Blue Screen of Death After RAW Compatibility Update

[dilly]

My friend updated her 13" Black MacBook yesterday, specifically the "Digital Camera Raw Compatibility Update 2.3". After a reboot, she got the Apple "Blue Screen of Death", with no login window showing. Looking at system.log, there's a section that looks to be the culprit (this began after restarting due to the install of the update):

Nov 7 13:55:29 Philbert /System/Library/CoreServices/loginwindow.app/Contents/MacOS/loginwindow[31]: Login Window Application Started
Nov 7 13:55:30 Philbert /usr/sbin/ocspd[53]: starting
Nov 7 13:55:35 Philbert kernel[0]: display: Not usable
Nov 7 13:55:35 Philbert com.apple.launchd[1] (com.apple.WindowServer[50]): Exited abnormally: Hangup
Nov 7 13:55:35 Philbert com.apple.launchd[1] (com.apple.WindowServer): Throttling respawn: Will start in 6 seconds
Nov 7 13:55:42 Philbert com.apple.launchd[1] (com.apple.WindowServer[64]): Exited abnormally: Hangup
Nov 7 13:55:42 Philbert com.apple.launchd[1] (com.apple.WindowServer): Throttling respawn: Will start in 10 seconds
Nov 7 13:55:52 Philbert com.apple.launchd[1] (com.apple.WindowServer[67]): Exited abnormally: Hangup
Nov 7 13:55:52 Philbert com.apple.launchd[1] (com.apple.WindowServer): Throttling respawn: Will start in 10 seconds
Nov 7 13:56:02 Philbert com.apple.launchd[1] (com.apple.WindowServer[70]): Exited abnormally: Hangup

Here are some things I've observed/tried, many from sources via the Internet:

- I'm able to login in single-user mode
- I'm not able to login in Safe Mode (hangs on white screen with Apple logo)
- I've tried booting off the 10.5 install DVD and running Disk Utility - verify/repair disk, this comes back ok. However, if I try to verify/repair permissions, it runs for about 10 - 20 mins then freezes. I let the frozen process run overnight (10-12 hours) and no feedback. I can move the mouse, but I cannot select anything.
- When the laptop is booted and on the blue screen, I can connect to it via AFP
- I've tried manually changing the permissions of "/", by doing - chmod 775 /; chmod 1775 /;
- I've tried removing the com.apple.WindowServer.plist and com.apple.loginscreen.plist files in case they were corrupted by the update
- I tried running the "installer" command to re-install the update package from the command line. I run it with the "verbose" flags, I get no output and the process hangs.

Since I can connect via AFP I figure I'll be backing the data up and re-installing OS X. Pretty lame though, considering this failure was caused by running a Software Update. Anyone have a last minute suggestion for me before I go down that path?

I've attached the full server.log.

Cheers!

 

[Satcomer]

Well you best bet would be to follow the steps in Apple's Resolve startup issues and perform disk maintenance with Disk Utility and fsck.

If one of these steps do not work you might have to either replace that drive or erase $ install. I say this because the update looks like it found a bad block on the drive and died.

 

[Kernos]

Other suggestions before going the erase and install:

•Try safe boot (start up while holding the shift key), it will repair your drive
•Unplug any peripherals before starting up
•Get and use Diskwarrior to repair any directory damage
•Reapply the most recent COMBO updater for your OS version.

Though system crashes (or kernal panics) are usually due to hardware failure, the login routine problem could be a software problem.

Bill

 

[dilly]

Thanks for the tips everyone!

I've tried Safe Mode and it just seems to be hanging. I don't have any peripherals installed, and I've also tried the combo updater. As I can only get to the machine via single-user command line, I downloaded the combo package to the machine and tried:

installer -verbose -pkg /Users/.../MacOSXUpdCombo10.5.5.pkg -target /

This gave me an error:

2008-11-08 installer[23:0b] _CFGetHostUUIDString: unable to determine UUID for host.  Error: 35

Does anyone have an optional route that I could take to try to install this combo update?

I've also tried all of the tips on Apple's page, none of them seem to be helping at all. I will try getting a copy of Disk Warrior and see if that helps at all.

Thanks again, any other suggestions are welcome!

 

[Kernos]

I generally keep an external drive as a startup drive for situations like this.

If you have another Mac with Firewire running OS X, you could also install on the problem drive using T-mode.

Startup the problem Mac while holding down the T-key and it should mount as a Firewire volume.

Bill