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April 8, 2007

10.4.9

For the most part, Macs “just work.” And one tends to forget, after a while, that one is supposed to be circumspect and cautious in updating one’s System software.

I was reminded, briefly, of how the other half lives by the MacOSX 10.4.9 update. I installed it via “Software Update…” and, afterwards, a variety of glitches appeared.

  • The keyboard volume controls no longer functioned.
  • Mounting Disk Images no longer worked, either by double-clicking on the .dmg or at the commandline. Typing

     % hdiutil mount foo.dmg
    

    yielded the rather ominous

     load_hdi: timed out waiting for driver to load
     load_hdi: timed out waiting for driver to load
     ...
    

Dang! This meant that it would not even help to download the Combo updater, and try doing the update again (an oft-recommended cure for random ailments).

Instead, I deleted

  /System/Library/Extensions.kextcache
  /System/Library/Caches/com.apple.kernelcaches/

crossed my fingers, and rebooted. Everything worked!

Posted by distler at April 8, 2007 11:24 PM

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Re: 10.4.9

Long live Macs. I just recently upgradded to a brand new PowerBook. No way to compare the bliss of knowing your Mac is on the job..

Posted by: Lewis Write on April 13, 2007 12:37 AM | Permalink | Reply to this

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