither were powered on), the computer started right up.

 

[Sun Baked]

My computer got stuck at the gray Apple bootup screen this morning - after I powered it down and removed my FW devices (neither were powered on), the computer started right up.

It sacked my computer and shut it down locked it hard enough that the power button didn't work.

So it almost sounds like something changed with this version with respect to how it handles FW to case a hard lock up and require a SMC controller reset.

And I wasn't even using FW around the time of the upgrade, though when I rebooted after a failed update (the partial update error) ... I was getting the FW controller error in single user mode.

It even survived the upgrade and turning the machine off once before it died after dropping an error a second until it crashed at 50MB of log files.

 

[lordthistle]

I am running 10.5.6 on a Unibody MBP (2.4 GHz) and have the same message in my logs without having ever attached any devide to my FW port.

 

[bvanlieu]

Yup, Apple pooched some of us. The log message occur with the device on or strangely enough, off: the device just needs to be cabled.

PRAM/SMC resets seem to be temporary for most. I have 'fixed it' but yanking the FW cable out of my external HD, and only turn it on once in a while and run backups. Not exactly a good operating practice, but the alternative from Apple sucks (re-install OS, update to 10.5.5 only)

Not sure if there is a FW chipset version pattern or not..for me its an old Oxford 911 chipset with the latest firmware available.

- b

 

[Charkus]

My 10.5.6 firewire problem is similar but in a way it's very weird:

I use a firewire interface to record music and used to work fine. It usually turns on after I plug it into the FW-port. Now since the 10.5.6 it doesn't. Unless, and that's the weird thing, I have a functioning ethernet connection at the same time...

Is there a known way to "downgrade" back to 10.5.5?

 

[odysseus]

Yup, Apple pooched some of us. The log message occur with the device on or strangely enough, off: the device just needs to be cabled.

This is happening in 10.5.8, and I don't have any FireWire devices even cabled.