Uh-Oh! Leopard Upgrade Bugs in Software Update :: My First Mac - Help Buying and Getting Started with Your New Mac

Uh-Oh! Leopard Upgrade Bugs in Software Update

Quick Scan

Problem: Updating the latest QuickTime and iTunes unexpectantly made Leopard forget the owner.

Solution: Boot your Mac into Safe Mode and then reboot again.

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Uh-Oh! Leopard Upgrade Bugs in Software Update

By: Hamish McBrearty
Categories: Getting Help

Let’s face it, the new release of Leopard has a few “interesting” quirks. There are plenty of horror stories out there on the net about data loss, getting stuck on a blue screen while setting up and some favorite applications not working. But like most of you, I thought I’d never get bitten by one of them. Turns out I was wrong.

It was just a normal morning, I fired up my MacBook Pro and was greeted by Software Update telling me there were new versions of iTunes and QuickTime available for download. OK, that’s fine, download, install and reboot.

Here’s where things got a little weird. As my machine booted the Setup Assistant, the lovely wizard that gets your information, time zone and so on when you first booted your Mac, greeted me. Thinking this was odd, but ploughing ahead anyway, I re-entered all my information and clicked finish, the Setup Assistant closed. Phew, I wonder why that happened. But then up it pops again! Right back at the beginning! So I answer Apple’s questions for a second time, click finish and am soon greeted by the Setup Assistant a third time. OK, clearly I’m stuck in some kind of loop that I need to break out of.

Consulting Google lead me to others who had the same issue and a variety of suggestions on how to fix it. Some suggested command line solutions, others suggested resetting the PRAM (some ancient Mac voodoo).

Turns out the solution is pretty straight forward, and sounds a little like a Windows fix. Boot your Mac into Safe Mode by holding down the shift key as it powers on. It will take some time to boot in this mode, my MacBook Pro took around 10 minutes. Once you get to your desktop, simply reboot from Safe Mode (this boot is also slower than usual) and eventually you will see your desktop with all your apps, settings and data intact.

Interesting bug and a little scary, but it’s easily fixed if you know how. And now you do.

Have you had an incident like this? Still stuck? Discuss here in the Forums!

DIG DEEPER

What is Safe Boot, Safe Mode?

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