Today I got a notification from the Apple update tool that a new update is available. I hit ok, to install the Update 2007-009. After rebooting my system OS X presents a black screen. I like the console on Linux but I’m totally stranded at the moment.
I used dmesg to get closer which module or application is responsible for the behavior but didn’t really find anything for the moment. But probable VMware Fusion could be the reason. After trying to restart from the installation DVD it doesn’t even recognize my keyboard. Holding down the c key doesn’t start the installation procedure. I had to do several reboots to be able to get it running. But no errors were found. It’s enough for today.
If anyone can help me I would be very happy.
Update (20.12.2007): It’s time to respire. After several hours and with the help of some friends I got the problem solved. Now my MacBook is running fine again. But what’s happen? Lets try to explain…
As I have written in the last post I got some trouble with Keychain. All my stored passwords were invisible until I restarted my system. No idea what happened at this point but meanwhile I think its causing all the trouble from yesterday.
I had to start my MacBook in Single User Mode – just holding Cmd+S immediately when booting. I opened the system.log (cat /var/log/system.log) again and found the information that the “Setup Assistant” has crashed. Why the Setup Assistant? I don’t want to setup a new profile! But it looks like that it forwards you to the login screen if a profile already exists. Anyway, if an application crashed the CrashReporter puts a file with log information in /Library/Logs/CrashReporter. For the “Setup Assistant” it’s called “Setup Assistant.crash.log” and looked that way:
Host Name: hostname
Date/Time: 2007-12-20 20:30:04.095 +0100
OS Version: 10.4.11 (Build 8S2167)
Report Version: 4
Command: Setup Assistant
Path: ./Setup Assistant
Parent: sh [2]
Version: ??? (???)
PID: 283
Thread: Unknown
Link (dyld) error:
Library not loaded: /System/Library/Frameworks/SecurityInterface.framework/Versions/A/SecurityInterface
Referenced from: /System/Library/Frameworks/PreferencePanes.framework/Versions/A/PreferencePanes
Reason: no suitable image found. Did find:
/System/Library/Frameworks/SecurityInterface.framework/Versions/A/SecurityInterface: unknown file type, first eight bytes:
0xD9 0xD5 0x05 0xF9 0x20 0xA1 0x63 0xD7
/System/Library/Frameworks/SecurityInterface.framework/Versions/A/SecurityInterface: unknown file type, first eight bytes:
0xD9 0xD5 0x05 0xF9 0x20 0xA1 0x63 0xD7
/System/Library/Frameworks/SecurityInterface.framework/Versions/A/SecurityInterface: unknown file type, first eight bytes:
0xD9 0xD5 0x05 0xF9 0x20 0xA1 0x63 0xD7
Here you can see that there is a problem with the SecurityInterface library. Due to some strange bytes at the beginning of the file it’s not recognized as library. It has to be replaced with a working one. But where can I get it? Running the Darwin console doesn’t give me a chance (or I didn’t found it yet) to mount the dmg of the update. I asked several people if they could send me their file. Here you have to take care about your system. You need a version which fits to your OS X version! If you have a MacBook it has to be compiled for an Intel processor. Otherwise the PPC version is the correct one.
I downloaded the file with my other box and was able to retrieve it via scp from its file system. Now I replaced it locally:
$ cd /System/Library/Frameworks/SecurityInterface.framework/Versions/A/
$ mv SecurityInterface SecurityInterface.bad
$ mv /var/root/SecurityInterface .
That’s all. Now you should reboot your system and login as usual.
To avoid such problems in the future I will make a complete backup of my system files and also store the updates dmg file locally!
Hint: Current Ubuntu CDs can mount HFS+ Volumes (and thus also DMGs) read/write. You should be able to use them to rescue a system that way.
Sounds interesting. I’ll give it a try the next time. Thanks Martin.