Problem after latest Apple update

[westcoast001]

Hi,
Sorry if I'm posting this in the wrong place, but I am fairly new to Mac & hopefully this is okay.

I have a MacBook Pro, about two years old, with no probs up until last night when I accepted the latest Apple Update ( itunes, security, etc ). That's when all the problems started.

Now I can't get into Mail or Safari, & after getting no response from either, I am having to do a "force quit" to get out of either of the applications.

I am getting the same error message each time:-
PubSubAction has quit unexpectedly.

Does anyone know what this actually means?

I asked the guy at the Apple Shop & he had no idea, & the other people working there had never heard of it either.


It just seems very sus that as soon as I downloaded the latest updates these two apps begun having problems.

Prior to my updating, I had sent off emails, done the banking online, paid bills & checked my items on eBay. Nothing terribly much & definately didn't accept any files- except the apple updates, when I rebooted, etc.

Once the computer rebooted, it now takes between 5 to 10 minutes to start up!!! Thats worse than my old PC!!!!!


Anyway, being that I'm pretty much puter illiterate & a helpless female with these matters as well, just wondering if anyone out there ( female and male ) can offer any suggestions or advice on this problem for me please.

I am desperate to get into my emails as I have all my ebay stuff in there, plus all my holiday vouchers are there too!!!

Thanx in advance. Cheers

 

[madog]

I would suggest performing FSCK and repairing permissions as stated in https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/89736/

What's more likely is that the update corrupted your system in some way. Generally I believe that it's caused by some file being corrupted or having incorrect file permissions in your system already, and the update ends up screwing it up as it runs into some unexpected problem during installation as this generally doesn't happen to clean installs of an OS being updated.

What you'll most likely have to do is boot up from a system disk and perform an Archive and Install WHILE Preserving User Data and Settings.

This renames and sets aside your old system folder and then installs a fresh new one, and if you have the preserve user data setting checked, it will also do just that.

This is the easiest method next to wiping your drive and performing a fresh install from scratch which is ultimately the best method if you have a recent backup of your personal data on another drive.

Just quoted from my other post 2 minutes ago (I should make it my signature). Anyway, I would have suggested simply trying to reinstall the two problematic apps from the disk, but as you stated that you start up time is slower it might be a deeper seeded issue relating to a botched update, which can happen.

 

[westcoast001]

umm, okay, then I should look for the discs that I should have gotten with my puter then? ( don't actually recall getting anything, but I must have hey! )

Is anyone else having this or other problems after the lastest updates? If so, then should Apple have a fix for this, & should I wait?

....what do do, so concerned that if something goes wrong ( & its likely, since its me we're talking about here ) that I will loose everything on my puter- including iTunes library which is huge.

Haven't got anything backed up as yet, was deciding whether to get a Time capsule or an external Hard Drive to backup to. I guess that's fate, hey!

 

[madog]

umm, okay, then I should look for the discs that I should have gotten with my puter then? ( don't actually recall getting anything, but I must have hey! )

Is anyone else having this or other problems after the lastest updates? If so, then should Apple have a fix for this, & should I wait?

....what do do, so concerned that if something goes wrong ( & its likely, since its me we're talking about here ) that I will loose everything on my puter- including iTunes library which is huge.

Haven't got anything backed up as yet, was deciding whether to get a Time capsule or an external Hard Drive to backup to. I guess that's fate, hey!

Yes, in your case you would use the original system disks that come with every computer. There would be 2 grey disks in which case you would only need to use the first.

At some point in time you will lose all of your data. It's inevitable as every hard drive in every computer will crash at some point. While this is true for all electronics a dead hard drive will eventually happen to everybody. If you already have a wireless network, I would suggest getting a stand alone external drive as it is much cheaper than a Time Capsule (you can get terabyte drives for less than $150 these days, 500GB for $100 and under), and is much easier to replace should something go wrong with that.

There's hardly ever issues with Apple system updates having a specific flaw with them, though it has happened before as updates have been pulled, but then again they can never test every possible problem that may occur so things do happen to people like this all the time. More than likely, the update has already 'affected' your particular system, and unless it is a major issue there will not be a specific fix for you.

As I said before, these kinds of things hardly ever happen to a newly installed OS, but can just randomly affect people. The person from the post that I quoted myself on couldn't even boot up his particular system after he updated an older system.

While my suggestion of performing an Archive and Install (you will be forced to use this option or a clean install which erases you drive first) while checking the Preserve User Data and Settings will most likely fix the issue (unless it is coincidentally a hardware issue in which your drive is physically causing a slow down in the system) and keep all of your personal data intact, there is always that extremely slim chance that something could go wrong during that as well.

If you are truly worried about your data, I would highly recommend purchasing an external drive as soon as possible, backing up your data, and then performing this archive and install just in case. When it comes to your personal data that can not be replaced (such as documents and pictures and emails), you can never be too careful.

 

[westcoast001]

Ye, you're right. In hindsight I knew I should just have got the external hard drive & been done with it ( how hard can they be to use, right?! ) & I could have just backed the whole lot up & started from scratch today.

Thanx for reminding me, I appreciate it, truly.

I will purchase this item on monday, then back everything up, & then try the archive & install option.



The guy at the Apple shop tells me that Apple things are usually multi layered ( I think he said 3 layered ) so I should be able to get my emails out, somehow. He didn't want to spend too much time with me, cos there were paying customers in the shop ( fair enough ), but is he right & is there a way I can still access them " thru the back door" so to speak? Or am I misunderstanding what he was saying?

 

[madog]

Ye, you're right. In hindsight I knew I should just have got the external hard drive & been done with it ( how hard can they be to use, right?! ) & I could have just backed the whole lot up & started from scratch today.

Thanx for reminding me, I appreciate it, truly.

I will purchase this item on monday, then back everything up, & then try the archive & install option.



The guy at the Apple shop tells me that Apple things are usually multi layered ( I think he said 3 layered ) so I should be able to get my emails out, somehow. He didn't want to spend too much time with me, cos there were paying customers in the shop ( fair enough ), but is he right & is there a way I can still access them " thru the back door" so to speak? Or am I misunderstanding what he was saying?

Funny, I was just in my local Apple Store last week and after waiting ten minutes just to purchase something from them, I gave up and left as every single person was busy with "non paying customers". It's times like that when I think it's extremely stupid to not have a standard cash register when you have a store full of incompetent employees. Hate to say it, but when I went to Best Buy to get the same thing, an employee there actually came up to me and asked me if I needed help. In a store that's ten times bigger with a smaller density of employees..... and at Best Buy. I was shocked.

Access files or emails from this "backdoor"? Well, depending on what email service you use you could just go to their website. Like gmail.com or mobileme.com or yahoo.com or comcast/att.com whatever. Most if not all email services have website based functions you can access.

Otherwise, even when a hard drive fails there is often a way to still access the files on the drive if it's not too badly damaged. Target Disk mode can help in this situation especially if the operating system has completely gone haywire and you have another Mac handy. It's similar to, but not as good as, taking out your hard drive and plugging it into another computer in order to access the data on it.

 

[westcoast001]

I am using the Mail that came with the Mac, I guess its the standard generic Mac Mail thinggy.

I may be able to get my hands on ( so to speak ) another Mac. I have access to another one, if I flutter my eyelashes enough!!!

Maybe if you could link instructions on that option too, at least I'll have someplace to start........... if you don't mind, of course.

 

[madog]

I am using the Mail that came with the Mac, I guess its the standard generic Mac Mail thinggy.

I may be able to get my hands on ( so to speak ) another Mac. I have access to another one, if I flutter my eyelashes enough!!!

Maybe if you could link instructions on that option too, at least I'll have someplace to start........... if you don't mind, of course.

Well I was just wondering what the "backdoor" the Apple Guy was referring to you was and thought maybe he was talking about being able to pull of your data if something else went bad.

You won't need to use this for your situation, but when you have two Macs, one can be booted up to act as an external hard drive and plugged into another through FireWire. As long as both Macs have that, and you have the right FW cable, you just hold down "T" while booting up a Mac and when you hook them up, that Mac will show up as an external drive on the other Mac.

Again, won't really be helpful here, but it is always good to know. Also, it's not the only way to transfer data from one Mac to another, it's mainly handy if you want to transfer a huge amount of data to another or if one of the machines won't startup completely and you need to pull data from it.

Also, it's used in Apples Data Migration Assistant when you want to transfer personal data from an old Mac to a new one.

 

[westcoast001]

Thanx madog, I appreciate all of your assistance & time taken with my question.

I will leave this here in case there are others out there experiencing exactly the same thing as me since the latest Apple update. Or in case someone else discovers another solution.


cheers

 

[canuelo]

G4 Software updates.

I did a software update 2 weeks ago and it blitzed my G4 with leopard on it. I found out it was a "Permissions issue" and had to install the original OS X Tiger but I can't install the Leopard as I don't have the 10.4 upgrade disks, so am stuck with Tiger. Am now using it just to store music as it's not much good for anything else in my line of work.

 

[old-wiz]

... I can't install the Leopard as I don't have the 10.4 upgrade disks, so am stuck with Tiger. ..

Why would you need the 10.4 upgrade disks to install Leopard if you have the black Leopard retail disks?

 

[canuelo]

Old.wiz

I have the 2 original disks that come with the G4 and am now updated to 10.2.8 I also have a leopard Disk that come with another mac I had a few years ago which says mac OSX CPU drop in disck bundled software with it's registration number on the package, but it will not install, I get to where you select a language on the installation and then after that it says This can not be installed on your computer You need 10.4 or later!!!. So I am out of ideas as what to do next. All the best.