March 18, 2007 12:40 AM PDT

Mac OS X 10.4.9 Special Report: Problems starting up

by CNET staff

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As with most incremental Mac OS X releases, at least some users are experiencing a dire issue where they are unable to properly startup after applying the Mac OS X 10.4.9 update.

MacFixIt reader Matt Gordon writes:

"Just wanted to let you guys know that installing Mac OS X 10.4.9 caused major (!) problems on my MacBook Pro. The software updater failed, the computer crashed, and now I cannot get the computer to turn on. It get to the grey Apple screen with the spinning icon and then gets stuck there indefinitely."

As we've stressed numerous times (and in our initial recommendations for applying Mac OS X 10.4.9), the first startup after installing an incremental Mac OS X update can be extraordinarily long -- up to 10 minutes in some cases. Allow a generous portion of time before concluding that your startup process has actually stalled indefinitely on the first restart after updating. If indeed the stall is permanent (you've waited 15 minutes or more), your first course of action should be to attempt startup in safe mode (hold the "shift" key while your Mac is booting), then follow the procedures outline in our tutorial "Startup fails (particularly after a system or security update); solving"

To help prevent this issue, make sure to follow the procedure outlined in our upgrade recommendations -- particularly avoiding performing other operations while the Mac OS X update process is taking place.

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