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Mac OS update issues reported

Author: Gareth Halfacree
Published: 17th December 2008

Apple recently launched the latest build of its Mac OS X operating systems, but many users are complaining that the upgrade process isn't going at all smoothly.

According to BetaNews, the official Apple support forums experienced a pretty major spike in posts shortly after Mac OS X 10.5.6 was made available via the Software Updates functionality. While any new software rollout will have teething issues, this latest batch of complaints seems unusually numerous.

Some users are complaining of a “blue screen of death” with nothing being visible or executable past the login screen, while others hare reported total system crashes while trying to install the update. One business user even reported a simultaneous hang on all seven of his Apple systems while trying to upgrade Mac OS.

One Mac user, Nathan Sheldon, managed to work around the hanging issue thus: “I noticed Software Update was downloading a 190 MB update. I tried installing the update normally on both machines. I encountered the hang. Forced reboot (hold power button) and tried downloading the update and installing it. Same problem. Force quite installer. Went to Apple's support page and downloaded the 10.5.6 Update (not the combo) which was 372 MB (not 190) and it worked just fine on both systems. Apple needs to fix the 190 MB package they have on Software Update.”

As Nathan's experience suggests, the issues seem to be related to the version of the upgrade provided via the Software Updates system: users who instead opted to download the upgrade directly from Apple's support site and install manually have reported far fewer issues and crashes. This isn't to say that there are no problems when updating this way, either: the update seems to have also made Apple's own Time Machine backup software go awry, with users reporting errors relating to file permission that didn't exist prior to upgrading to 10.5.6.

With no official word from Apple on what exactly is going wrong with the update, it remains to be seen how widespread the issues are going to be – and when the package on the Software Update service might be fixed.

Any Mac users having teething problems with this latest OS X build, or are the issues simply being encountered by a particularly vocal minority? Share your thoughts over in the forums.

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