July 11, 2007 8:33 AM PDT

Mac OS X 10.4.10 Special Report: Problems starting up

by CNET staff

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Some users are reporting problems starting up after applying Mac OS X 10.4.10, either with kernel panics at boot, endles spinning progress indicators or complete stalls.

As we've stressed numerous times, 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.

System crashes with intense video apps Users of specific Macs have reported complete system crashes when using video-intensive applications after updating to Mac OS X 10.4.10.

MacFixIt reader Rimsky writs:

"I experienced abrupt reboots (crashes) when playing video intensive games like Second Life and Quake 4 (demo) on my Mac mini Intel core duo after updating to 10.4.10. I was lucky to have a full backup with 10.4.9. The issues were gone after restoring my 10.4.9 backup. The other problem I also had with 10.4.10 was that I lost audio input from my Quickcam fussion usb webcam. 10.4.9 introduced support for some usb webcams. Audio input from the quickcam came back after returning to 10.4.9."

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